why ubuntu?

[Carl Karsten]

I see the question "What distro should I use?" often. Here is today's answer. 
There are a few ?'s in it that I would like filled in for the next time I am 
asked.  Feel free to make any other comments.  and if you want to use some/all 
of this for your answer, go ahead.  ;)

Carl K

 >What distro?

Ubuntu - cuz Paul recommended it and I haven't regretted it for over a year.  I 
have used Slackware, RH, Mandrake, FC, Gentoo.  All work, and I am sure they 
have all matured sense I used them, so they are probably "all the same."

But... Ubuntu has some 'business practices' or something that caught my eye:
Edubuntu for schools - I have seen some other edu targeted distros, but never a 
*close* derivative of a *popular* distro. (it is on the home page of ubuntu.com, 
not buried or some other groups project.) This earns 2 points in my book:
1) I like schools, I think they can use all the help they can get, so anything I 
can do to help Edubuntu (like helping ubuntu) might help schools.
2) Strength in numbers - if Edubuntu takes off, there will be that much more 
activity, which somehow help make Ubuntu better.

same for xUbuntu - "ideal for old or low-end machines, as well as thin-client 
networks." - on ubuntu.com, helps people with low end machines that cant afford 
to keep up with MS. and for the low bandwidth people: "ShipIt lets you request 
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) CDs that will be posted to you free of charge."

Ubuntu will support the each version for 1.5 years with security patches.   or 
maybe 3 or 5 years - not sure what the LTS (long term support) thing is they 
just slapped on.  also not sure who backs this promise.. 'management', Mark S. 
but whatever ;)

They (who?) offer commercial support, but not like the RH FC game where you get 
beta for free but have to pay for stable.  again, seems like the Ubuntu way will 
gather a bigger following ... strength in numbers.

Package management: rpm or deb?  No clue.  I hear .deb is better, but I have a 
feeling it isn't the file format, but the 'condition' of repositories.  like how 
compatible everything is.  you want package X, it depends on Y1, Yn, which 
depend... and you already have Y3,Z5 - and they are the right versions. 
(provided you stick with the ubuntu repositories and not start using debian and 
others like http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt for the current version of wine.

I did just "build a .deb from source" a few days ago by following 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BuildingWineFromSource. That doesn't mean I 
can take a source tarbal and make a .deb - it means I can download the 
source.deb and run the command to compile it into a binary .deb.  I am sure you 
can do the same thing with rpm, so I am not seeing any advantage.

Ubuntu is fun to say.

C