Ubuntu Linux (Gusty Gibbon) Follow Up

Yesterday, I wrote this entry about Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon which is currently in Alpha testing. I went out to dinner after I wrote it to come back to a bunch of comments on that blog entry. These comments have continued to come in throughout today too. I’m very glad to see the responses and that people have took time to leave the feedback that they did.

Now with that said, I feel that some people didn’t fully get what I was trying to say or perhaps took it the wrong way. So let’s see how I can do this time and clear some of this up.

I realize that this OS (Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon) is still in the Alpha stages and that all Alpha, Beta, Release Candidates, and even Final releases of any software have bugs. However, the way I was looking at this situation was like this – you have Debian (another Linux distro – which Ubuntu is based off of) and I’ve used Debian Etch when it was in beta and now Debian Lenny which is the current beta and never run into this type of problem. Now, if you’re argument is that “it’s Alpha/Beta software it’s supposed to have bugs so they can be fixed for the final release!”, well, yes, that is true. However, when you’re planning to release a new version of an Operating System in the next 2 months well, then, shouldn’t you at least have the install working properly? Not to mention this isn’t the first official release of Ubuntu and it’s been widely used and known of for quite some time now.

Also, I wasn’t comparing Ubuntu to Windows Vista – I was simply stating that if this were to happen on a Windows Vista beta test Microsoft would never have heard the end of it, but since it’s a Linux OS it’s a completely different story. Which I think is a fair statement – just look at the comments that have been posted.

Again, I’m not bashing Linux or Ubuntu – I think it’s great that people give away a piece of software such as Ubuntu for free. I also feel that overall the Linux community has come a very long way in recent years in development and really trying to make a place in the market for themselves.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! If I can think of anything else to add you know I’ll be sure to do so.