Why Ubuntu?

[sba]

Yes that is what I wanna know.
"Why Ubuntu?"

I have heard so much about Ubuntu Linux that I always want to try it but then the saying comes to my mind "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I am currently triple booting with Slackware 10.2, Gentoo 2005.1 and Windows XP Pro with Gentoo as my default OS. Everything is to my liking in this setup but I just wanna know what is behind so much hype.

I even googled for "Why Ubuntu" but didn't get anything concrete. I am a gentoo lover and wanna know from some ubuntu lovers that what is it that gives Ubuntu so much of publicity? What are the features that you people think are so great about it?

Will be thankful for any constructive replies

 

[Satissh S]

Be thankful to here,
www.ubuntulinux.org
Dude, It's linux for human beings.
Now i'm in the process of installing Several GNU\linux distro's with PC-BSD. Need to spend 3 Boring Holidays .
Need Help with the partitioning scheme. I have already installed ubuntu. I plan to install Fedora, Gentoo, slackware, Debian, OpenSuSe, PC-BSD, Xandros, ArkLinux, Mandriva .
Now i'm writing from UBUNTU. Iam not particularly fond of Xandros ,ArkLinux and even PC-BSD. What are your opinions on these Distro's.
I have allocated 10 GB for UBUNTU with ext3, 2 GB for swap which will be used universally. What Say?!!

Edit: Forgot to Mention. I have 2 x 40 GB Hdd's . Ubuntu is on /dev/hda1 and Swap is /dev/hda2.

 

[vignesh]

@Satissh Thats whole lot of distros you are trying there.Lets see how many of them get through on your system.I am sure ArLinux won`t work....

 

[Satissh S]

It's just a try. Actually i got nearly 10 distro's with Power Linux Bible . 8) Ok, I accept Ark is bit Stupid.. Leave it. But what's gonna be the prob with others vignesh..??
Let's say that fedora doesn't detect the other distro's... So what, we can always configure grub to load the others isn't. The only problem is that we have to note down the kernel name and the initrd module and the usual options. (e.g: splash )
And root module we can assign as (0,1) etc.,. Did you face any problems when you penta booted.
Also tell me what would be the best way of partitioning. In suse Release notes they had written that a /boot partition with ext2 FS at the start of the disk wud max out performance. But here /boot has no significance.
What to do?
I am dropping Arklinux, Xandros, PC-BSD.

 

[sba]

Be thankful to here,
www.ubuntulinux.org
Dude, It's linux for human beings.

What???
I didn't get you. I just wanted to know that which features of Ubuntu is making it get so much hype and you just told me that you are working on god knows how many distros. What did you intend to say?

2 GB for swap

You will never use that much of swap. Use 1.5-2 times of your RAM as swap. That is just waste of precious HDD space. Here's my setup of triple boot if it helps

genbox sba # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2611    20972826    7  HPFS/NTFS (Windows)
/dev/sda2            2612       19457   135315495    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            2612        2709      787153+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            2710       11847    73400953+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7           11848       19457    61127293+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        1959    15735636   83  Linux (Slackware)
/dev/sdb2            1960       30401   228460365    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) (Windows Paging)
/dev/sdb5            1960        5484    28314531   83  Linux (Gentoo)
/dev/sdb6            5485        5582      787153+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb7            5583       13415    62918541    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb8           13416       21248    62918541    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb9           21249       30401    73521441    b  W95 FAT32
genbox sba #

 

[Satissh S]

@sba: No Hard Feelings Dude, but features of ubuntu have been discussed many a times. U had asked Why Ubuntu? So my answer was based on that question.

I have 1536 MB (1024 + 512) of RAM and so i use 2 GB of HDD Space as SWAP which is according to red hat installation instructions.

And i never said i donot know to partition disks. I only had asked the views of guys about how to finetune the partitioning, becoz i had studied that having a non journalling filesystem before a journalised Reiser filesystem actually give a slight performance gain.

Hope this helps. Absolutely no hard feelings.

 

[sba]

@sba: No Hard Feelings Dude, but features of ubuntu have been discussed many a times. U had asked Why Ubuntu? So my answer was based on that question.

No hard feelings here as well but I wanted to know that why so much hype about Ubuntu. Thats all and the official site you link me to is not much of help.

I have 1536 MB (1024 + 512) of RAM and so i use 2 GB of HDD Space as SWAP which is according to red hat installation instructions.

If you have that much of RAM then you won't be needing much swap. If you don't plan on using software suspend then imho you should just stick with 512-768MB swap partition.

I only had asked the views of guys about how to finetune the partitioning

I have never heard about this non-journaling fs before reiser giving better performance so will not comment on that but since you are planning to install so many distros, you should install 3-4 maximum at the same time. Format the ones you don't like and then install a new one. That way you will be having big partitions to play with.

 

[planetcall]

Why ???

I feel I am in sync with it I love it. Its for me. Its for you. Its for everyone and is free. It is rockstable, features SuperCool and stable Synaptic. There are many things to boast about.

I just installed a full suit of JDK 5, Eclipse with plugins, Amarok (the ultimate audio player), VLC (The super media player), Azureus and many more. All the installations went seamlessly and without pain in @%#^#^@#%&% . Try it guys.

Also, I would like to say that Ubuntu is the most popular distro (Source : distrowatch). Though, the most popular might not be the best (ex. Windows) but I think ubuntu is no less to Fedora, the another distro I like.

 

[vignesh]

@Satissh

A swap partition should be twice the ram size to a maximum of 128Mb.I currently have assingned only 64mb of swap and that itself only 15 % is being used at the max....

 

[Satissh S]

Ok then! I'll Update after i install FC4.

 

[kumarmohit]

Ubuntu only seems to be famous bcoz it hands out free pressed cds to ppl other wise its only a common debian clone

 

[Satissh S]

Ok! FC4 Installed and UBUNTU Configured too. Now trying with SUSE....

 

[Satissh S]

OK Everything Done.
My final setup reads as,
Suse 9.3
Fedora Core4
Ubuntu Breezy
Xandros OCE
Actually installing anymore distro's is simply a waste b'coz i wouldn't have to use so many distro's.
Had to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst manually after some tweaking with yast. Here's it.

title SuSe Linux 9.3
    kernel (hd1,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb2 vga=0x317 selinux=0  splash=silent resume=/dev/hda2  showopts
    initrd (hd1,1)/boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp) (/dev/hda3)###
title Fedora Core 4
    root (hd0,2)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp.img

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386  (/dev/hda1)###
title Ubuntu Breezy
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386 root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash
    initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-9-386
    savedefault
    boot


title Xandros OCE
    rootnoverify (hd1,0)
    chainloader +1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
    root (fd0)
    chainloader +1

Xandros has been installed with chainloader config., ie the lilo will start after selecting Xaandros with Grub. How to boot into Xandros entirely using Grub.?
Any Solns..

 

[vignesh]

That was what I wanted to post id you make a mistake with Xandros...

Happy Diwali ! and I see you got up early and typed this instead of bursting crackers....

 

[Satissh S]

Yes Of-Course, My mother wanted me to get up early @ 3'o Clock, Happy Open GNU\Diwali to One and All.

 

[vignesh]

So you had a Gnu/Diwali,.....

 

[Satissh S]

Boring Stuff, with Suse and Xandros gonna do some experimenting, I don't wan't Xandros and i'm going to install Debian, Slackware and Gentoo along with SuSe ,Fedora and Debian. I heard that Ubuntu is similar to debian but i'm going to try debian Sarge 2DVD install. I had just ordered it should wait for sometime b4 getting.But I have slackware and Gentoo cd's. In first HDD I have Ubuntu and FC4 installed. I had heard that slackware and gentoo is for guru's and pro's ,but i'm gonna give it a shot. Any Ideas.. abt partitioning???
All Data Backed upto UBUNTU 8)

 

[vignesh]

Gentoo is really for people to love to see code compiling all day .I don`t know how to start the installation from the universal cd that I have.

By the way your avatar looks like the default wallpaper of Slax 4.2 live cd....

 

[cool_dude_prav]

Hey satish...

As vignesh said, Swap should generally be double of the size of the Total RAM, though there is no hard and fast rule... since u have 1024+512 I would recommend somewhere near 3Gb as Swap... But the good thing is that all the Linux distros can share the same swap...

Even if u want to risk it, u can have a separate ext3 partition where u can set to be the /home of all the distros but a lot risky, and I am not responsible for loss of data... But a lot of experienced people DO have it like that...

And also, if u have a really good internet connection, that is with unlimited downloads, then u can compile the latest Gentoo on ur system from their website... Well, i said compile and not install coz Gentoo is a Linux distro which does not install itself. But it compiles all the sources one by one on ur PC, and as vignesh told, takes a lot of time... Try it if u r not bored

I would recommend u take a look at Kanotix... Its a Live CD that can save data onto HDD using some codes called cheat codes (something like in games )
If u want I can get u a copy... Coz I too live in chennai na...

PS: Vignesh and Satish, where in Chennai r u? Im in Mylapore...

 

[it_waaznt_me]

Hmm.. You people deviated the discussion .. Shall I split those posts and create another thread .. ?

@ Sba .. Part of Ubuntu 's success depends on it being based on Debian and its availablity .. You can get yourself as many Ubuntu cds delivered to you as you like for free .. And thats the single phenomenon that has given its edge over other distros ...
As Ubuntu is very well funded (read Money Talks), it can bear those costs comparing to Debian itself ..
I hope those links will give you a picture ... I've tried Ubuntu and didnt like it much .. Anyway it was an old version Hoary (alpha or beta I dont remember) and it wasnt such stable .. I havent had the pleasure of using SlackWare yet .. .. I hope I'll get it someday ..