
Ubuntu from 2004 to 20.04 LTS - caiobegotti
https://ubuntu.com/blog/infographic-ubuntu-from-2004-to-20-04-lts
======
powersnail
The first Linux I installed was from a copy of RedHat that my father got for
me from the IT department. At the time, it took me a while to set up, because
I had no idea why there must be so many partitions, so many settings, so many
options of this and that, and had to research each one on a slow internet. I
understood about 50% of what I read, and scratched my head through the rest.
Not to mention I didn't speak English at the time, so that the number of
resources I could read was fairly limited.

When I first heard of Ubuntu, it was said to be quite a bit friendlier to
install, so I tried, and pleasantly found the reputation to be true. It felt
like someone had endeavored greatly to make my life simpler, including the
installation process, the bundled software, and the default look of the DE in
general (why I thought so, I couldn't remember). It showed a comically colored
progress bar instead of screens of text that scrolled too fast to read. They
even made it easy to dual-boot with Windows, without making you go through a
whole bunch of partitioning stuff. I thought it was amazing.

Nowadays, I find most mainstream distributions to be friendly enough. Debian,
Fedora, CentOS, OpenSUSE, Mint, etc. are all pretty refined. The installers
have different interface, but, if you just want to stick to the recommended
preferences, it's usually straightforward.

So how does Ubuntu differentiate itself, in 2020?

In terms of the packaging, it's a bit mid of the road, not as stable as
Debian/CentOS, not as latest as Fedora, and certainly nowhere near bleeding
edge. In terms of DE, Unity is gone. Is it just Snap-enabled be default?

~~~
jgneff
> So how does Ubuntu differentiate itself, in 2020?

For me, by its ubiquity. It has desktop and servers images [1], cloud images
for containers and virtual machines [2], and base images for all kinds of
embedded devices [3], all with multiple architectures (amd64, armhf). I run it
on everything from servers and desktops to QEMU ARM guests and e-readers.

[1]
[https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04.1/](https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04.1/)
[2] [https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/focal/current/](https://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/focal/current/) [3] [http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-
base/releases/20.04.1/relea...](http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-
base/releases/20.04.1/release/)

------
whalesalad
Aw man I was hoping for more artwork from _each_ release. I remember ordering
a ton of the live CD's and handing them out all over my high school back in
the Warty Warthog days. Ubuntu sure has come a long way.

~~~
trimbo
I was hoping for an upgrade video, like people have done for Windows

Here's one that goes from Windows 1.0 -> Windows 8:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WP7AkJo3OE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WP7AkJo3OE)

~~~
tony
Ubuntu 4.10 -> 19.04:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZdrjATI8BA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZdrjATI8BA)

Gnome 1, 2, and 3:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMak0R_fE2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMak0R_fE2g)

------
jamesponddotco
I was the leader of the LoCo Team[1] for my state in Brazil, helped translate
Ubuntu to Brazilian Portuguese, gave talks around the country to help promote
it, handled installation, and support for Ubuntu in public universities, and
schools, distributed install CDs, and merchandise in install parties, and
events, and had the biggest blog about Ubuntu in Brazil at the time, Ubuntu-
BR-SC.

Canonical, and the Ubuntu Council recognize a few contributors, and grant them
the "status" of Ubuntu Member[2] as a sign of recognition of significant, and
sustained contribution to Ubuntu or the Ubuntu community.

The membership gives you a few perks, like a certificate signed by Mark
Shuttleworth, an @ubuntu.com email address, and a few other stuff[3], but
these perks are nothing when compared to the experiences I had along the way.
I got to test Ubuntu Touch, participate in a closed beta for Steam for Linux,
have a face-to-face chat with Richard Stallman, talk with Mark Shuttleworth,
and meet a huge number of people so much smarter than me at a young age, which
helped shape who I am as an adult.

I have been calling Ubuntu my favourite operating system since 2008, and I am
what I am today because of the journey I went through with it, but as of last
week, I have replaced it with openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop, and will
probably do the same with my servers. I no longer contribute in a serious way,
and the decisions Canonical is taking really rub me the wrong way.

Hopefully, I will find a new home in the openSUSE community, and a new journey
will start.

[1] [https://loco.ubuntu.com/about-loco/](https://loco.ubuntu.com/about-loco/)

[2] [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership)

[3]
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership#The_Perks](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Membership#The_Perks)

~~~
andreicek
I agree with you completely. I'm looking to switch away from Ubuntu for both
my personal and work servers. Do you recommend openSUSE for servers as well?

~~~
jamesponddotco
Too soon to say I recommend it, as I started using it last week, but I like it
so far. Fast, stable, and bleeding-edge, three words I did not think could be
used together.

If you are using Tumbleweed — which I am —, it is like using a more stable,
friendly, and tested version of Arch Linux. Leap is similar to an LTS version
of Ubuntu, with slightly newer packages sometimes.

I will probably go with Tumbleweed for my servers as well. While that is not
recommended by most people, I run so many tests before updating production
servers, that this should be okay — plus, I update servers in batches, with my
servers coming before customer servers, so I should be able to catch problems
there. Still need testing before this becomes reality, though, might stay with
Leap for servers in the end.

One thing I liked a lot is openSUSE MicroOS, which is so much easier to
install on bare-metal than the Ubuntu equivalent, Ubuntu Core — perfect for
bastion servers, VPNs, or LXD host servers, since the root file system is
read-only.

I did replace BTFRS with XFS, though, as for my use case, BTFRS provided no
benefit, and performance took a big hit. You will need to run your benchmarks
to see if it fits your use case, but the options are EXT4, XFS, or BTFRS (the
default).

Overall, I am enjoying the experience, and the community is quite nice as
well. Heck, I am even giving KDE a try, and giving i3wm a break.

~~~
andreicek
Thank you for taking the time to write out a detailed response.

------
AzzieElbab
As a guy who got to play with the likes of Solaris/386 and early bsd, I am
amazed at how far we have gone.

------
teruakohatu
Does anyone know if Canonical is profitable beyond donations?

~~~
schmorptron
Is anything known that maybe their snap efforts with the snap store are maybe
a tactic to get some profit from end user desktop ubuntu down the line? If
their plan works out and it becomes _the_ linux app store they could make it
attractive for proprietary software vendors to sell stuff through it, and
charge a percentage for being the sole gatekeeper to the snap store like apple
or google.

~~~
abrowne
I'm writing this from desktop linux (so I like desktop linux) but the market
for linux in servers and other non-desktop uses is much bigger. Yes they
target desktop software with Snaps, but also non-desktop software, which is
where Snaps started originally as well. This includes being used in commercial
products like some Dell networking gear (IIRC), which I imagine is another
source of revenue.

