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There's gotta be a lot of OSX users like me who'd switch in a heartbeat given better laptop options. I know they're getting better, but it still isn't that close.
Any other company with their own Linux distro and hardware would also work, I guess. I really like Unity, though.
I tried to switch from Windows to Ubuntu multiple times but I go back to Windows each time. I have mainly 2 issues: - Upgrade to newer version always fails. I'm left with a broken OS at the end. - Although the UI has improved a lot since the early days of Ubuntu, I still don't like it. I know I can customize it but it always causes issues on some apps.
I've been upgrading my laptop through 6 releases (it's 3 years old), and never had a single failure. Do you use the provided upgrade path? It's very surprising to me to hear that - we test upgrades pretty thoroughly. Disclaimer: I work for Canonical.
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I remember 2009 ... WARNING: Do not touch the repo until you've had more coffee ;)
Indeed. Please subtract one decade. I shall leave my error in place as a pennance.
There's gotta be a lot of OSX users like me who'd switch in a heartbeat given better laptop options. I know they're getting better, but it still isn't that close.
What we need is for Canonical to release their own laptops where they support the entire hardware+software combo. Canonical Nexus, please? Any other company with their own Linux distro and hardware would also work, I guess. I really like Unity, though.
That said, I'd love to see an Apple-esque model where I could point to 3 laptops each year and say "large, medium, and small" and know that they would work completely with zero fussing.
Maybe Canonical could start down this road by refitting their devs with new laptops on an annual cycle and saying, "these are the laptops we will be using this year."
I'm a NetBSD-to-Apple switcher (circa 2003) who has a fair bit of ambient familiarity with Ubuntu as his auxiliary OS. I don't run any proprietary system beyond what comes bundled with OS X nowadays. I could switch to Ubuntu for day-to-day work and be perfectly content.
I can say that the SOLE factor of why I haven't has everything to do with not finding a rival to my MacBook Air 11". Part of that may be there simply isn't a comparable machine. But part of that may be that the hassle of searching for alternatives is simply too great.
For me the biggest thing about Ubuntu is that it does not feel like a distribution. It's an OS. They don't just pack others stuff inside one image and call it a day. Ubuntu does things in a way that they feel is the correct way. If there is a suitable OSS package for that, great. If not, then they make it. Fedora, Debian and others just gather what's there and ship it. AFAIK Elementary OS is the only other distro tha…
Elementary does look like OSX, but I wouldn't judge them negatively for that. I've been using the distro for a while and I'm quite happy with it.
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May I ask what you are missing from Debian as a desktop ? I went from Ubuntu minimal to Debian (stable, nonetheless),tiling wm for me, gnome for friends and guests, and found Debian easier to maintain (for me and my friends whose computers I manage). I must say I feel Debian's desktop experience is really top notch and crosses all the check marks of what a desktop is supposed to do (for me at least) and so I don't re…
> May I ask what you are missing from Debian as a desktop ? When I switched, Debian was in the process of taking 3 years to go from woody to sarge. After that it would be another 5 before etch. I'm sure Debian makes a fine desktop these days. I could definitely see switching back at some point. I do like that there is someone who takes decisions Ubuntu; I think that streamlines things in some ways. Debian can get int…
> When I switched, Debian was in the process of taking 3 years to go from woody to sarge. After that it would be another 5 before etch.
It's true that I remember being unable to properly manage my installed Debians at the time Ubuntu first came out and only fully committed to using Debian on desktop some months before Wheezy actually came out. So I was delighted to see modern packages when upgrading to wheezy.
It does look like I switched at the right time.
What I really loved in Ubuntu is that they were the first distribution that really considered itself an OS, not "a way to install Linux" and make choices about what it should include. All the other distributions started by asking whether you wanted KDE or Gnome, Abiword or OpenOffice, and ended up installing a bunch of software you may or may not want "just in case". Ubuntu made choices, if you didn't like it you cou…
It's strange. I have a hard time remembering why I liked Ubuntu right away. Maybe a blend of good enough looking, works out of the box mindset, which made a community grow rapidly and kicking a nice network effect where you would quickly find solution on their board/wikis. I was impressed later when they managed to bring new Window Management ideas without too much time or pain.
Their focus on getting stuff installed and working was a big deal then.
There's gotta be a lot of OSX users like me who'd switch in a heartbeat given better laptop options. I know they're getting better, but it still isn't that close.
All in all, it's an acceptable Mac alternative for me.