Ubuntu

I prefer Linux for my development platform. After using Mac OS X for awhile (lots of projectors, reconfiguring X inconvenient), when I switched back to primarily coding I needed my Linux back. I've always found Red Hat's packaging system to be pretty frustrating (although it has gotten better). I couldn't manage to get Fedora Core 5 installed on my MacBookPro (Core Duo) so I tried Ubuntu. There was a minor hiccup with the boot loader (which is more cause Apple is weird) but the community information made working around it a snap! Ubuntu leans a bit more towards the pragmatic side of the wider Linux community so chances are that your computer will be fully operational just by booting from the CD, you'll obviously want to install. Installing Ubuntu, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice and Mozilla Thunderbird produces a fully functional desktop. Obviously I'm bigger in to the development tools but this is the first Linux I'd dare suggest to an end user.

I use Ubuntu because of the awesome community behind it.

Ubuntu was easy to get started with as the live CD installed automatically, and while I installed it i was browsing the internet. :D

Also, if you are a tweaker like me, the possibilities are endless and the community is always there to help you out and give you advice.

I have become an ardent fan of Ubuntu in the last few months. It is now, and will for some time to come, be the main topic of my blog posts.

I endorse Ubuntu because it has already established the strongest community around a Linux distribution that I have yet seen, and I've been working on open-source for close to a decade.

As part of that community I already have close to 70 beans, and hope to grow my pile even more.

Ubuntu is the best chance we open-source folks have yet had to truly take Linux to the mainstream.

Go for it!

Because it has been developed for common people.

Because it is safe : no more mind about virus !

Because it is open source and free : let stop hacking !

Because it is popular : easily find help and documentation.

Ubuntu is an amazing step forward in the evolution of Linux.

I began using linux in 1995 with slakware, and it was freedom! But after awhile, shuffling floppy disks became a nightmare, so when I found redhat 3.0.3 in 1996 with a distribution CD and with apackage manager it was a gift from heaven. But I noticed that remotely managing redhat machines was not as nice as I wanted. Then I discovered debian 2.0 in 1998 with the advanced package tool, APT, and I figured I would never leave debian.

For almost 8 years I was a die-hard, but sometimes frustrated, debian supporter. I loved the idea of an open source distribution and the Debian Social Contract, but I wished things would work out-of-the-box more often.

When I met Mark Shuttleworth in a DelhiLUG meeting he completely won me over as an Ubuntu experimenter, and now Ubuntu advocate.

Not only is Ubuntu awesome and the best chance Linux currently has for moving into the mainstream desktop world, the whole concept of Ubuntu making Linux for People is where I want to see the linux movement heading.