Great post from K. Mandla about Ubuntu’s new default theme Link. I have noticed that a lot of Ubuntu and even Linux blogs are covering this as some sort of news story. Doesn’t Ubuntu come standard with like 10 themes? And doesn’t it also give you the ability to change your own wallpaper? What gripes my ass is that these same blogs should be spending their time talking about how increasingly unusable Ubuntu is becoming. I installed it a few weeks ago on my netbook, and to uninstall the default email client breaks the clock, and pretty much everything else, due to an insane amount of dependencies.
What I don’t get is why doesn’t Ubuntu follow more of a Debian distribution plan were you can select your desktop at install, and only the bare minimum applications are included? Since they roll in Synaptic anyways (which I love), it’s very easy for users to find and install new applications. They also include the Ubuntu software store, another means for users to add applications. Why does Ubuntu feel the need with their GNOME desktop to ram a bunch of applications down our throats? It makes sense for Microsoft to do so, but unless they plan on using a similar business model as they push further into the enterprise market, I just don’t see why they do it. The plus is, hopefully more Ubuntu users will switch to Debian.
I for one, have been looking at Arch with increasing interest, and have a recently deployed a local development VM with it, just to test the internals a little and see how easy/hard it is to get software and services set up.
Ubuntu is going too close to what I wanted to avoid when I kissed M$ good bye. Bloatware? Ubuntu is becoming right that.
I’ve looked at Arch as well, but the one time I tried to install it it blew up in my face and I quit. When there’s a more polished graphical installer, I’ll be all over it. People love Arch though.