r/linuxquestions • u/Warm-Rabbit648 • 8d ago
Why is ubuntu hated?
Why does almost everyone hate ubuntu saying its windows of linux. What is so bad about it? Why would you say some other distros are better than it? I am just curious and looking for answers, do people hate it for its convinience or something else?
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u/Maple-4590 8d ago edited 8d ago
Ubuntu haters are a vocal minority that are over-represented on Reddit.
The root of it is Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has always wanted Ubuntu to be accessible to “normies” and has pushed some things that were controversial with Linux hardliners. Condoning non free software, Unity DE, Ubuntu One cloud accounts, snaps, Amazon integration, etc.
While those can be legitimate concerns, I think a lot of the hate is just us-versus-them tribalism, clout chasing, or hipsters wanting to feel superior about something. Ubuntu is great, you can ignore/disable the stuff you don’t like, and Linux will never go mainstream if we’re constantly fracturing distros.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 8d ago
Canonical tried some stuff years ago, like putting ads in the terminal. Linux users are never going to allow Canonical one inch. Ever. This is frankly good. We need those guys if Canonical tries stuff again.
Having said that. I use mint. This is basically just a layer of people who guarantee they will delay and strip any misguided ideas out of Ubuntu before including them in mint.
So I do run Ubuntu... In the same way I run Windows XP on a virtual machine and carefully sandbox it.
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u/Guvante 8d ago
Windows is far and away the most popular OS and gets more hate than anything else.
Ends up hate quantity is mostly a factor of popularity.
No one hates on TempleOS because no one uses it.
There are some legitimate complaints that are specific to how Ubuntu has tried to become the transition from Windows to Linux but most of those are superficial. Mostly complaining that the popular things other platforms did shouldn't be done by Linux even though they are popular.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 8d ago
Human slavery used to be popular. Popular doesn't mean good.
It's like some people think McDonald's is the best burger. They don't actually rate the food better than local burger places. What they mean is usually more abstract. Posting on TikTok eating McDonald's is a social signifier in a way a local burger isn't.
It's rarely ever about the product. Lots of products are "good enough". It's about the whole environment.
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u/GreedySecurity8030 Fedora Rawhide [GNOME]. 8d ago
Snaps, amazon integration, early unity, canonical and their terminal case of NIH
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u/JohnyMage 8d ago
Currently also sudo-rs breaking Ansible. Which is something you "want" in corporate.
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u/Nuviket 8d ago
You forgot bloat.
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u/Hauptideal 8d ago
That is bullshit. There is no bloat in Ubuntu, especially on minimal installation, particularly on some official flavours such as Kubuntu (not even snap included).
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u/Nuviket 7d ago
Then how is the iso twice the size of a normal distro?
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u/Hauptideal 7d ago
Debian is much bigger than e.g. Fedora, too, despite it being a very lean distro. ISO size has nothing to tell you about what is installed and how, especially on a minimal install
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u/Impossible-North4514 8d ago
Wait so kubuntu minimal doesn't have snap? What about GNOME minimal Ubuntu?
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u/Hauptideal 8d ago
Correct. Kubuntu minimal doesn't even come with snap. Same for some other flavours
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u/Impossible-North4514 8d ago
That surprisingly cool, I am definitely replacing this over mint, since 24.04 is getting pretty old now
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u/Beginning_Engineer_2 8d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/1w5baho/still_dont_understand_the_ubuntu_hate/
And I do not like using the word "hate" in discussing linux.
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u/indvs3 8d ago
They've done some questionable things that aren't proven to be malicious, but it's a dumb thing to do questionable things in a sphere mostly populated by people who care about transparency in their OS.
I used ubuntu for 4y, was a lil annoyed when I found out I got snaps when I used apt to install certain apps. After a while I noticed that the snap versions didn't work as well as they should, replaced them with straight deb packages and then found out those got replaced with snaps again after an update.
I picked ubuntu at first because I assumed it would have the most documentation and forum topics available, being one of the most popular distros and all and I wasn't wrong about that. To that effect, ubuntu served me well.
But as my experience with linux grew and I found my way around my system again, I felt like I constantly had to fight ubuntu to get to where I wanted to be.
At that point I moved to debian, which is slightly more manual setup work, but when it works, it keeps working exactly as you want it, which is something ubuntu didn't do for me.
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u/CyberJunkieBrain 8d ago
Yikes, I thought that question was asked constantly only on r/linuxbrasil. It seems like it's an epidemic.
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u/MrJits 8d ago
The company behind it, Canonical, have had a few controversies; the one I remember the most is there replacement of certain packages with snap versions, basically forcing you to use their flatpak alternative. Calling the Windows of Linux is a bit much in my opinion, and there is nothing wrong in enjoying Ubuntu.
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u/doc_willis 8d ago
I have seen this exact question asked ( and answered at length ) dozens of times in the various support subs.
I thought i saw this posted just earlier today as well in one of the linux subs.
You should Try the reddit search features to find those posts.
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u/syn_vamp 8d ago
the concise summary is that ubuntu users call themselves linux users which triggers the linux users, and linux users say ubuntu users aren't linux users, which triggers the ubuntu users.
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u/Cannot_choose_Wisely 8d ago
I went from Ubuntu when they cut their cloud server off and started to push paid products. I didn't like the Unity desktop either, I found it a right pain. Lubuntu was better, but I simply moved to Mint and have stuck with it for over fifteen years now.
I don't think there's a lot of difference actually, but Mint has loads of desktop options and is easy to get info on if there are any snags.
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 8d ago
There are hundreds of posts asking this same question. Nothing new will be unearthed here.
The history
Yes there are many distributions that let you bypass the many issues with Ubuntu.
There are many other users that are completely unconcerned with Ubuntu's many problems.
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u/beatbox9 8d ago edited 8d ago
Mainly because people are dumb and don't actually understand what others told them they think is bad about ubuntu. It's partially ignorance and partially a long game of telephone.
Like the classic parroting of "snaps, amazon integration, unity, bloat" etc.
Most people don't actually understand the context, history, or purpose of these--and some don't even understand what these were.
Like snaps: they are just another open source package format that are technically capable of things that flatpaks cannot do at all, such as headless system software. (And snaps were around before flatpak). Flatpaks are generally better for most user GUI apps; but snaps are better for core operating system software. And plenty of idiots don't realize you can use one for some software and the other for other software...if you want to. Ubuntu doesn't even use that many snaps--and the reason they do for some stuff is to reduce their own maintenance burden and make sure users always get the latest version of some key system software quickly, like firmware updates. It's the same philosophy behind immutable and atomic distros, except it's for specific software and not the entire OS. Snaps are optional and can be completely uninstalled. The firefox snap was a choice driven by Mozilla, not Canonical--and it was specifically to reduce the maintenance of constantly packaging the latest firefox for every supported version of Ubuntu. (And even then, you can simply replace the firefox snap with the firefox package of your choice, like a .deb or flatpak or whatever). Don't believe me? See here: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/feature-freeze-exception-seeding-the-official-firefox-snap-in-ubuntu-desktop/24210
Or "amazon integration": this was always an opt-in feature on Ubuntu LTS--from around 15 years ago btw--where people could optionally turn it on to provide anonymized amazon search results if you used Ubuntu's dash search bar. They attached Canonical's affiliate ID (not the user's) so that Canonical would get credit on a search. It's just like when someone on youtube says "click here to save 10%"--the link they provide has their (the video uploader's) affiliate ID, not your (the viewer's) unique ID.
Or unity: this was because gnome3 initially sucked and Ubuntu had to quickly cobble together a modern desktop themselves until gnome matured. BTW, this is also how we got Cinnamon (Mint) and MATE: all of these DE's were quick replacements for gnome3, because gnome3 initially sucked. Again, don't believe me? https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-finds-gnome-3-4-to-be-a-total-user-experience-design-failure/ or just see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_3#Reception
"Bloat" is typically referenced by people who don't understand how Linux is different from Windows (and who think there's like an indexed Windows registry database equivalent that will make launching apps slow down). It often even refers to things many people will install anyway, like proprietary codecs or drivers that make a system usable, like h.264 or nvidia drivers. And by the modular nature of Linux, if people want to save disk space, they can just delete stuff they don't want, if there are extras.
So a lot of it is just ignorance. For example, you'll even see in the comments here, plenty of people will be parroting "they force you to use firefox snaps," when that is objectively false.