Over the last couple of weeks, I've made the switch over from using Gentoo to Kubuntu, the KDE offering from the Ubuntu Project. Firstly, I installed it on my desktop machine at home (which I don't really rely on) and then on my laptop, which I use for my work. I have to say, that I'm impressed. For a committed GNU/Linux user like myself, choice of distribution is one of the most key decisions to be made.
Although I've been using GNU/Linux since I first started at university back in 1998, ever since I wrote this blog post last June, it's been my only installed system. I've tried quite a few distros over the years, having mainly used SuSE (it had a small 'u' back then), but have been really quite disappointed with the direction it's new owner Novell is taking. Ever since then, I've been using Gentoo.
Gentoo really is a good distribution, I think. It is unashamedly technical, and the documentation can be a bit tough at times, though I've always appreciated the fact that it doesn't hide "what's under the hood". Pretty much everything on a Gentoo system is set up by the user during the installation, which compiles everything from source, tuned to your hardware and preferences. This can obviously take quite a long time, but I'd always believed that it's worth it for the extra control. The result for someone with a bit of technical knowledge (or a willingness to learn) and a bit of time, is very satisfying.
Kubuntu, on the other hand, is quite the antithesis of Gentoo. It hides pretty much all the aspects of the install, and I didn't even know what software was installed until I had a look through the package manifest in Adept (a graphical front-end to APT). Although this approach appears to be what most people prefer, it feels a little weird to me to have handed control of the system over to an automated process. I wrote in a comment back in June about the potential implications of not getting the balance right between so-called "user friendliness" and an understanding of how a computer can work for you. Are the Ubuntu folks going to far?
Well, to date there's very little I haven't been able to do with my Kubuntu system that I could with Gentoo, and a lot more that I can (without the endless fiddling, at least). I'm still trying to figure out exactly where I need to set certain environment variables (there will inevitably be differences in the set-up, which I will learn), but I'm optimistic about my switch.
So, why did I leave the Gentoo world behind? Well, the primary reason in fact was far from technical. I have been really quite put off by the various goings on in the Gentoo community. I've been a lurker on the Gentoo-dev mailing list for a while, and there is very little respect amongst the volunteers on there. Take a look at pretty much any thread between February and April of this year to see the flame wars, bans, threats, insults, resignations, pleas and self-important ego-boosting to see just what I mean. Gentoo is a great system, but a few of the people who ended up in control are managing to wreck both software and reputation fast. Of the rest, it seems that some are fighting to keep the thing afloat, while others are just leaving.
Conversely, my interactions with the Ubuntu community to date (though limited) have been very friendly indeed, even if many of the folks are a little less technical. And that is by no means a criticism - it's genuinely nice to see GNU/Linux communities which are not just made up of hackers.
The Ubuntu Project is also a little closer to my own ethical beliefs about software. Gentoo to me always had a technical focus, wheras Ubuntu (like Debian) is more about software freedom. I'm really pleased to see such a quality and easy-to-use distribution having such strong ethical roots. It could quite easily have not been this way, and we could potentially have another kind of beast on our hands.
So, congratulations to the community on their release of *buntu 7.04, the Feisty Fawn.
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