Tim Connors wrote:
I don't get why geeks use Ubuntu. I think the usual argument is "it just works" (somewhat like Apples - I can at least understand that in principle, although it never worked for me, with my brain being wired to focus-follows-mouse-but-not-raise, and with middle click being broken in the opengl X11 apps I was programming, and with package management being useless), but demonstrably, it just doesn't work (so completely unlike, I mean, like Apple then).
AFAICT what happens is, Canonical takes Debian and breaks bits, and is then praised by people who haven't used Debian at all / for years because the unmodified Debian bits "just work". A textbook example was back before ubiquity replaced d-i, people would come up to me and say "wow, ubuntu's installer is amazing, it only asked me a couple of questions, much easier than Debian", and you would point them at the contemporary Debian installer which looked EXACTLY THE SAME and asked THE SAME QUESTIONS. Having said that, LWN had (or linked to?) an analysis on security defaults in GCC et al, and Debian was a long way behind Ubuntu, so kudos to Kees Cook et al there. (Yama notwithstanding.)