On Sat, 19 Nov 2011, Jeff Jensen wrote: > I've never understood the fascination with Ubuntu. I've worked on it, > Red Hat, Fedora, Solaris, DEC Unix (OSF/1), HP-UX, (others too?) and I > know I'm missing whatever the religion is about it. Which is probably > the similar reason FG installs it vs another. I think that people who aren't really into Linux, the way that some of you are into it, will just try to identify a distro that is widely used, and use that. So once something does well, it does better and better. Ubuntu has some serious money behind it and some marketing efforts, so that put it in the top ranks pretty early on and a larger user base naturally followed. Also, Ubuntu delivers... I've used a few distros but there are many I haven't used. What I care about most is that the distro is (A) easy to install, (B) it works consistently, (C) it has a good system for updating software and security patches and (D) it has a very complete and easy-to-use package installation system. Ubuntu fits the bill. Maybe there are many other ones I could use that would do just as well, but I won't try them because I'm using Ubuntu and it's working. However, if someone can convince me that something else might do everything I want and be *better* than Ubuntu in some ways, then I might give it a try. So there is an effect of inertia on current users. So I haven't seen anything religious about it. I think it's a matter of convenience and support. Ubuntu is widely used, so there is a lot of info about Ubuntu on the web. Popularity has real effects -- considering popularity when choosing a distro isn't just about counting the users and falling in line. Mike