I happen to like being informed, when I SSH into my server, that there are some package updates available.
I happen to like a quick status check popping up for me to either look at or just ignore at my pleasure, especially since 99% of the time, the first thing I do when I log into a server is do exactly the sort of status check available in the Ubuntu MOTD.
There are benefits. That you don't consider them worthwhile is fine, but you don't need to go apoplectic about it.
That's a valid concern - but then by all means make it an optional package. Linux is modular, there is absolutely no reason to mess with core-stuff like that and not provide a simple way to revert to normal.
My point is, who are you to decide how "Linux" is supposed to behave by default? Why do you get veto power over what should be "optional"?
A choice has been made for Ubuntu's behavior. Other distributions are free to make their own choices. If you find Ubuntu's choice disagreeable, you can file a bug and try to change it, or you can change it for yourself on your own system, or you can just live with it, or you can change distributions. You can even fork Ubuntu and make just this change, if you like. You do have that choice.
Getting mad because Ubuntu's choices are different from choices you might make is just silly.
who are you to decide how "Linux" is supposed to behave by default?
I'm not deciding that, other people made those decisions decades ago. It's a bad idea to mess with defaults for no good reason and then being too lazy to at least package it properly.
Getting mad because Ubuntu's choices are different from choices you might make is just silly.
I couldn't care less about ubuntu, I'm not using it. I just hate to see that mindless crap trickle down into one of the last semi-sane distros (debian). This only leads to forks in the future which means more work for everybody.
Again: If some distro-maintainer wants a fancy motd then great, make it a package and make that package the default for the desktop-install. Don't mess with core-stuff that has stood the test of time since before said maintainer was even born. Down that path lies SuSE linux.
This isn't decades ago, and Ubuntu is not Unix. It is Ubuntu. Decisions made decades ago for Unix are not inherently right, and have no special moral authority.
> I couldn't care less about ubuntu, I'm not using it.
Then perhaps you shouldn't speak on the subject. /etc/motd is the least of the things they've "messed with".
Trying to treat a modern operating system as if it's a 1970s operating system is absurd.
> Down that path lies SuSE linux.
There is nothing inherently wrong with SuSE. I don't happen to use it, but there are a lot of things I don't happen to use.
You're stuck in the past. A Unix-centric past, at that. If it works for you, great, but don't pretend we all have to stay there with you.
I could. Or I could just look at the thing they already did for me. Much like I could create a bootloader configuration when I install Ubuntu, but that's already done for me.
There are a lot of things we could do on our own. Sometimes we don't have to. Sometimes, some set of people would prefer we did have to, but that doesn't mean we all have to acquiesce to their desires.
I happen to like a quick status check popping up for me to either look at or just ignore at my pleasure, especially since 99% of the time, the first thing I do when I log into a server is do exactly the sort of status check available in the Ubuntu MOTD.
There are benefits. That you don't consider them worthwhile is fine, but you don't need to go apoplectic about it.