Is Ubuntu falling from grace?

BrownieBoy (User):

The "traditional Gnome desktop", which is Gnome 2.x-based is no longer being developed any more, is it?

So Mint has only got so long before it has to choose between Unity, Gnome 3 or some other desktop manager entirely. Either that or Mint will have to maintain Gnome 2 themselves, which might involve a fork.

Oli (New user):

Accidental double-post. Your registration system is whack.

Oli (New user):

"DistroWatch's page hit ranking has always been a good guide of popularity, even if not actual usage"

Again and again I see comments like this (you say it a few times here). DistroWatch has *never* directly shown anything other than how many people are landing on certain pages on DistroWatch.

This *cannot* be extrapolated to popularity or usage because to say so, you make vast assumptions over why somebody is viewing a page.

I wrote a little article about DistroWatch vs Popularity a few years ago when PCLinuxOS was number one and everybody was calling it the death of Ubuntu, the rise of PCLinuxOS, etc, etc.

http://thepcspy.com/read/do_distrowatchs_statistics_equate_popularity/

The only comment about popularity you can sanely make is: the DistroWatch page for Mint Linux is currently more popular than Ubuntu's.

Big whoop.

Paul777 (New user):

Accidental double-post.

Paul777 (New user):

My solution is simple:
Ubuntu can offer an optional 'customizable' panel that may be placed in the bottom. This can help those people who want to have the 'Classic' look.

Ubuntu developers must give us users this choice because lots of people like the Desktop user-interface the old fashioned way (that's why some people have so much inertia to change from ancient XP!).

As a big fan of Ubuntu I would hate it if it loses # 1 spot then I won't be able to tell people it is the most popular free OS in the world, which is its great selling point.

Tatlan (New user):

An other way ti see this :
http://www.taltan.fr/post/2011/09/18/Le-Google-Trends-Ubuntu-2011

Tatlan (New user):

An other way to see this :
http://www.taltan.fr/post/2011/09/18/Le-Google-Trends-Ubuntu-2011

Tatlan (New user):

An other way to see that :
http://www.taltan.fr/post/2011/09/18/Le-Google-Trends-Ubuntu-2011

apcuser (New user):

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble; it’s what you do know that ain’t so.” --Will Rogers


There’s only one problem with your opinion that a win for Mint must be a win for Ubuntu, since Mint is obviously dependent upon Ubuntu:
“But ultimately it's a win for Ubuntu, as Linux Mint is itself based on Ubuntu.”

The tiny problem is that Mint is running as fast as it can to place as much distance between itself and Ubuntu as possible, and to completely disassociate itself from, and remove ANY dependency on Canonical and Ubuntu.

In case you haven’t heard, Mint has developed a new version which is a rolling release(continuously updated) distribution based on Debian, called Mint LMDE. Mint LMDE is available with an Xfce GUI, as well as Gnome.

It’s probably not a coincidence that work on this had to have started about the time that Ubuntu started acting like Microsoft: releasing crap to meet their sacrosanct six-month release dates--starting about, oh, say, v. 9.10 or v. 10.04--and letting us poor slob users find the bugs. And THEN...promising to fix things with the NEXT RELEASE!

Matters were made even worse when Canonical took a very vocal, arrogant, anti-user stance on two high-profile matters:

“Don’t like where we moved the buttons? Tough; this isn’t a democracy. Get over it.”
and
“We created Unity; it’s got to be great. Learn to like it.”

Don’t you realize that what Clement Lefebvre at Mint has been doing all this time is fixing Ubuntu’s marginal offerings so that they WORK, and better than Canonical intended?
One of Clem’s favorite sayings is that he’ll release nothing before it’s ready. Sideways slap at someone/something? Possibly (but all indications are that Clem has too much class for that). Indication of intense dedication and a really hard-working, highly ethical individual? (he posts the names of, and amounts contributed in support of Mint every month). Absolutely.

Mint has a great new product on which they can base new offerings, and is positioning itself to be one less major user of Ubuntu.

Canonical, Ubuntu, and Mark Shuttleworth should be preparing to learn just how fragile user loyalty is.

Respectfully...