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I would be on Linux ~10 years earlier if not Ubuntu which was recommended back than as good first distro it broke itself and my windows on other drive, and I spend on windows ~10 more years than I needed to, never again, there is no reason to.
I remember finding out you could order a CD image of Ubuntu in the early 2000s, that they mailed you entirely free of charge. Being a whole 8 years old then, and with the poor DSL connexion we had at the time in my French town, this was jackpot. Installed a dual boot, marveled at features that wouldn't come to windows for 10 years+. Was dead easy then, dead easy now. Fast forward to today, no Microsoft in my home (but no Ubuntu either atm, might spin up some VMs though for homelab purposes) :)
They would even send whole boxes of CD's, the Kubuntu variant as well! I still have a few laying around somewhere, they looked way too good as well for free CD's.
Ooh yes! I never used the ShipIt programme as my cable internet connection was fast enough at the time, but at the same time I downloaded a pre-made VM because VMware Player 1.x couldn't create VMs, and I feared erasing the bloatware-laden factory image on my Acer laptop would void the warranty. Prior to VMware Player 2.x or 3.x and the ability to create VMs, there was a website called EasyVMX which I used to create VMs that allowed me to install Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.04 from scratch. I did also try OpenGEU, but that unofficial Ubuntu flavour was later discontinued.
I went back to Ubuntu 5.04 to try it out a while ago and it felt so much better than modern Ubuntu. It was quick, easy to use, and less frustrating than Ubuntu is today. For me, Linux Mint feels like old Ubuntu but in a modern age, so I use that.
I'm not as old as most of you in this community, i started with Ubuntu 20.04 lts (the dark ages) and i really liked it for being different from Windows. I did a lot of distro hopping during the era of 22.04 lts, i tried debian, arch, fedora, solus, etc. I remember i compleatly ditched ubuntu from my main laptop and installed fedora. But now with this 24.04 i really liked it and it remembered me what makes ubuntu good, just beign a work of out the box distro with good defaults. I like that they are finally looking forward adding features that put them above the other distros, like ZFS support and hardware encryption in the installer with just one click. I'm actually using it in my main pc for working/studying but i still use other distros on my VMs or secondary PCs. I don't really have a problem with snaps, i use both flatpaks and snaps, i just install the one that is promoted by the official dev.
@@paolozago6123 your issues will continue to plague new gullible Linux users for the next bazillion years the linux community is very similar to AI companies all hype , the boring parts are forgotten about basics things like enabling HDR needs you to sit around and use a terminal imagine a car where you needed to tune engine before starting that's linux in a nut shell
I did use Fedora for a while, and it's pretty solid. But Ubuntu just makes everything work, with even proprietary media codex and all. Snaps are now pretty good. So I'm back to it.
I'd be using Ubuntu right now if I could have Firefox installed as a apt package without Ubuntu removing it and replacing it with a snap package on the next update I did. I actually love Ubuntu, I just only use containerized applications when its my only option (including flatpak, app image, and snap). I don't like being forced to use one when I don't need to.
You can use a deb Firefox on Ubuntu, but unfortunately it does require setting up a 3rd party repository. Thank God I made a script for this when I needed to desnapify like 30 or more machines on an internship. Though, I don't mind the snap Firefox myself that much actually.
@@Mik3l24 Yeah there are workarounds and I used to do it for a while but eventually got tired of tinkering just to get basic functionality like a web browser working the way I want. Now I just use Mint with orange accents and the pre-installed Yaru icons lol. Honestly, Mint is just Ubuntu if Ubuntu kept doing things right. Except without Unity, which is kind of a downside IMO.
I prefer Firefox as snap without as a deb/apt because I couldn't watch some TH-cam videos without workaround. Sometimes workaround can be required over and over.
I don't hate snaps, but I hate that I cannot use snaps and flatpak alongside. There are some apps that I can only find as flatpak and they never work properly on ubuntu, so I use fedora
I tried the newest version of Ubuntu a few days ago. To my surprise - I like Snaps now! For a long time, I steered clear of both Snaps and Flatpaks. They had similar disadvantages, and both were inferior to normal system packages. So I opted for Arch-based distros that didn’t rely on them. But Snaps are now fast, they offer fine-grained control over permissions (with further improvements on the way), and they’re versatile - not limited to desktop apps but also covering packages like CUPS. What really stands out to me is how seamlessly Snaps integrate into the normal environment. You can use them from the terminal without weird naming conventions or agents - just as you would with traditional apps. Communication between Snaps and standard system apps could still use refinement, but it seems like there is progress. I'm really excited to see how something new and exciting finally develops in the Linux sector. So, honestly, what’s not to like? A, right. The backend is still proprietary. But I can live with that.
Ubuntu was my first distro. I still remember how excited i was so try out a new and completely different computer experience. It's sad to see it has kinda become the "windows" of linux space.
Speaking of this distribution, in terms of software, my favorite way of using Ubuntu is to replace the Snap system with the GNOME Software store, adding the Flathub repository in addition to Ubuntu’s newer .deb repositories - using Flatpaks only when they are more up-to-date than the .deb packages.
Nice summary, you did miss a bit of history though. Before Ubuntu, guys like me who wanted "just works" used Mandrake. We even had unified KDE/Gnome themes, it was called "Galaxy" I think? Redhat (before the days of Fedora) also was quite good, they came out with "bluecurve" which was also unified themes between desktops. SuSe had (still does?) a really good management system that was all GUI based. There were some good options well before Ubuntu.
That Ubuntu revisionism always bugs me, too! Like saying that Ubuntu came with pre-installed applications? WTF! EVERY Linux distro came with tons of applications pre-installed, sometimes to a fault with multiple applications for the same category and it was actually a complaint many people had, that they needed to clean up their system shortly after an install. First distro running from a CD? Nope, that was Knoppix that came up with the novelty. Graphical this or that? Nope, that honor also goes to Mandriva (Mandrake at the time) or Suse and its good ol' Yast. Ubuntu wasn't even much of a distro onto itself at the time; the running joke was that Ubuntu was an African word for "I can't install Debian". Ubuntu was mostly a snapshot of Debian Sid with a brown theme on the top. Granted, it made some choices for the user and was simplified to an extent that even lay people could install (compared to Debian, not Mandrake though). No, Ubuntu's major claim to fame was ShipIt, that sent professionally pressed CDs to anyone in the world for free, which kinda ended the market for the distros that relied on the sales of boxed sets and rubbed Ubuntu on everyone's noses. THAT fed the hype that still keeps it in the headlines today despite it kinda losing its way a long time ago.
Mandrake was my first Linux distribution. It was easy to install and use and was doing some cool things but it wasn’t simple and easy to use imo and try too hard to be Windows. Ubuntu worked because it didn’t try to be Windows, it was trying to be more like macOS but using the strengths of Gnome and Linux.
yes, bring back Unity, that would be awesome. Unity STILL does a ton of shit that no other DE does, and Nick was not liking the LIM(locally integrated menus), but i love those. they allow the menus to hide in the title bar, and they appear on mouse over, or with alt key, or better yet, with the super powerful and searchable HUD. HUD is amazing! Unity had more innovations for a DE than any other before or since, period!
Never take up software development lol. I still remember when we had to upgrade the python tooling we built for our traders to pandas 1.0... after the company had already been valued at >£1bn
I am 36 and started using Linux before Ubuntu, using Mandrake at the time. I remember seeing Ubuntu but never really used it. I switched from Mandriva to Ubuntu 8.04 when it got out. I still have my CD's from 9.04 to 10.10 when they stopped shipping them free. I think I dropped Ubuntu when Unity wasn't really working great. I still tried every Ubuntu when they got out, but never stick to it. I prefer rolling releases.
@@TheLinuxEXP While true, they have been experimenting with Wayland support by using another compositor instead of building their own (as they're a small team), and I think the main one they were trying out was Wayfire, which has all the cool desktop effects. So I'm hoping using MATE with Wayfire could become a reality as it would give us a modern version of the old GNOME2+Compiz combo.
Why not use Xfce? It can do over 90% of what MATE can, it is more lightweight than MATE, it has more developers behind it and Xfwm, their window manager, will add Wayland compositor functionality as well relatively soon. Plus, it is even more customizable than MATE or GNOME 2 ever was.
10.04 was my introduction to linux. the OS brings back some major memories and nostalgia in that hectic few chapters of my life. woah, thanks for the way back throw my dude.
Snaps + Ubuntu Core, Nick, which will be their approach to atomicity. To me there are only four distributions right now that are pushing computing forwards for desktop use, server use, and edge & embedded use: Fedora (specially Universal Blue), openSUSE with MicroOS (their take on atomicity), Ubuntu (already mentioned), and NixOS which plays in their own league because nothing else remotely approach to what Nix + NixOS can do 😎
Man, Ubuntu got me into Linux. My highschool in France had a technology class that taught you simple programming and circuit making and the lab computers ran Ubuntu. It got me to dual boot my pc for years until relatively recently went fulltime on Linux.
> be Canonical > The Linux community having issues with companies not supporting Linux natively > Gets rid of even more compatiblity by kicking out the flatpak option in all their Ubuntu variants > ??? > profit
They did not purge flatpak from their repo. All you have to do is install it via apt and add flathub. Would I prefer it to be installed alongside snap? Absolutely. But it takes a few seconds to install, + I have a script that does that and other things.
@@realivanjx it's still a problem that Canonical did that. It's like Microsoft getting rid of Exe support and you have to search tutorials to just to get an app working
Hello @@tsugu5151, I prefer Snaps too 😁, because it's controlled by Canonical and it will reject snaps that are dangerous like one it's riddled with malware or ransomware or may exploit our personal data for hackers like do usual for over a decade. So that way I keep my data safe and secure, even though snaps are not perfect on compatibility, but better than deal with any dangerous threats from hackers.
My uncle showed me how to build a PC. When we were done he showed me how to install Hardy Heron; which became my first Linux Distro as a teen. Used it on and off, but stayed mostlly on Windows at the time. Loved it for fixing old computers or when family had Windows pc problems. Edit: typos
Who else remembers ShipIt killing many paid boxed Linux distros and the Live ISO revolution that Ubuntu and Knoppix started? (Technically Yggdrasil GNU/Linux/X was the first, but that was a VERY early and heavily modified release of Linux.)
I still have a couple of those old CDs. Breezy Badger was a breath of fresh air! Also, I don't think that ShipIt really killed things so much - at least here in the UK, you could get Linux install CDs on the front of magazines going back to the early 2000s (and the amount of times I broke the family computer trying to set up dual-boot with a lot of those still haunts me to this day)
Yep. Migrated from RedHat when they wanted to move desktop users to Fedora. Went to Warty and used Ubuntu up through Lucid. Met Mark Shuttleworth in San Francisco at a LUG (Linux Users Group) meeting in about 2007 and was impressed. But I migrated to Mint when they brought out Unity, which I hated. I stayed with Mint until I got a new Framework computer which required a Linux distro that supported Wayland to be able to use my HDMI/DP external monitor, and Mint's been pretty slow to move that direction. I didn't want any part of Ubuntu or Fedora (the recommended distros), but Debian 12 came out about then, with full Wayland support. I installed it with the Cinnamon desktop and it feels like I'm still using Mint, except for a couple of relatively minor differences.
I never adopted Ubuntu myself, but just about everybody I know who uses Linux today started out on one of those early releases of Ubuntu. It's true when you say that they set new standards for polish, completeness and ease of use but personally I was happy with how things were previously so didn't pay much attention to what they were doing.
Ubuntu was the first linux distro I used to get an old ewasted IBM thinkpad to work. That got me through 6mo of university while my main laptop was MIA and was what got me familiar with linux, which was vital for my career. I think it was Bionic Beaver. It was sad when I found out ubuntu no longer ran faster than windows on old laptops and moved to KDE
I really appreciate the nuance you bring to this video and your channel in general. You try - and regularly succeed at - combining a caring attitude without becoming a mindless fanboy drone. Critiquing without being a hater. Human efforts are often/mostly a mixed bag of successes and failures. And highlighting both is more important than ever.
@@scpatl4nowOn the back of the 7.04 DVD case I found the following: "You are encouraged and legally entitled to copy, reinstall, modify, and redistribute this CD for yourself and your friends. Share the spirit of Ubuntu." (Yes it was a DVD not a CD but my point still stands.) That's the benefit of FOSS and especially copyleft licenses like the GPL; everybody can benefit from the spirit of FOSS!
What a ride! My first Linux experience was with 13.10, and I still miss Unity! I really disliked when they started using GNOME, as I had tried other distros with it and couldn't make heads or tails of how it worked. Over time it won me over (after using Kubuntu for a while), but I still wish they'd kept Unity. One thing worth pointing out during the "Downward Spiral" era is that several Canonical employees started working on GNOME and on improving it overall, so while Ubuntu didn't stand out for those changes, it is something important they worked on that all GNOME distros benefited from.
I started out on Ubuntu around 2008, but after awhile I changed to Kubuntu because Iliked the desktop better. I still use Kubuntu and don't care to return to Ubuntu. I'm not an enemy of snaps, since they are taking less time to load now. Flatpaks, on the other hand, are slower. Nice video, Nick. I enjoy this channel and watch it frequently.
I'm glad that you remember 10.04 really fondly. That's the version that I used with a dual-boot with Windows. It was a tad buggy, where upon a bootup from time to time, some things wouldn't load or load properly. The worst buggy experience I remember was when I re-encoded some music videos with ffmpeg (terminal shell scripts). ALL those videos had a strange "wiggle" effect when processed. Luckily I still had the original videos and repeated the process after rebooting Ubuntu. The videos processed normally thereafter.
Feels weird that I'm nostalgic for Ubuntu but I used it for about 2 years before I had to drop it to use a proprietary SDK for a project that didn't even complete in time to launch. More than once I've considered switching back to base Ubuntu but the push of Snaps feels gross in the same way as Windows and Mac insisting I get things Their Way. So now I'm on Pop!
Back in 2008 when I installed Ubuntu for the first time the desktop experience was better polished than it is today. I could even say it was the best desktop experience to this day - different than Windows, easy to use. I liked global menu, shame they went straight to destruction of what was built.
Kubuntu got me into Linux around 2018, and it's been cool to see how far everything has come since. I still have a soft spot for Kubuntu, and always will.
this is really great, my first linux distro was Linux mint when I came across to Lab computers in my university, then I replaced my computer OS from windows 8.1 with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and it was really an awesome experience and till this date I am using Ubuntu.
I use Ubuntu because it can do everything you really need. Debs? Yep! Flatpaks? Sure! Appimages? After a single command! Windows stuff? Wine! And it's GNOME config is just goated for the average user, though I've replaced their extensions with more up to date ones from the GNOME store (like GTK3 desktop icons -> GTK4 desktop icons). Snaps aren't that annoying cause you can just uninstall the ones you dont want (like the snap store) but keep it for system related stuff like firmware and eventually driver updates!
Talk about a trip down memory lane! I went linux only in 97, people have no idea how far linux has come since that time. KDE and Gnome didn't even have a proper release yet, your DE was just X with a window manager of choice which you had to setup completely yourself, even tuning the X config file manually to just even get graphical output. There had been companies before, which focussed on the linux desktop, the best example was Ximian, which I used and was really great at the time, but these projects never lasted or gained much traction. Ubuntu was the first to become really popular (remember the time when every computer store had a box of Ubuntu installation DVD you could take for free!). When you installed ubuntu, your linux desktop was ready to use, instead of spending half a day (or more) tuning, installing and fixing things, it was really a revolution. I don't use ubuntu anymore now, but it will remain one of the most important distro's in the history of linux.
No software can be just given out without a fee, desktop linux should charge something for the copy of the OS, maybe same must have happened to ubuntu that is why they added the trackers.
My word this was a trip down memory lane. I rolled Ubuntu 10.04 on my netbook back in the day and passed secondary school with a Dell Latitude E6410 with Ubuntu 16.04 on it. Ran that right up until it went out of support before jumping ship to Kubuntu. I strongly feel that Unity 7 (specifically 16.04's implementation) was perfect for single screen use and was so good. I miss those days.
My love for linux grew with every Ubuntu release, until snap and the gnome desktop pushed me away. Now Linux Mint and Kubuntu (no snap) is my main desktops.
They might very improved recently but they still install snaps through apt. Firefox and thunderbird. If only snaps allows third party repos and better theme support
Yea and I hope they let you delete snap amd don't trick you into automatically installing it again I'm fine with them shipping it but for those who don't wana use it, please don't force it
The Whole video I was waiting for 11.04 as it was my first limux experience and I instantly fell in love, It was waay stable and faster than windows at the time Good video man 👍
The only good about Ubuntu is that it fixes the CVEs very very fast compared with other distros like debían... And that for a company is very very important.. because in my case we can't have a critical or high vulns for more than 3/7 days.
Almost 10 years of Ubuntu for me, from my first distro to my first real service infrastructure we lived quite a lot together and we still do (those servers aren’t maintaining themselves ^^)
I was there when Mark Shuttleworth announced his project. It was at the EuroPython conference in July 2004 in Gothenburg (Sweden). Fun fact: he didn't have a name yet, so he called it "$DISTRO".
My first toe dip into the Linux world was Ubuntu 8.04. I didn't care for Unity very much and I went the next decade or so bouncing between Windows and other Linux Distros. PopOS was the next distro that hooked me back into Linux and would still be using them today. However, until Cosmic is out of testing, I'm using Fedora and I really enjoy it a lot.
I began using Linux with Mandrake just before they renamed to Mandriva. I remember how hard it was to connect to Internet when your OS ask you if the modem is PPPoE lol, and then I think I had to recompile drivers to make my printers work ? I did appreciate Ubuntu for its simplicity, and used it for around a decade, until I got tired of their choices (and also work brought me to use MacOS and Windows more unfortunately).
Ubuntu 10.04 was my introduction to Linux, a tech student at one college showed it to me. Some time later i got my first laptop, didn't even hesitate to wipe Win7 off of it to install Ubuntu 12.04.
Dapper Drake was my first experience with Ubuntu, and probably one of my first experiences with Linux other than Redhat. Very nostalgic! I tried out 24.04 when it first released and was a little disappointed with the latest LTS. Tried it again after 24.04.1 and it's fairly solid and I'm daily driving it. Very pleased with it actually, they've done a good job.
I 100% agree that Ubuntu was a huge revolution, but my first easy-to-use disto was Mandrake 7.2, a few years before the first Ubuntu was released. It is a little sad that most people nowadays have never heard about Mandrake (or its new name, Mandriva), since Mandrake did *a lot* of great work to make Linux approachable for newbies.
Snap has truly been an albatross in the Linux world. Flatpak and AppImage tend to generate happiness, Snap generates misery. They need to step away from it.
As someone who only mostly Linux headless on a home server, I LOVE snaps. So much more convenient than like. docker or manually installing complicated services like nextcloud
Had very similar experiences from the early days. Dual booted Fedora for a bit, then tried Ubuntu 6.04 and never went back. Completely stopped using anything Microsoft then too. 8.04 was the system I put on my dad's computer, and he used that until he passed in 2012. 18.04 was the last Ubuntu I used. I switched to Mint for the 20.04 / Mint 20 release and still use Mint. Does all the things I need, including gaming. And for a bonus, it stays far away from Snaps.
I really liked the menu bar to be fused in the title bar. Best thing was, you could drag the window and the menus won't interfere. Also, Ubuntu for tablets would be really useful.
I will always have respect for Ubuntu. I started on Linux way before it came out, but no other distro made Linux assessable to the masses, like Ubuntu did. Unfortunately, Canonical started to lose their focus and recently have acted more like a company like Apple in wanting to control what you can or cannot do.
Don't know exactly why, but I never warmed up to the look and feel of Gnome and Unity, so my only real contact with Ubuntu was through vservers (so no GUI) I set up at work for stuff like reverse proxies. But over the years I mostly moved to Debian for that. And for desktop distros I landed on the KDE spin of Fedora. An old laptop I bought in 2011 couldn't run Win10 due to proprietary graphics drivers, so now it runs Fedora and is still alive and kicking, though I only use it as a backup/emergency option in case my main rig has issues. 2025 might become "the linux year" for me because I have absolutely no will to "downgrade" my devices to Win11.
Hardy Heron was my first Linux experience. I installed it on my netbook and ever since then all my secondary PCs have been running linux. That said, as a gamer, >95% time was still spent on my main PC which ran windows. Until two years ago when I finally went exclusively linux only. It was also at that time that I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora.
Thank you for this history of Ubuntu. I started with the 8.04 with a CD on a Linux magazine. Just for trying. Today I use Debian with Gnome. For some customers of mine I recommend to them Mint with mate desktop. But the Ubuntu 24.04 seems intersting with an optional 10 years support with Ubuntu pro. Not sure yet.
Some people will disdain and minimize the impact of Ubuntu for Linux but when you look at all the Ubuntu based distros that exits and thrive, it is impossible to deny it. So thank you, Ubuntu! -Linux Mint user, among other distros. :)
Ubuntu was my first successful jump into Linux. If Snapd was opt-in, I'd probably still use it as nothing beats being on a platform that has good/official support for most software. Their Steam snap is so broken Valve devs have said to just use the flatpak or deb version, and insofar as I know, Canonical has yet to fix the snap package. This puts me in mind of the Arch devs not fixing the OBS package that's still sitting in the repos, broken. Either way, I'm grateful to Canonical showing that the desktop space on Linux was possible and allowed it easier for casuals like myself to leap into this space. I currently use Arch BTW.
I use Ubuntu because it works out of the box without needing additional drivers or hardware support. As a regular laptop user, I’ve never used NVIDIA or AMD GPUs, but I believe that, compared to other distros, the only remaining driver issues with Ubuntu are related to GPUs. I dislike Snap packages and prefer Flatpaks, which work perfectly. I always customize my desktop to suit my preferences. I’ve used Ubuntu-based distros like Linux Mint, but the latest Ubuntu feels the most solid.
For me, the first version I used was 10.04. I liked how it looked like macOS (I didn't like macOS even back then but I did like the theme) but it wasn't. I used it until 11.10, when I had to wipe the laptop's hard drive for high school and then I left Linux for a bit. One thing I remember: On the back of the 7.04 DVD case I found the following: "You are encouraged and legally entitled to copy, reinstall, modify, and redistribute this CD for yourself and your friends. Share the spirit of Ubuntu." (Yes it was a DVD not a CD but my point still stands.) That's the benefit of FOSS and especially copyleft licenses like the GPL; everybody can benefit from the spirit of FOSS!
2009 was my first dip into the Linux world. 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. Still feels like it was just last week. Edit: Wubi! That’s how I got into Linux. Heard about it. Searched and found Ubuntu, found Wubi, and installed Ubuntu that way, for the first time. I don’t even remember the last version of Ubuntu I daily drove. I really miss how they used to be.
My first Linux Distribution was DLD (Deutsche Linux-Distribution) back in 1992. Switched over to Debian for version 1.1 in 1996. Reason was that packaging of deb was supperior the old way. Later that year we published the first version of our in house distribution that was basically forged from Debian Sid with some added security features. Built for x86, later UltraSPARC and MIPS as well. Added x64 when it was ready just to become x64 only in the early 2000s. I left the company in 2006 after the Distribution gat rebased on Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake). Me leaving wasn't related to that by the way. Crazy to think that I spent 32 years on Linux at this point.
Ubuntu 11.04 was my first Linux distro, but I moved to Mint 11 MATE because I didn't like Unity and MATE was more Windows like (which was more familiar to me and helped my transition). Little did I know at the time that I could just install a new desktop environment. I continue to use Mint for my work PC and Arch for my home PC
Since 2008 its held a special place in my heart and after distro hoping I'm not going anywhere and i like the direction its currently going and firmly believe the linux community holds it back from reaching its fullest potential fast enough.
I've been using Ubuntu and flavors since 2009 as my daily driver coming from Fedora and Suse. I have not seen anything but constant improvement since then (I also will use different flavors so I don't include issues with certain DE's as bad things) leaving me zero desire to switch (though I do at times have OpenSuse installed on another drive from time to time).
I started with the very first version of Slackware in 1993. I used Ubuntu only once and it was during the dumb move era. I remember that Amazon icon. I intended to build it as a media server. It's been replaced with Gentoo and is used a test machine.
I had a Linux course in college during the Unity era which was my first exposure to Linux. I didn't care for the dock location on the left side of the screen on Ubuntu then and I still don't now. After that course, I didn't touch Linux again until the Recall fiasco. I distro hopped before settling on Nobara. I think it's a great distro for Windows expats. If you're a gamer, AMD/Nvidia drivers are automatically installed. If you're not a gamer, it's Fedora on steroids with a KDE Plasma desktop by default.
The first distro I used for Ubuntu was the 8.04 for a College project and from there on I had to work with Ubuntu Server 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and then just jumped to work on Mint 22 after the W11 hardware debacle.
2006 Edubuntu on a Compaq donated by the the church to my Mother was my 1st experience and I have never looked back. Karmic was when I started to really understand
I can remind you about wubi. That was quite good thing, although it was always broken after some time, month or two. But it enabled me to start from 10.04 up untill I was ready to install 11.04 for real. And Ubuntu back in the day was a good thing to try even during the glory days of windows 7, which was quite remarkable to me. Good old times.
Ubuntu is the distro that made me switch from FreeBSD to Linux. I use it to this day. I tried Linux several times before Ubuntu but I never liked it. I’m still happy with it. My gaming desktop is Ubuntu and all my personal servers are Ubuntu. Cheers.
I so wish local governments had adopted linux desktops and FOSS programs over windows and proprietary. So much taxpayer money thrown at Microsoft and Apple (for schools at least)
Ubuntu 8.04 was my first go with Ubuntu. I had used mandriva before but it was a bit awkward for a newbie but Ubuntu just worked with no trouble in comparison. WiFi was a pain back then too Stopped using the Ubuntu family around 2012/13 in favour of arch
I started with Ubuntu 18.04. I still remember being so new to Linux that I thought Ubuntu was broken when I tried installing something from the terminal and there was no password feedback, not realizing that it was still recording my keystrokes lol.
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first
Did you know Ubuntu used to have screensavers?
(It's on 4.10)
I would be on Linux ~10 years earlier if not Ubuntu which was recommended back than as good first distro it broke itself and my windows on other drive, and I spend on windows ~10 more years than I needed to, never again, there is no reason to.
WNKRS!!!
THUMBS DOWN!!!
I remember finding out you could order a CD image of Ubuntu in the early 2000s, that they mailed you entirely free of charge. Being a whole 8 years old then, and with the poor DSL connexion we had at the time in my French town, this was jackpot. Installed a dual boot, marveled at features that wouldn't come to windows for 10 years+. Was dead easy then, dead easy now.
Fast forward to today, no Microsoft in my home (but no Ubuntu either atm, might spin up some VMs though for homelab purposes) :)
They would even send whole boxes of CD's, the Kubuntu variant as well! I still have a few laying around somewhere, they looked way too good as well for free CD's.
Ooh yes! I never used the ShipIt programme as my cable internet connection was fast enough at the time, but at the same time I downloaded a pre-made VM because VMware Player 1.x couldn't create VMs, and I feared erasing the bloatware-laden factory image on my Acer laptop would void the warranty. Prior to VMware Player 2.x or 3.x and the ability to create VMs, there was a website called EasyVMX which I used to create VMs that allowed me to install Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.04 from scratch. I did also try OpenGEU, but that unofficial Ubuntu flavour was later discontinued.
So what do you run haha
@@mattjax16 NixOS
I remember when they cancelled the free CDs... such a shame.
I went back to Ubuntu 5.04 to try it out a while ago and it felt so much better than modern Ubuntu. It was quick, easy to use, and less frustrating than Ubuntu is today. For me, Linux Mint feels like old Ubuntu but in a modern age, so I use that.
try Ubuntu MATE, it's great and it got the HUD
I'm not as old as most of you in this community, i started with Ubuntu 20.04 lts (the dark ages) and i really liked it for being different from Windows. I did a lot of distro hopping during the era of 22.04 lts, i tried debian, arch, fedora, solus, etc. I remember i compleatly ditched ubuntu from my main laptop and installed fedora.
But now with this 24.04 i really liked it and it remembered me what makes ubuntu good, just beign a work of out the box distro with good defaults. I like that they are finally looking forward adding features that put them above the other distros, like ZFS support and hardware encryption in the installer with just one click. I'm actually using it in my main pc for working/studying but i still use other distros on my VMs or secondary PCs.
I don't really have a problem with snaps, i use both flatpaks and snaps, i just install the one that is promoted by the official dev.
"a work of out the box distro" lucky you, I had only issues with 24.04, and still don't have audio over HDMI sometimes :(
@@paolozago6123 your issues will continue to plague new gullible Linux users for the next bazillion years
the linux community is very similar to AI companies all hype , the boring parts are forgotten about
basics things like enabling HDR needs you to sit around and use a terminal
imagine a car where you needed to tune engine before starting that's linux in a nut shell
I did use Fedora for a while, and it's pretty solid. But Ubuntu just makes everything work, with even proprietary media codex and all. Snaps are now pretty good. So I'm back to it.
I'd be using Ubuntu right now if I could have Firefox installed as a apt package without Ubuntu removing it and replacing it with a snap package on the next update I did.
I actually love Ubuntu, I just only use containerized applications when its my only option (including flatpak, app image, and snap). I don't like being forced to use one when I don't need to.
You can use a deb Firefox on Ubuntu, but unfortunately it does require setting up a 3rd party repository. Thank God I made a script for this when I needed to desnapify like 30 or more machines on an internship.
Though, I don't mind the snap Firefox myself that much actually.
@@Mik3l24 Yeah there are workarounds and I used to do it for a while but eventually got tired of tinkering just to get basic functionality like a web browser working the way I want.
Now I just use Mint with orange accents and the pre-installed Yaru icons lol.
Honestly, Mint is just Ubuntu if Ubuntu kept doing things right. Except without Unity, which is kind of a downside IMO.
I prefer Firefox as snap without as a deb/apt because I couldn't watch some TH-cam videos without workaround.
Sometimes workaround can be required over and over.
I don't hate snaps, but I hate that I cannot use snaps and flatpak alongside. There are some apps that I can only find as flatpak and they never work properly on ubuntu, so I use fedora
I unsnapped my Ubuntu installation and it resnapped itself after an update. Like wtf. Thats Windows-level bullshit right there.
What I remember is, unlike Fedora, Ubuntu was easy to dual boot. I still using Ubuntu today. You did a great job with this walk down memory lane.
I tried the newest version of Ubuntu a few days ago.
To my surprise - I like Snaps now!
For a long time, I steered clear of both Snaps and Flatpaks. They had similar disadvantages, and both were inferior to normal system packages. So I opted for Arch-based distros that didn’t rely on them.
But Snaps are now fast, they offer fine-grained control over permissions (with further improvements on the way), and they’re versatile - not limited to desktop apps but also covering packages like CUPS. What really stands out to me is how seamlessly Snaps integrate into the normal environment. You can use them from the terminal without weird naming conventions or agents - just as you would with traditional apps.
Communication between Snaps and standard system apps could still use refinement, but it seems like there is progress.
I'm really excited to see how something new and exciting finally develops in the Linux sector.
So, honestly, what’s not to like?
A, right. The backend is still proprietary. But I can live with that.
Ubuntu was my first distro. I still remember how excited i was so try out a new and completely different computer experience. It's sad to see it has kinda become the "windows" of linux space.
Speaking of this distribution, in terms of software, my favorite way of using Ubuntu is to replace the Snap system with the GNOME Software store, adding the Flathub repository in addition to Ubuntu’s newer .deb repositories - using Flatpaks only when they are more up-to-date than the .deb packages.
This is the way.
@ Yep, I find this method to be quite effective at keeping the system stable, lightweight, and up-to-date - both on LTS and interim releases.
Nice summary, you did miss a bit of history though. Before Ubuntu, guys like me who wanted "just works" used Mandrake. We even had unified KDE/Gnome themes, it was called "Galaxy" I think? Redhat (before the days of Fedora) also was quite good, they came out with "bluecurve" which was also unified themes between desktops. SuSe had (still does?) a really good management system that was all GUI based. There were some good options well before Ubuntu.
That Ubuntu revisionism always bugs me, too! Like saying that Ubuntu came with pre-installed applications? WTF! EVERY Linux distro came with tons of applications pre-installed, sometimes to a fault with multiple applications for the same category and it was actually a complaint many people had, that they needed to clean up their system shortly after an install. First distro running from a CD? Nope, that was Knoppix that came up with the novelty. Graphical this or that? Nope, that honor also goes to Mandriva (Mandrake at the time) or Suse and its good ol' Yast. Ubuntu wasn't even much of a distro onto itself at the time; the running joke was that Ubuntu was an African word for "I can't install Debian". Ubuntu was mostly a snapshot of Debian Sid with a brown theme on the top. Granted, it made some choices for the user and was simplified to an extent that even lay people could install (compared to Debian, not Mandrake though).
No, Ubuntu's major claim to fame was ShipIt, that sent professionally pressed CDs to anyone in the world for free, which kinda ended the market for the distros that relied on the sales of boxed sets and rubbed Ubuntu on everyone's noses. THAT fed the hype that still keeps it in the headlines today despite it kinda losing its way a long time ago.
Mandrake was my first Linux distribution. It was easy to install and use and was doing some cool things but it wasn’t simple and easy to use imo and try too hard to be Windows. Ubuntu worked because it didn’t try to be Windows, it was trying to be more like macOS but using the strengths of Gnome and Linux.
yes, bring back Unity, that would be awesome. Unity STILL does a ton of shit that no other DE does, and Nick was not liking the LIM(locally integrated menus), but i love those. they allow the menus to hide in the title bar, and they appear on mouse over, or with alt key, or better yet, with the super powerful and searchable HUD. HUD is amazing!
Unity had more innovations for a DE than any other before or since, period!
When a software first release version is not 1.0 messes with my head
they imediatly adopted the year.month numbering scheme.... i Like it.
At least there's a pattern
Never take up software development lol. I still remember when we had to upgrade the python tooling we built for our traders to pandas 1.0... after the company had already been valued at >£1bn
I am 36 and started using Linux before Ubuntu, using Mandrake at the time. I remember seeing Ubuntu but never really used it. I switched from Mandriva to Ubuntu 8.04 when it got out. I still have my CD's from 9.04 to 10.10 when they stopped shipping them free. I think I dropped Ubuntu when Unity wasn't really working great. I still tried every Ubuntu when they got out, but never stick to it. I prefer rolling releases.
Mate desktop is the only one that keeps the old ubuntu style. For those interested.
Yeah but it’s really behind in a lot of features and looks, these days, unfortunately :/ it just doesn’t have enough contributors
@@TheLinuxEXP While true, they have been experimenting with Wayland support by using another compositor instead of building their own (as they're a small team), and I think the main one they were trying out was Wayfire, which has all the cool desktop effects. So I'm hoping using MATE with Wayfire could become a reality as it would give us a modern version of the old GNOME2+Compiz combo.
Global memus ?
Why not use Xfce? It can do over 90% of what MATE can, it is more lightweight than MATE, it has more developers behind it and Xfwm, their window manager, will add Wayland compositor functionality as well relatively soon. Plus, it is even more customizable than MATE or GNOME 2 ever was.
10.04 was my introduction to linux. the OS brings back some major memories and nostalgia in that hectic few chapters of my life. woah, thanks for the way back throw my dude.
Snaps + Ubuntu Core, Nick, which will be their approach to atomicity. To me there are only four distributions right now that are pushing computing forwards for desktop use, server use, and edge & embedded use: Fedora (specially Universal Blue), openSUSE with MicroOS (their take on atomicity), Ubuntu (already mentioned), and NixOS which plays in their own league because nothing else remotely approach to what Nix + NixOS can do 😎
Man, Ubuntu got me into Linux. My highschool in France had a technology class that taught you simple programming and circuit making and the lab computers ran Ubuntu.
It got me to dual boot my pc for years until relatively recently went fulltime on Linux.
> be Canonical
> The Linux community having issues with companies not supporting Linux natively
> Gets rid of even more compatiblity by kicking out the flatpak option in all their Ubuntu variants
> ???
> profit
They did not purge flatpak from their repo. All you have to do is install it via apt and add flathub. Would I prefer it to be installed alongside snap? Absolutely. But it takes a few seconds to install, + I have a script that does that and other things.
Can you share ypur script? 🫣@@tsugu5151
installing flatpak is literally 2 commands
@@realivanjx it's still a problem that Canonical did that.
It's like Microsoft getting rid of Exe support and you have to search tutorials to just to get an app working
Hello @@tsugu5151,
I prefer Snaps too 😁, because it's controlled by Canonical and it will reject snaps that are dangerous like one it's riddled with malware or ransomware or may exploit our personal data for hackers like do usual for over a decade. So that way I keep my data safe and secure, even though snaps are not perfect on compatibility, but better than deal with any dangerous threats from hackers.
8.04 was the version when i said "hey I could use this as a daily driver"
My uncle showed me how to build a PC.
When we were done he showed me how to install Hardy Heron; which became my first Linux Distro as a teen.
Used it on and off, but stayed mostlly on Windows at the time.
Loved it for fixing old computers or when family had Windows pc problems.
Edit: typos
Who else remembers ShipIt killing many paid boxed Linux distros and the Live ISO revolution that Ubuntu and Knoppix started? (Technically Yggdrasil GNU/Linux/X was the first, but that was a VERY early and heavily modified release of Linux.)
I still have a couple of those old CDs. Breezy Badger was a breath of fresh air!
Also, I don't think that ShipIt really killed things so much - at least here in the UK, you could get Linux install CDs on the front of magazines going back to the early 2000s (and the amount of times I broke the family computer trying to set up dual-boot with a lot of those still haunts me to this day)
Yep. Migrated from RedHat when they wanted to move desktop users to Fedora. Went to Warty and used Ubuntu up through Lucid. Met Mark Shuttleworth in San Francisco at a LUG (Linux Users Group) meeting in about 2007 and was impressed. But I migrated to Mint when they brought out Unity, which I hated. I stayed with Mint until I got a new Framework computer which required a Linux distro that supported Wayland to be able to use my HDMI/DP external monitor, and Mint's been pretty slow to move that direction. I didn't want any part of Ubuntu or Fedora (the recommended distros), but Debian 12 came out about then, with full Wayland support. I installed it with the Cinnamon desktop and it feels like I'm still using Mint, except for a couple of relatively minor differences.
Pls, do make a video about Ubuntu Lomiri!
I think Ubports team deserves visibility and some love for their work over the past few years
Up
I never adopted Ubuntu myself, but just about everybody I know who uses Linux today started out on one of those early releases of Ubuntu. It's true when you say that they set new standards for polish, completeness and ease of use but personally I was happy with how things were previously so didn't pay much attention to what they were doing.
Ubuntu was the first linux distro I used to get an old ewasted IBM thinkpad to work. That got me through 6mo of university while my main laptop was MIA and was what got me familiar with linux, which was vital for my career. I think it was Bionic Beaver.
It was sad when I found out ubuntu no longer ran faster than windows on old laptops and moved to KDE
I really appreciate the nuance you bring to this video and your channel in general. You try - and regularly succeed at - combining a caring attitude without becoming a mindless fanboy drone. Critiquing without being a hater.
Human efforts are often/mostly a mixed bag of successes and failures. And highlighting both is more important than ever.
I remembered getting ubuntu 5.10 CDs mailed
Oh yeah, those were the days!
I friend let me copy his.
@@scpatl4nowOn the back of the 7.04 DVD case I found the following:
"You are encouraged and legally entitled to copy, reinstall, modify, and redistribute this CD for yourself and your friends. Share the spirit of Ubuntu."
(Yes it was a DVD not a CD but my point still stands.) That's the benefit of FOSS and especially copyleft licenses like the GPL; everybody can benefit from the spirit of FOSS!
What a ride! My first Linux experience was with 13.10, and I still miss Unity! I really disliked when they started using GNOME, as I had tried other distros with it and couldn't make heads or tails of how it worked. Over time it won me over (after using Kubuntu for a while), but I still wish they'd kept Unity. One thing worth pointing out during the "Downward Spiral" era is that several Canonical employees started working on GNOME and on improving it overall, so while Ubuntu didn't stand out for those changes, it is something important they worked on that all GNOME distros benefited from.
WOW. It was a stunning documentary! Congrats 🍾
I have my gripes with Canonical, but I am forever thankful for their trailblazer attitude in making Linux accessible.
I started out on Ubuntu around 2008, but after awhile I changed to Kubuntu because Iliked the desktop better. I still use Kubuntu and don't care to return to Ubuntu. I'm not an enemy of snaps, since they are taking less time to load now. Flatpaks, on the other hand, are slower. Nice video, Nick. I enjoy this channel and watch it frequently.
Awesome video, Nick! Loved to learn more about the earliest versions of Ubuntu, they were indeed revolutionary at the time.
I'm glad that you remember 10.04 really fondly. That's the version that I used with a dual-boot with Windows. It was a tad buggy, where upon a bootup from time to time, some things wouldn't load or load properly. The worst buggy experience I remember was when I re-encoded some music videos with ffmpeg (terminal shell scripts). ALL those videos had a strange "wiggle" effect when processed. Luckily I still had the original videos and repeated the process after rebooting Ubuntu. The videos processed normally thereafter.
I just need to know why they thought diarrhea brown was the right color scheme
I kinda liked it 😅
@@TheLinuxEXPeveryone has their own faults 😂
@@flirtypieLMAO
@@TheLinuxEXP Hell, i myself use this theme to this day.
@@TheLinuxEXPWeirdo 😂
Feels weird that I'm nostalgic for Ubuntu but I used it for about 2 years before I had to drop it to use a proprietary SDK for a project that didn't even complete in time to launch.
More than once I've considered switching back to base Ubuntu but the push of Snaps feels gross in the same way as Windows and Mac insisting I get things Their Way. So now I'm on Pop!
Still remember being 13 and hearing the boot up sound after my first install. So thrilling
During 20.04 days, they worked with Microsoft to bring WSL. They also introduced Ubuntu pro for extended security updates.
That didn’t change the desktop experience though :)
Back in 2008 when I installed Ubuntu for the first time the desktop experience was better polished than it is today. I could even say it was the best desktop experience to this day - different than Windows, easy to use. I liked global menu, shame they went straight to destruction of what was built.
Kubuntu got me into Linux around 2018, and it's been cool to see how far everything has come since. I still have a soft spot for Kubuntu, and always will.
this is really great, my first linux distro was Linux mint when I came across to Lab computers in my university, then I replaced my computer OS from windows 8.1 with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and it was really an awesome experience and till this date I am using Ubuntu.
I use Ubuntu because it can do everything you really need.
Debs? Yep! Flatpaks? Sure! Appimages? After a single command! Windows stuff? Wine!
And it's GNOME config is just goated for the average user, though I've replaced their extensions with more up to date ones from the GNOME store (like GTK3 desktop icons -> GTK4 desktop icons).
Snaps aren't that annoying cause you can just uninstall the ones you dont want (like the snap store) but keep it for system related stuff like firmware and eventually driver updates!
Talk about a trip down memory lane!
I went linux only in 97, people have no idea how far linux has come since that time. KDE and Gnome didn't even have a proper release yet, your DE was just X with a window manager of choice which you had to setup completely yourself, even tuning the X config file manually to just even get graphical output.
There had been companies before, which focussed on the linux desktop, the best example was Ximian, which I used and was really great at the time, but these projects never lasted or gained much traction. Ubuntu was the first to become really popular (remember the time when every computer store had a box of Ubuntu installation DVD you could take for free!). When you installed ubuntu, your linux desktop was ready to use, instead of spending half a day (or more) tuning, installing and fixing things, it was really a revolution.
I don't use ubuntu anymore now, but it will remain one of the most important distro's in the history of linux.
Just for the dual decade anniversary, it should be called TWO-Buntu
Duo-Buntu
Between 2010 till 2017, there is a quote that well fits ubuntu "jack of all trades, master of none". They just wanted piece of cake from every side.
Wow, I feel old. Wonderful to see Linux evolve over the years ❤ my first linux install was from a cd that came with a book, pre broadband internet
No software can be just given out without a fee, desktop linux should charge something for the copy of the OS, maybe same must have happened to ubuntu that is why they added the trackers.
Buy the os but get the source code would be good
My word this was a trip down memory lane. I rolled Ubuntu 10.04 on my netbook back in the day and passed secondary school with a Dell Latitude E6410 with Ubuntu 16.04 on it. Ran that right up until it went out of support before jumping ship to Kubuntu. I strongly feel that Unity 7 (specifically 16.04's implementation) was perfect for single screen use and was so good. I miss those days.
Most of us started with Ubuntu back in the day. One great distro of times long gone .
Honestly I still love unity the full experience was great and felt like a polished experience.
Finally, after a long time an interesting and good, well-edited video.
My love for linux grew with every Ubuntu release, until snap and the gnome desktop pushed me away. Now Linux Mint and Kubuntu (no snap) is my main desktops.
I remember with joy my first time using Ubuntu, it was the 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. Great memories from my college era.
LOOOOOOVED the history lesson sir. Maybe a few more in the future for other OS's like Debian, Fedora, etc...
Ubuntu did introduce a new theme called Yaru sometime after the switch to GNOME 3 (not 18.04), and honestly I really love how it looks and feels.
They've honestly improved recently
They might very improved recently but they still install snaps through apt. Firefox and thunderbird. If only snaps allows third party repos and better theme support
Yea and I hope they let you delete snap amd don't trick you into automatically installing it again
I'm fine with them shipping it but for those who don't wana use it, please don't force it
The Whole video I was waiting for 11.04 as it was my first limux experience and I instantly fell in love, It was waay stable and faster than windows at the time
Good video man 👍
The only good about Ubuntu is that it fixes the CVEs very very fast compared with other distros like debían... And that for a company is very very important.. because in my case we can't have a critical or high vulns for more than 3/7 days.
Almost 10 years of Ubuntu for me, from my first distro to my first real service infrastructure we lived quite a lot together and we still do (those servers aren’t maintaining themselves ^^)
I was there when Mark Shuttleworth announced his project. It was at the EuroPython conference in July 2004 in Gothenburg (Sweden). Fun fact: he didn't have a name yet, so he called it "$DISTRO".
My first toe dip into the Linux world was Ubuntu 8.04. I didn't care for Unity very much and I went the next decade or so bouncing between Windows and other Linux Distros. PopOS was the next distro that hooked me back into Linux and would still be using them today. However, until Cosmic is out of testing, I'm using Fedora and I really enjoy it a lot.
I began using Linux with Mandrake just before they renamed to Mandriva. I remember how hard it was to connect to Internet when your OS ask you if the modem is PPPoE lol, and then I think I had to recompile drivers to make my printers work ?
I did appreciate Ubuntu for its simplicity, and used it for around a decade, until I got tired of their choices (and also work brought me to use MacOS and Windows more unfortunately).
Ubuntu 10.04 was my introduction to Linux, a tech student at one college showed it to me.
Some time later i got my first laptop, didn't even hesitate to wipe Win7 off of it to install Ubuntu 12.04.
That Hardy Heron wallpaper was lovely.
Amazing video, coincidentaly I was curious about Ubuntu's story recently, now do one for Linux Mint!
Dapper Drake was my first experience with Ubuntu, and probably one of my first experiences with Linux other than Redhat. Very nostalgic! I tried out 24.04 when it first released and was a little disappointed with the latest LTS. Tried it again after 24.04.1 and it's fairly solid and I'm daily driving it. Very pleased with it actually, they've done a good job.
Yes... 24.04 had BIG juvenile bugs on the graphic shell when it was released. Now (after several and several updates) it seems to be rock solid.
Exceptional video. Thank you !!
I 100% agree that Ubuntu was a huge revolution, but my first easy-to-use disto was Mandrake 7.2, a few years before the first Ubuntu was released. It is a little sad that most people nowadays have never heard about Mandrake (or its new name, Mandriva), since Mandrake did *a lot* of great work to make Linux approachable for newbies.
Snap has truly been an albatross in the Linux world. Flatpak and AppImage tend to generate happiness, Snap generates misery. They need to step away from it.
they need to *snap* away from it xd
@@kavoya they oughta snap out of it lol
why does snap generate misery?
snap at the start was bad, nowadays its pretty okay and is on equal terms with flatpaks in my experience
As someone who only mostly Linux headless on a home server, I LOVE snaps. So much more convenient than like. docker or manually installing complicated services like nextcloud
Had very similar experiences from the early days. Dual booted Fedora for a bit, then tried Ubuntu 6.04 and never went back. Completely stopped using anything Microsoft then too. 8.04 was the system I put on my dad's computer, and he used that until he passed in 2012. 18.04 was the last Ubuntu I used. I switched to Mint for the 20.04 / Mint 20 release and still use Mint. Does all the things I need, including gaming. And for a bonus, it stays far away from Snaps.
I really liked the menu bar to be fused in the title bar. Best thing was, you could drag the window and the menus won't interfere. Also, Ubuntu for tablets would be really useful.
I will always have respect for Ubuntu. I started on Linux way before it came out, but no other distro made Linux assessable to the masses, like Ubuntu did. Unfortunately, Canonical started to lose their focus and recently have acted more like a company like Apple in wanting to control what you can or cannot do.
Don't know exactly why, but I never warmed up to the look and feel of Gnome and Unity, so my only real contact with Ubuntu was through vservers (so no GUI) I set up at work for stuff like reverse proxies. But over the years I mostly moved to Debian for that. And for desktop distros I landed on the KDE spin of Fedora. An old laptop I bought in 2011 couldn't run Win10 due to proprietary graphics drivers, so now it runs Fedora and is still alive and kicking, though I only use it as a backup/emergency option in case my main rig has issues.
2025 might become "the linux year" for me because I have absolutely no will to "downgrade" my devices to Win11.
Hardy Heron was my first Linux experience. I installed it on my netbook and ever since then all my secondary PCs have been running linux. That said, as a gamer, >95% time was still spent on my main PC which ran windows. Until two years ago when I finally went exclusively linux only. It was also at that time that I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora.
Thank you for this history of Ubuntu. I started with the 8.04 with a CD on a Linux magazine. Just for trying. Today I use Debian with Gnome.
For some customers of mine I recommend to them Mint with mate desktop.
But the Ubuntu 24.04 seems intersting with an optional 10 years support with Ubuntu pro. Not sure yet.
Some people will disdain and minimize the impact of Ubuntu for Linux but when you look at all the Ubuntu based distros that exits and thrive, it is impossible to deny it. So thank you, Ubuntu! -Linux Mint user, among other distros. :)
I started my Linux journey with Ubuntu, and it holds a special place in my heart
Ubuntu was my first successful jump into Linux. If Snapd was opt-in, I'd probably still use it as nothing beats being on a platform that has good/official support for most software.
Their Steam snap is so broken Valve devs have said to just use the flatpak or deb version, and insofar as I know, Canonical has yet to fix the snap package. This puts me in mind of the Arch devs not fixing the OBS package that's still sitting in the repos, broken.
Either way, I'm grateful to Canonical showing that the desktop space on Linux was possible and allowed it easier for casuals like myself to leap into this space.
I currently use Arch BTW.
I use Ubuntu because it works out of the box without needing additional drivers or hardware support. As a regular laptop user, I’ve never used NVIDIA or AMD GPUs, but I believe that, compared to other distros, the only remaining driver issues with Ubuntu are related to GPUs. I dislike Snap packages and prefer Flatpaks, which work perfectly. I always customize my desktop to suit my preferences. I’ve used Ubuntu-based distros like Linux Mint, but the latest Ubuntu feels the most solid.
My first experience of Ubuntu was in high school like 2009-2010. Only 14 years later I fully switched to Linux.
For me, the first version I used was 10.04. I liked how it looked like macOS (I didn't like macOS even back then but I did like the theme) but it wasn't. I used it until 11.10, when I had to wipe the laptop's hard drive for high school and then I left Linux for a bit.
One thing I remember: On the back of the 7.04 DVD case I found the following:
"You are encouraged and legally entitled to copy, reinstall, modify, and redistribute this CD for yourself and your friends. Share the spirit of Ubuntu."
(Yes it was a DVD not a CD but my point still stands.) That's the benefit of FOSS and especially copyleft licenses like the GPL; everybody can benefit from the spirit of FOSS!
incredible video, thanks!
2009 was my first dip into the Linux world. 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.
Still feels like it was just last week.
Edit: Wubi! That’s how I got into Linux. Heard about it. Searched and found Ubuntu, found Wubi, and installed Ubuntu that way, for the first time.
I don’t even remember the last version of Ubuntu I daily drove. I really miss how they used to be.
Warty Warthog user here! I moved to warty (as it was known by it's friends) from Fedora Core - that was going down hill at the time.
My first Linux Distribution was DLD (Deutsche Linux-Distribution) back in 1992. Switched over to Debian for version 1.1 in 1996.
Reason was that packaging of deb was supperior the old way.
Later that year we published the first version of our in house distribution that was basically forged from Debian Sid with some added security features. Built for x86, later UltraSPARC and MIPS as well. Added x64 when it was ready just to become x64 only in the early 2000s. I left the company in 2006 after the Distribution gat rebased on Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake). Me leaving wasn't related to that by the way. Crazy to think that I spent 32 years on Linux at this point.
Ubuntu 11.04 was my first Linux distro, but I moved to Mint 11 MATE because I didn't like Unity and MATE was more Windows like (which was more familiar to me and helped my transition). Little did I know at the time that I could just install a new desktop environment. I continue to use Mint for my work PC and Arch for my home PC
Since 2008 its held a special place in my heart and after distro hoping I'm not going anywhere and i like the direction its currently going and firmly believe the linux community holds it back from reaching its fullest potential fast enough.
I've been using Ubuntu and flavors since 2009 as my daily driver coming from Fedora and Suse. I have not seen anything but constant improvement since then (I also will use different flavors so I don't include issues with certain DE's as bad things) leaving me zero desire to switch (though I do at times have OpenSuse installed on another drive from time to time).
I started with the very first version of Slackware in 1993. I used Ubuntu only once and it was during the dumb move era. I remember that Amazon icon. I intended to build it as a media server. It's been replaced with Gentoo and is used a test machine.
I remember having a 10.04 install CD in my CD box for years. I think that was my first Linux distro. Still have Linux on all my machines in the house.
Hardy Heron my first Linux OS, Precise Pangolin my preferred Ubuntu version (and the one I have used for more time than every other OS).
I had a Linux course in college during the Unity era which was my first exposure to Linux. I didn't care for the dock location on the left side of the screen on Ubuntu then and I still don't now. After that course, I didn't touch Linux again until the Recall fiasco. I distro hopped before settling on Nobara. I think it's a great distro for Windows expats. If you're a gamer, AMD/Nvidia drivers are automatically installed. If you're not a gamer, it's Fedora on steroids with a KDE Plasma desktop by default.
The first distro I used for Ubuntu was the 8.04 for a College project and from there on I had to work with Ubuntu Server 10.04, 12.04, 14.04 and then just jumped to work on Mint 22 after the W11 hardware debacle.
2006 Edubuntu on a Compaq donated by the the church to my Mother was my 1st experience and I have never looked back. Karmic was when I started to really understand
I can remind you about wubi. That was quite good thing, although it was always broken after some time, month or two. But it enabled me to start from 10.04 up untill I was ready to install 11.04 for real. And Ubuntu back in the day was a good thing to try even during the glory days of windows 7, which was quite remarkable to me.
Good old times.
Ubuntu is the distro that made me switch from FreeBSD to Linux. I use it to this day. I tried Linux several times before Ubuntu but I never liked it. I’m still happy with it. My gaming desktop is Ubuntu and all my personal servers are Ubuntu.
Cheers.
I so wish local governments had adopted linux desktops and FOSS programs over windows and proprietary. So much taxpayer money thrown at Microsoft and Apple (for schools at least)
Ubuntu 8.04 was my first go with Ubuntu. I had used mandriva before but it was a bit awkward for a newbie but Ubuntu just worked with no trouble in comparison.
WiFi was a pain back then too
Stopped using the Ubuntu family around 2012/13 in favour of arch
My first Ubuntu was Dapper Drake. I have some good memories of those days. But I go all the way back to Fedora 5.2.
Nice Ubuntu history tour de force!
I started with Ubuntu 18.04. I still remember being so new to Linux that I thought Ubuntu was broken when I tried installing something from the terminal and there was no password feedback, not realizing that it was still recording my keystrokes lol.