The conclusion in Linux Format magazine is that, yes, it is. It’s still the most popular distro, but the gap has closed with Mint (which offers Ubuntu-Done-Right I suppose) and Fedora.
Five years ago I was a Fedora user but then they issued a release that oopsed on booting, so I had no choice but to use Ubuntu and until the release of the awful “Unity” desktop have never thought of using anything else.
I guess I would just go straight to Debian if starting from scratch these days.
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3 responses to “Is Ubuntu in decline?”
I think Ubuntu has bigger problems than Unity. I’ve used Mint for a while (and Ubuntu before that), and the latest version of Mint (built over Ubuntu Natty) exhibits a variety of intermittent problems (including boot failures) on three different machines. I’ve documented some on my blog. I’m fairly certain the bugs come from Ubuntu, not from the differences in the Mint fork. although I can’t be sure. Suffice it to say that I’ve had more issues with this version than with all previous releases I’ve used, combined.
I have some niggles – I’ve just started going “dual head” on my laptop as I try to complete my MSc project – eg having LyX in one screen and R in another is very useful – and that is a bit problematic with either the desktop or the driver, but not so bad that it stops me working and I don’t have time to investigate it! But no serious issues. I dumped Unity on the machines I use, but it’s still on the kids’ machine and I hate it when I need to use it there. I just don’t know why *anyone* would think it better than either Gnome or KDE. What were they thinking?
I suppose Unity got some consideration just for the novelty value. I haven’t tried it myself — I’m comfortable with GNOME (and, as we say here, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”). Someone out there must like Unity, but I’ve yet to see anyone post their love for it. I have seen people post the opposite emotion, another reason for my not trying it.