This article is strange… The author uses “being able to open Microsoft Office documents” as a common example of what an OS that claims to be easy to use should be able to do. Then says…
When people download Ubuntu 23.04 they get an OS that can do everything Windows 95 did - with 23.10 they don’t
No default installation of Microsoft Windows EVER opened Microsoft Office documents. If this was a simple oversight in the write-up it’d be fine, but the point is hammered over and over again.
I don’t have an opinion about Ubuntu including or not including more software in the default installation (my guess is it became too big to fit on a DVD?) but this article failed to make it’s point to me by making a comparison to Windows that isn’t true.
Also…
the world’s most popular desktop Linux operating system (that’s Ubuntu, for those of you playing dumb)
Is this supposed to be a cocky joke? I can’t tell. What metric of “most popular” is the author using?
I reckon a nifty idea instead of preinstalling software is to have a file extension finder that suggests software based on the file extension. Sure, there are some file types that have multiple uses, but many proprietary solutions use distinct extensions, making it quite straightforward to organize the recommendations.
You don’t even need to look at the extension to identify most file formats, as there are unique magic numbers stored at the beginning of most (binary) formats. Only when a single binary format is reused to appear as two different formats to the user, e.g. zip and cbz are extensions relevant. This is how the
filecommand and most (?) Linux file explorers identify files, and why file extensions are traditionally largely irrelevant on Linux/Unix.This means your idea of suggesting software based on the file type is even more practicable than you described.
Is this supposed to be a cocky joke? I can’t tell. What metric of “most popular” is the author usiing?
Number of active users.
those numbers are nonexistent for most distribution, since forcing telemetry isn’t really a cool move in the free software world
The number of IPs hitting their software repos can be a decent way of estimating active users. Also, ISO downloads and so on.
There’s also the check connectivity to Internet ping that network manager does. Arch Linux defaults to Arch’s servers, etc.
Local repo mirrors are pretty standard in the enterprise world are they not?
Any company invested enough to host a local mirror will not give a blank install of Ubuntu to their employees though.
You can argue that other distros are popular as well, but when it comes to the “I’ve heard of this Linux thing, let’s try it out” crowd Ubuntu is the goto option, no doubt about it. And the impact on this crowd is exactly what is discussed in the article.
Hundreds of thousands of people using eg. Debian plus a software profile plus a sources.list file with an intranet address don’t count as using Debian?
I’m not arguing about the contents of the article, I’m discussing specifically the relevance of generating usage statistics based on IP hits and ISO downloads.For the purpose of the article: no they don’t.
If you want to discuss telemetry or how to measure popularity of Linux Distros, please submit and link me an appropriate post, I’ll be happy to discuss it there. But it simply adds nothing to the discussion here.
And how do you know that number? Let alone the numbers of other distributions?
Yeah that’s a pretty funny error, seems to forget that MS office is a very expensive bit of software and doesn’t come included with windows.
It does in recent times. My laptop came pre installed with win 11 and office home 2021(i think).
All i had to do was click activate to link the key to my email account. It showed up as a notification on first login.
Even if not activated it still would open files with that warning.
This is not a big issue. In the installer or first time boot welcome pop up, just add a page where some popular apps are shown and can be selected to be downloaded and installed.
Also what the fuck does the author mean when he says ubuntu is special¿? It is not that different from other distros and the ways that it is different does not make it better
Also what the fuck does the author mean when he says ubuntu is special¿?
There are two ways I read that:
- Ubuntu is special just to the author. It’s their favourite distribution and it holds sentimental value to them. The author doesn’t want Ubuntu to change, because they like it just the way it is.
- Ubuntu is special because of its high popularity between new users. For a long time, Ubuntu was/is suggested to newbies because of its ease of use and solid defaults. The removal of the apps could make the experience of future new users worse, so less people would stick with Linux.
Or alternatively they can add similar to the mediacodecs and such check a “install the office and other helpful stuff”
I like this. This would likely cover 95% of the use cases.
That would be the best solution. Alas, it is missing.
Just make it that if I open an office document that the software center shoes up with “app not available yet, here are the best options”.
That’s what windows does. It works… Poorly.
Yeah; if I was picking the aspects of Ubuntu where they were making a mistake, ‘minimal default install but easy to download more’ would not be what I’d have selected - that actually sounds a good thing. Having too much out-of-date crud was starting to be a problem. ‘Everything is a snap, which runs like a three-legged dog even on a powerful machine, and causes me disk space issues on less powerful ones too’ - that’s a problem. ‘Keeping on messing with Firefox, and replacing my ppa version with an out of date snap, which means I’ve changed my works machine over to Mint to avoid their nonsense?’ - that’s a problem.
I love it. Ubuntu is already bloated enough and have been using the minimal install for a long time. It’s actually better imo. because now the “minimal” version will hopefully include just a bit more so have to manually install a bit less. If I ever got lazy and took the full install I alway uninstall or remove the bloat from my sidebar as the first thing anyway. Hopefully this will strike a nice ballance instead
I’m surprised by the comments here, even though the article predicted the opinion of long time Linux users. I had hoped for a more considerate opinion regarding a distro also aimed at new users.
This is a bad move and I hope they reverse their decision for the 24.04 LTS release.i mainly agree on the decision paralysis point and that they had a minimal install opinion available before.
I use arch. Choosing your favorite music player is fun. Choosing your favorite music player, video player, pdf viewer, Browser, file explorer, system monitor, office suite and mail program is not fun. This also completely negates the “faster to productivity, from download to first boot in less time” argument. If you have an install script prepared: yes. If you’re a new user: no.
I thought more the logic behind this move was that people use a lot of web services these days so a lot of software on which is pre installed is redundant and hence a waste of resources.
I like the minimal install, but think there should be a choice to install an office friendly version.
This is great, less bloat by default is good.
If they add a window that comes up on first start that lets people pick some apps from a default list, that would be the ideal setup.
The mistake is using Ubuntu
Yup, moved to Mint Cinnamon in ~2015 and hated it and switched to MX Xfce since then. MX best distro ever 😁
I can see the reasoning behind having a slim installation media available. I think if they’re planning to test this, 23.10 being a testing version, they should have two actual media builds. A full-fat one and a slim one. That way they can measure what people download. They should also measure this over an LTS cycle as many of us don’t use non-LTS versions. Perhaps they already have data from the existing installer where people can choose between minimal and standard install. I feel Joey has a point about throwing new users at a barebones install. That would not be a good experience. Even if a slim install media is available, I think so should full-fat.
Article author is being melodramatic about how much of a laborious task it is to press a couple buttons to install software yourself, but it’s also not hard for a distro to include optional sets of software packages available for selection during install.
It is for you and me, but imagine a new user. One who tries Linux for the first time. This user will be lost. When he or she needs to google “which software on Ubuntu to open files of type .bla” the Nth time, I can see them throwing up their hands in frustration.
And, as a long term consequence, ratings of Linux distributions saying “Unbuntu - no longer recommended for new users”.
I don’t know man. Mac OS also has no software to open a lot of file types out of the box but even people with little to computer knowledge are able to download the things they need from the app store. They can do the same in ubuntu as well
I use arch. Choosing your favorite music player is fun. Choosing your favorite music player, video Player, Browser, file explorer, system monitor, office suite and mail program is not fun.
So far, this was not necessary. If the intention is to drive off any potential new users of the Linux range of systems, making it hostile to beginners is an effective way.
Ubuntu is making many mistakes recently, but this is a pretty good idea. Just install whatever software you need.
Distros preinstalling software lol. It should be easy to find, install, uninstall, restrict and configure software. I dont care about that bloat in the ISO. Nice to find stuff sometimes, and maybe useful in areas with bad internet, but thats not what a distros job is
Ubuntu in general has been disappointing I still use it for servers though I’m considering moving to something based on RHEL.
Not a great timing to move to something RHEL-based!
If I may ask, why not Debian? You’re already familiar with 99% of the distribution, as it’s the base for Ubuntu.
debian is the alpha. and will be the omega.
I’m a long time Ubuntuee making the move to Debian. Already made the move on desktop, servers to follow over time. Love raspbian on my Pi4…
It’s just too familiar at this point :)
My main issue with Debian is LTS support, I usually run like Ubtunu LTS and I don’t upgrade until it isn’t supported. The stability of LTS is great.
Debian also has LTS, for at least 5 years, after which an organization or company can step up to provide further updates. For example, the previous release will be maintained until 2026 and the one before that is being maintained until next year by the LTS team.
Are people regularly opening Microsoft Office documents? I don’t think I’ve touched one since I was at school, which I finished in 2012.
Yes?
Most people with jobs do have to open office documents frequently.
Yes, but I understand what you mean. So many business and schools have switched entirely to Google Docs and similar.
I joined the cybersecurity club at my school and they used word or pdf for submissions. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to get code blocks and proper formating working on either but it didn’t work. I gave up and just tool a scrolling screenshot of my blog and added a link in the docx file.
(And yes, I tried pandoc. My blog uses quarto, a static site generator based on pandoc markdown, and it uses pandoc. I tried to generate word and pdf using it and they looked awful.)
