I’m calling it: Ubuntu is finally ready for the world.

I strongly disagree, and take exception to the fact that this "article" is 3 paragraphs long with zero information yet throws out the idea that Linux, even Ubuntu, is 1:1 competitive with Windows or OSX on the desktop.<p>Contrary to the author, hardware is still a mess. Have a Lexmark wireless printer? Tough luck, there is no way to print to it from Linux. Have switchable graphics? Good luck there, too. Want your new laptop to work? Better check what touchpad you have. Just because the author found hardware that works doesn't mean the public will.<p>Linux won't be ready until you <i>never</i> have to drop to the terminal for something. Linux won't be ready until you can download a file from the Internet, run it, and install it just with a couple clicks (and not "you need to set the 'exectuable' flag!" error). Linux won't be ready until you never have to reconfigure the graphics driver from the command line upon boot. Linux won't be ready until you can run a system update and install a new program at the same time.<p>Flashiness is nice. People like flash. Consumers <i>crave</i> flash. But flash needs to come with the same amount of wow-factor built into usability. I can make this same list of complaints about Windows and OSX, but the point remains that Windows and OSX are used and known by the public. Linux isn't. To take any marketshare from the giants, you need to not just be as good as them, not just better than them... you need to make it so <i>not</i> using Linux is a ridiculous proposal. Ubuntu won't be there for a good long time yet.

The main problem with the distros available today is their lack of non-free software. No matter how much you or I like free software, Minecraft can't run as good on OpenJDK as on Sun JDK, and I automatically install the proprietary Flash version because the other one's just way too laggy to use. I also always run smxi to get the best graphics drivers and compability with the least amount of work.<p>And even then I struggle with drivers: I went from a Radeon HD 6870 to a GTX 550 TI just to be able to run Linux on my machine. There is probably some way to install the HD 6870 on a linux machine, but after using 26 hours on that card <i>trying</i> to get it to work (I timed it), I gave up. Imagine if I used those 26 hours on work instead.<p>People don't care whether stuff is <i>free</i> or not: They just want stuff that works. If you can't get that without setting up non-free repositories and download proprietary graphic drivers for your graphics card, then you won't get normal people to use your operating system.

<i>Making Linux usable by the “general public” was eschewed by the Linux community for years.</i><p>I've been part of the linux community since 1994, and I have never once heard anyone express a desire to prevent mainstream adoption. Quite the contrary - many, many people have been strident evangelists over the years (to the point that it could be quite annoying; whatever the question the answer was linux) and many, many people have spent large amounts of time coding tools and programs to make it more accessible. The problem hasn't been a lack of desire, it's been that it's been quite hard - the open source model of scratch your own itch doesn't lend itself particularly well to the level of polish that's needed.

Some people (on this thread, too) seem to think that in order for Linux to be successful, it needs to become Windows. I think the exact opposite is true. Linux will never beat Windows at being Windows. But it may well be the superior operating system for many people.<p>If you ask me, this is what Linux should strive for, and incidentally, what it probably <i>is</i> striving for. Hardware compatibility is pretty good already. Usability is very good if you subscribe to the Linux way of doing things.<p>I don't think that Linux is particularly lacking in any way compared to Windows. It is simply different, serving different purposes and different people, optimizing for different use cases.<p>It is as <i>ready</i> as it ever was or will be. The question rather is, are <i>people</i> ready for Linux?

Also known as: This year will be the year of the linux desktop ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Linux#Year_of_Desktop_Linux" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Linux#Year_of_Desktop_L...</a> )

That's all subjective, of course. There are problems with bringing linux to mainstream users. But other OS don't go always smoothly either.<p>Since linux isn't widespread, all we've got is our anecdotes. And my anecdote is that I installed ubuntu on my non-techie relatives' computers. And that has been great both for me and for them. They still do the same thing they've been doing before. (mostly facebooking, casual gaming, skyping etc) And I don't need to run for rescue because of crapware bloat, viruses and all kinds of weird crashes as before.<p>So if you have parents who often calls for help because of computer problems. I'd recommend you try installing ubuntu for them and see it for yourself. Judging from my experience, I'd say it's ready for prime time. (and btw, that was much before 11.10)

Funny. On my netbook, Ubuntu <i>used</i> to feel like it was finally ready about one major version ago.<p>Today, 11.10 is so unusably slow it might actually make Windows Vista feel competitive. I thought it might be the outdated video card but then Unity 2D made no actual difference; any simple UI interaction still sucks CPU hard. Just for some icing on the cake, the Wi-Fi driver is now also causing random kernel panics on my hardware.<p>I heard someone exclaim somewhere OS X Lion was Apple's Vista moment. Well it looks to me like Ubuntu 11.x is Canonical's Vista moment. I'm holding out hope version 12 will be their Windows 7 moment, otherwise the long painful process of adapting to another distro will have to begin.

I stopped using Ubuntu-like distros 1 year ago. As I was there, I also dropped the DE, now using a tiling windows. Doing things in a terminal most of the time. It feels right, fast and robust enough. If something is not packaged for linux (free or not, I don't care), then I don't use it. Simple as that. I so reduced the ammount of junky software of half probably and I only install things to play/learn with (haskel ghc, python libraries, postgres, and all I feel to play with).<p>Then I work on a company windows laptop. It is slow, takes ages to start up, it is full o crappy software some of it updated last time around the year 2001. GUIs that kill productivity as they are not scriptable, so say bye to automation. And the fun part is that this "paradigm" keeps going, so you find the same problems on SAP, data warehouse, etc. Instead of APIs, you have to log into every system you use, choose your option, download in a folder, change data format, copy in a power point slide... and half day is gone.<p>So, this "Ubuntu is ready because it just works and it is easy", meaning basically that you do all from GUIs, it just does not give the world anything new. If we keep chasing the same old paradigm, I wonder why we bother developing new software then.

I am unfortunately forced to disagree.<p>I recently moved my home machine from Windows to Linux. After a little research, I picked Ubuntu 11.10 (with Unity).<p>The installation went by pretty smoothly, everything seemed to work out of the box. The only manual configuration I had to do was to teach my Linux box to ping my Windows laptop. So far so good.<p>Then, 2 weeks later, my disk went out of space.<p>Turns out Ubuntu has a hidden log file that logs errors, with no sanity checks on size, and it hit 300+ GB.<p>In addition, flash still isn't smooth in full screen.<p>Easy to install and use? Reasonably so. Ready for prime time? I think not.

Hmm can someone please edit this to remove the #comments hash from the URL? :D

It's not a binary either/or, though. Something like 6 years ago, the company I was working for went Ubuntu for pretty much everything, including the computers of the call center staff. Since we took care of the installations, all they had to do was know how to open a browser and openoffice, and they were just fine. In other words, Ubuntu was ready for 'prime time'. My wife has been using it for year as well. For her it's ready for 'prime time': I rarely have to fiddle with it. For other users, it's probably not ready. That group continues to shrink, though.

I'm a Linux newbie. Or should I say, an Ubuntu newbie. I don't know. I use this system for the same purpose as some people build things with Lego pieces. It's a therapy for me. I like the possibilities that the command line offers. Differently from clicking links (e.g on Windows' Control Panel) you just type what you want. I found it to be a more "precise" way to work. My only complain goes to the file structure and installation process. Whether in Windows you know things will end up in 'Program Files', there's no logic for me where apps are stored in Linux file system. Those three letter acronyms mean nothing to me. They remind me the old days when all data were abbreviated to fit small diskspaces and slow processors. That would be my only complain. I like Linux/Ubuntu so much that I replaced my mom's Win Vista with it. She uses Gmail, Picasa and Skype, aside from browsing websites. She doesn't know the concept of "file" or "folder". For her, the program talks to the Internet and makes all the magic happen. Maybe there are other people just like my mother out there, either too old or too young, with a different view (thus expectation) of the computer screen. Maybe that's what define the "user" anyway. Using Tron's allegory, maybe we are the tech-minded "programs" looking at users with prejudice and thinking about all the points they are missing by being just "users". And I think Canonical is welcoming these people now, like Apple did a few years back.

Am I missing something in this article? It seems to be broken down as follows:<p>1) Before Ubuntu, you were expected to be a kernel expert to use Linux.<p>2) Ubuntu is released to make Linux accessible to average users. Authors herald each version as the version to bring Linux into the hands of the general public. But every version of Ubuntu fails to live up to that promise.<p>3) An author now heralds version 11.10 as the version to bring Linux into the hands of the general public.<p>What distinguishes this proclamation from all those that go before it?

Perhaps ubuntu is getting closer to being ready for the desktop for some users, but I find that for the last few releases, each new version takes me further from my ideal environment. For me, Ubuntu peaked at about 10.10 (or maybe 11.04)<p>Each time a new release comes out, I give Unity another try, but it just doesn't work for me. For a while I was just reverting back to Gnome, but now the default Gnome is Gnome 3 which is (purely my opinion) very much a regression in terms of UX from Gnome 2.<p>I know this is Linux, and I can install whatever I want, but I don't want to have to. When I was younger I was happy to spend hours (and days!) tweaking stuff to make it work just the way I wanted it to. With all the other time sinks that growing up entails, when I get the chance to sit down at my computer these days, I just want it to work. I don't want to have to invest time I don't have learning a new way to do the old thing when the old way was perfectly fine. (Probably me just getting old and curmudgeonly I know!)<p>Due to computers getting older and being replaced etc, I can't even reasonably keep using Ubuntu 11.04 - my latest laptop will not work correctly under anything less than 11.10 without hours of manking around compiling and installing wireless and graphics card drivers. (I blame the laptop for this, not linux). Research before buying indicated this laptop was reasonably well supported under linux. After purchase I found this model of laptop used a number of different chipsets for wireless and the one I ended up with (ath9k) was poorly supported at that time.<p>So, after having linux as my sole computing environment since 1996 (and using Ubuntu as my main distro since Breezy Badger) I have just this month packed it in and bought a 13" Macbook Air to use as my main computer. I'm still using Ubuntu 10.10 server edition at work, (virtual machine running under xen) for development and as a production server - but I can't see Canonical breaking the command line as bad as they did the desktop any time soon!<p>Ubuntu may be finally ready for the desktop for some people but definitely not for me.

Are we still on this? Linux/BSD has been ready for the world for many years. Heck, my old man who never used a computer before got started using Red Flag Linux. Granted, I did the install and configuration for him, but that is really no different from most users who buy preconfigured computers/laptops from Lenovo, Apple, Dell, and the like.

The war for the desktop was lost long ago. Apple realized this when they switched their emphasis to mobile. There's some room in the laptop market but hardware quirks make this an even tougher nut to crack than the desktop.<p>Android is Linux's future.

My dad has been using it for 3 years.

Have you ever tried to resize a window in Ubuntu? You know what I'm talking about...

No, the killer app will be Ubuntu for Android.

But is the world ready for it?

hasn't linux been proclaimed 'ready for the world' every year since 1997?

This is kind of a cheezy, non analytical and barely informational article, but I agree with the standpoint.<p>Ubuntu is easy. It's actually strikingly easy. From install through normal everyday usage the experience is painless(actually enjoyable) and fluid. For the vast majority of machines it will be self configuring and for the rest installing drivers ranges from just as easy as other systems to of course much harder but thats a vendor problem not an Ubuntu problem that really can only be addressed with Ubuntu gaining users.<p>Don't get distracted by comparing the other OS's feature by feature to Ubuntu. You're just going to waste your time and get unnecessarily hot headed. Ubuntu's greatest strength is still, and arguable always will be, that its FOSS. But it is also a dead simple, batteries included, no noise operating system that normal everyday users would find lovely to use.<p>What Ubuntu really needs now is community optimism and a bit of lighthearted activism. It needs installs. The more users and attention, the more interest and support. Ubuntu is definitely ready for prime time, we just have to put it in that timeslot.

Nice, now all it needs is a usable GUI.

It probably should have been called Onanistic Ocelot.<p>Ever tried installing it on a Mac (the best, if not the cheapest desktop hardware available today)?

I used to spend (i.e., waste) time reading linux blogs, each touting innovations in Ubuntu, et al. on the desktop. These "innovations" were anything but sorely needed or outdated features / programs (look at basically any media player).<p>The most absurd aspect of these blogs is the focus on the desktop/laptop (well, also on the whole free software aspect, as if the average person cares or is aware of such a concept). Canonical is pushing for a smart phone (and TV), but they don't seem to be in a great rush.