Linux winds of change: friction between Ubuntu and old guard

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 17 April 2007 17:30

Opinion and Analysis

I remember a couple of months ago being warned by an acquaintance from the Linux crowd that within that community there are some very closed minds. Never has that remark hit home as hard as in the past two weeks. However, it appears that winds of change are afoot, with a growing rift between some old guard stalwarts and the stewards of the increasingly popular Ubuntu distribution.

If one wants to get a flavour for what's going on, then visit an article and subsequent postings on a site called Penguin Pete's Blog which could be described as some as virulently anti-Ubuntu, although the author of the article and the site developer Pete Trbovich would probably deny that.

Trbovich has a great writing style and the logic of his argument does appear consistent. It is also unashamedly elitist. Acording to Penguin Pete, Ubuntu is not really Linux but a cultural cringe to refugees from Windows. Paraphrasing his words, Ubuntu is a Linux distro that is trying to stretch itself like taffy to fit Windows users.

According to Penguin Pete and an apparently not inconsiderable band of Linux stalwarts, Linux is not and never will be an operating system designed to suit disillusioned Windows users. They reckon Linux was designed to be a replacement for Unix not Windows.

So where should disaffected Windows users go? Why to an open source Windows replacement project called ReactOS of course. You've never heard of ReactOS?

That's probably because ReactOS 0.3.1 is still in alpha stage, and nowhere near ready for prime time. In fact, it is not even close to its goal of being a quality operating system that is compatible with Microsoft Windows applications and drivers.

Some dissatisfied Windows users may argue that they don't want to replace Windows with another version of Windows - open source or not - anyway.

So for Windows users determined to leave the fold, there's really only two viable choices - Macintosh or a Linux distro. For those not interested in being enclosed in the walled garden of the Mac, Ubuntu has become the Linux distro of choice for a large number of Windows refugees.

The Ubuntu user interface is not exactly the same as Windows but it's close enough. The distro is easy and quick to install and, despite the fact that new migrants from Windows will often run into problems with drivers for their hardware, and will have to switch to substitute applications, the transition can generally be made and users may never have to resort to the command line.