Why Is Ubuntu So Popular? - A look back...

It's time to take a look back at arguable the most popular version of desktop Linux of all time and look at what contributed to its success.

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[InfinitelyGalactic]

Absolutely loving all the nostalgia down here in the comments. Thanks to everyone who has left there story of their favourite 'buntu. What a trip! 😆👍

[RubenLensvelt]

I switched to Ubuntu with Hardy Heron and never looked back. It just runs and that's what I need. I'm not into computers very much so I can't be bothered with tweaking, settings, and updates and all that jazz.
I'm totally going to have that heron as my background tomorrow. It's the best one they ever had.

[abedt]

Ubuntu is solid with new updates it will get better.

[sylvershadow]

I started using Ubuntu during 12.04/12.10 days. That's also what made me love the Unity desktop, which caused me to customize my Plasma desktop to look more like Unity.

[TheDarkstorm]

Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn 7.04 was my first time ever using linux and I loved it. Then I moved to Linux Mint when Ubuntu went to Unity desktop. Gonna test Manjaro here soon. Heard alot of praises for that one.

[maxpolaris]

Ubuntu was the first Linux I installed in early 2010 and I was very excited as all my windows machines were taking a shit on me, I couldn't see the Network Widget/icon as it was so small so I downloaded Puppy Linux onto a thumbdrive and booted it onto a half destroyed (dead hard drive, fried keyboard) 2005 era laptop that was gathering dust in the junk pile and even the wireless worked. I was hooked on Linux from then on. I eventually found the network enable on the task bar on Ubuntu of course and it worked.

[martini]

"Honestly there's not a lot to differentiate anymore, and I think this is why people have found refuge elsewhere in other distributions." I think you're underestimating the hatred and division that the Unity desktop generated back in the day.

[ChrisMcDonough]

I was at the first Canonical developer summit in 2004. I'm not sure it was called that, because it was a Canonical employee (and potential employee, I was there as basically a job interview; never worked there tho). It was at a godforsaken hotel near Cambridge in the UK, at a place I'm sure was intentionally chosen to be remote. We were paired into sleeping rooms and sprinted during the day on various things. This was before or just at the release of 4.10, Warty Warthog. They were using darcs version control at the time, Iirc which was absolutely baffljng. I was brought there to help work on Launchpad, which sucked just as much then as it does now. :) I was really grateful to get the chance to meet Mark and some of the other folks there but I admit to being pretty skeptical of how he intended to monetize any of it. I think they settled on doing large scale dev projects for folks like MS, but I'm sure they have other revenue streams that are invisible to us.

[SamuelWangunyu]

I have been using Ubuntu since FeistyFawn (7.04) and I love how the OS has matured . I used it through college and I was willing to tolerate faults and instability since I was young and curious now I just want a stable OS. I never install non-LTS releases nowadays.

[lucksontembo]

First encounter with Linux was Ubuntu 11.04, i liked it but jumped Linux mint and came back to Ubuntu when 12.04 came out. stayed with it until 14.04 which i used till 2017 February. i tried Manjaro for some months in 2017 but i couldn't keep up. after almost six months without Linux (because i was indirectly forced to use windows at work) I am back, Now using Linux Mint 19. i love it and I remembered why I loved Linux all these years. maybe I will go back to Ubuntu....!???will see. Thanks to you IG, you have contributed a lot to my Linux journey and enjoyment more especially in my early days. Keep it

[stephenmorrish]

Just checked the Ubuntu forum that I joined the day I first installed Ubuntu, March 2006. So going by that my first Ubuntu would have been 5.10 Breezy Badger. I personally think Ubuntu peeked just before the introduction of Unity, around 10.10. I have spent a lot of time with Ubuntu Mate, looking for that old school Gnome 2 look and feel. Right now I'm back on default Ubuntu with Gnome with 18.04 on my main desktop and 18.10 on my laptop. I really wish Ubuntu would move to a rolling release with a LTS snapshot for their business customers. I would like Canonical to put a greater emphasis on the desktop again.

[riseabove]

Great video. It was nice to see the nostalgia of Ubuntu again. Didn't really care for the latest Ubuntu Gnome 18.10, not because I don't like Gnome but because of lots of bugs and it was very laggy. Snap package apps were bad due to theme-ing not carrying over and the Calculator app took 1 to 2 minutes to load after first boot; until you uninstalled the snap and replaced it with the normal calc package. I don't think they tried or tested.

[Mrmayhembsc]

Ubuntu 8 and open suse (no idea on the number but one around 2009) my 1st experience of linux

was at my school The business studies department was ubuntu. The 6th form pc was suse.

[MelvinGarcia]

I've been using Linux for about 12 years now. Distro hopped for about one year then settled on Ubuntu or Ubuntu based distros. Now I'm currently very happy with KDE Neon.

[fabianaguilar]

The knew Ubuntu releases with Gnome have been rock solid in my experience. I am glad of the switch from Unity. Having said that, I was never a Unity hater either. I am always grateful of people that work to create projects like these and then turn around and offer them for little to no cost.

[D_Roadtrip_Productions]

Ubuntu 16.10 sold me again on the best OS. Unity was fully stable by then and I could learn to do anything I want with it from search engine results. I stayed with Ubuntu solely for the next 2 years before I changed to Linux Mint 18. But always tempted to put Ubuntu back because it is still so good and getting better!

[lindsaymobil]

I first used Ubuntu 9.04 and honestly adored it. Compiz at the time was utterly mindblowing and GNOME 2 just felt like a much more efficient way of doing things. However things did start going downhill a little. 9.10 was a buggy mess and that xsplash thing made no real sense. 10.04 I grew to love and held onto right into 2013 but at release it too had some weirdisms like a broken version of Grub2 and desktop inconsistencies like the theme being broken when you switched the button placement, even though the Appearance Preferences showed it working!

Looking back on things though, those annoyances at the time I see as cute quirks now, as Linux back then was just more fun and usable. It was definitely a simpler time just 10 years ago. GNOME today always feels so slow and restrictive and sometimes quite buggy. KDE I've had an on and off relationship with (Kubuntu 11.04 was a great release for me!). Even MATE today feels different to how GNOME 2 felt to use back then. Ubuntu unfortunately as the years went on seemed to just take a dive off a cliff, with the 13.xx series being pretty poor and Unity only really maturing just as they've deprecated it.

[TheRandomFool]

I miss the old default orange theme and icons of Ubuntu 8.04.

[HeikkiKetoharju]

Ubuntu shifted its focus to servers and iot devices when killing Unity and mobile projects. I totally see why from the business viewpoint, but I really miss a distribution that would be focused to the desktop and still not be a simple fork or re-theming of another distro. Like, there is many development and modernizing needs inside the Linux desktop currently.

I started using Ubuntu at version 5.10. That was the time when sound didn't work for months...

But the community was a really helpful one. I met some of the local Ubuntu users and signed in to our local user forums to get and give support in my own language.

One of the great moments was when Compiz effects first came to the desktop in what I think was 7.04. Boy it was desktop cubes and wobbly windows all around!

During the years I have tested most desktops out there, all in top of Ubuntu. I used Gnome 2, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Openbox, Fluxbox and FVWM at least. Then Unity came and I started to use that. Later on I tried XFCE again, KDE 5 for some time until settled to Gnome 3.

I never have had any urge to change: Ubuntu has broad package repository where user can find all kinds of software what one would need. It is also possible to configure the system all the way you like if you just know what you are doing.

[jagardina]

Ubuntu and its derivatives, are popular because they are really well supported by the community and proprietary software developers/manufacturers. I prefer Mint and Mate. Peppermint for older hardware.