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The Visual History of Ubuntu

phoronix.com — In this article we will be taking a look back at all of the Ubuntu releases to date and exploring how this Linux distribution has evolved so quickly over its short lifespan.

Who dugg this? Made popular Mar 17, 2007

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  • HalFTW, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36Article could have been accurately named "Various slightly differing brown wallpapers".
  • utcursch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36I'd have liked the article more, if it wasn't spread over 8 pages. They should at least provide a single-page/printable version.
  • allyant, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33The desktop screenshots look nearly all the same
  • jacobu9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Is it bad that they all kinda looked the same to me?

    (Please don't take this the wrong way, I love ubuntu, but I only use it as a file server, so the GUI is somewhat lost on me)
  • KielKilla, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28@ trollmode

    Here's mine:
    1.Installed
    2.Went to the network config and typed in my network name. Enabled it.
    3. Wrote this comment.
  • lowerlogic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25Here's my visual history of Ubuntu:

    1. Installed it.
    2. Couldn't get on my wireless network.
    3. Searched ubuntuforums for my type of card.
    4. Read a howto that showed how to get it working using ndiswrapper.
    5. Currently using the wireless to surf the internet and type this reply.
  • pathy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22You must have missed all the Beryl videos.
  • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24I still remember my first days with 4.04. Boy, it wasn't pretty. But it has come a long way!
  • moglenstar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+171.) Write an article about ubuntu
    2.) Include screenshots
    3.) Submit to digg.com
    4.) ???
    5.) Profit!

    ----

    I've been a ubuntu user on and off since 4.10, gotta love getting those free CD's in the mail :D - It has definately improved since it's inception, the tango project has helped loads too.
  • nuggetz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I never understood the point of taking screen shots of Linux distros. Aren't you really taking a screenie of KDE or GNOME half the time?
  • kufu91, on 10/16/2007, -1/+14Windows ME? thats pretty bad
  • herrshuster, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15welcome to digg
  • ElbridgeGerry, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13The update to Fiesty adds a number of new features, though.

    Automatic codec suggestion? That's one step closer to the mainstream.
  • Blandyman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I actually went to *****.com, just because I couldn't believe someone had such a gaping hole in their life that they need to bash a distro and redirect to Windows ME.
  • tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@trollmode
    Wow, you actually did. That's impressive; you bought a domain in order to troll on Digg.
  • Sonic_Molson, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18I thought only Mac users get off on screenshots of a desktop.
  • opitica, on 10/12/2007, -10/+20Here's my history with Ubuntu:

    1. Installed it.
    2. Didn't recognize my radeon card
    3. Searched for the solution on many forums
    4. Saw the word "xorg.conf"
    5. /wrists
    6. Then tried installing on my laptop
    7. Didn't recognize my wireless card.
    8. Multiple attempts at figuring out ndiswrapper from the *GREAT* instructions on their wiki
    9. Failed.
    10. Blew out my brains
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11So moving to Upstart for Edgy was just 'artwork'. Don't forget Canonical wrote that themselves. Also Niagara support is entirely not a big deal. What about putting the new 802.11 stack into the Feisty kernel. I could go on but really I can't be arsed.
  • Disease, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Needs more Linux Mint
  • ddxChrist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Admittedly, I didn't find the 'visual history' very visual. As others have pointed out, the screenshots look relatively the same. Granted, I like how Ubuntu looks by default, but the visual history isn't showing much.

    Nevertheless, I'm glad Ubuntu has come this far along. The never-ending stream of articles can get annoying after awhile, but then I am reminded of the amount of exposure it's getting. That helps all the other distros out by default.

    When I need a modern OS on decent hardware at the drop of a hat, Ubuntu is there for the picking. It's quick, easy to set up, and fairly painless to run thereafter. On older systems I prefer something like slackware, where I can avoid any unnecessary bloat, but Ubuntu is fantastic otherwise. And if it's up your alley, there's always the eye-candy you can get going.
  • yevkasem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7it was brown, they made it. . .browner, then they lightened the. . . brown to a. . . brown.

    awesome. no, really.
  • lowerlogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yes. I will enjoy blocking you forever, ***** blogspam. Heck, this isn't even the gaming section of digg.
  • GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For their size Canonical makes solid contributions. Not everyone has stock values measured in billions like Sun, IBM and Red Hat. What they have contributed has been very solid.
  • databeast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5People rag on Ubuntu here a lot, understandably because of its, well, massive overexposure.

    I'm not one for really *CARING* about linux distributions really, if you think there are REALLY any major differences between ANY linux distributions out there, it means one thing... you need to get more experience with linux. After enough time, Linux is Linux is Linux, if you cant handle any linux distro thrown at you, I sure as hell hope you dont get a job doing Systems Administration (I'm looking at YOU, Redhat-Certified people!).

    But, I'll finish by saying this..

    Ubuntu *IS* an exceptionally well put-together distribution; and speaking as someone with 18 years of Unix experience, and 13 years of administrating Linux machines, I'm playing the seniority card to say.. seriously, get over hating Ubuntu, it's buzz right now is good for Linux.
  • teetow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Bah. All that's changed is the wallpaper. Fake!
  • gfixler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I've looked into the future, and predicted the next release.

    http://www.garyfixler.com/UbuntuHistory/index.html

    Btw, for sexy time, hit up the first couple of Google Images pages for: ubuntu logo
    NSFW, possibly. Hooray new wallpaper.
  • imfm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I downloaded and installed Warty because it was new and they'd had the cojones to make it brown. Man, it was an ugly, muddy brown, but that wasn't the point--it looked different. Dual booted it with Mandrake, but didn't use it often because I never could get my sound card to work correctly. By the time Hoary was released, I'd built a new system with a different sound card, and it was detected correctly, so I started moving away from Mandrake (or Mandriva, or whichever it was then). I don't use the default theme of Ubuntu--never have--but I still use Ubuntu. Not because it's popular, but because it amuses me that practically every other OS uses blue or green in some form, but Ubuntu does not. It's a good OS and I like it, but I choose it over others because of that one stupid thing. "De gustibus non est disputandum", I guess. :P
  • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4So's the Zune! Welcome to the social!
  • lowerlogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Any user can change the background image so I doubt that had anything to do with the success. I dislike all the default brown backgrounds so one of the first things I do when I install a new ubuntu (after I get wireless to work) is replace the background with some digital blasphemy.

    I think the key to Ubuntu's success is its large user base and forums. I remember using SimplyMepis a few years ago and after a while all the linux howtos I found when I searched for answers on google linked to ubuntuforums. It seemed like you can find help for nearly every sort of problem on there. After a while I decided to give it a try and was impressed when it recognized almost all my hardware.
  • generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What, no ubuntu-calendar images? That misses out on the whole slew of articles back then of "why is there porn on my ubuntu desktop!!??!?"

    http://quarkblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/ubuntu.jpg
    http://static.flickr.com/35/112238533_a7b21ced88.jpg
    http://www.metallikop.com/images/blog/ubuntu-calendar-march-ws.jpg

    Warty Warthog's pre-release also had a nice blue Clearlooks-ish wallpaper with the logo ubuntu in the bottom right, IIRC.
  • mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Yea, Ubuntu will eventually be the most usable, best put together Linux system available, because they are actually writing new subsystems and doing real development that will improve the system overall. When the day comes that ubuntu works the best i will be very happy and i will absolutely use it. Till then I'm using OpenSuse so i can avoid windows (yes i see the novel irony).
  • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Use something like Adblock/FilterSet.G Updater, or, just don't click them.. I'd be amazed if sites get paid per-page-load, most are by number of clicks..
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here's my history:
    1. Installed Ubuntu
    2. Went to digg.com
    3. looked at this topic
    4. read a history
    5. read another history
    6. read yet another history
    7. read five more histories
    8. left
  • chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I like the brown. It brings back memories.... I need to get out of the house more.
  • sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For number four, you already have answer to the question marks. Notice all the link ads.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1orange is nice, but brown just sucks
  • databeast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2congratulations, you've just proved my point

    if you could never figure out that 'sudo passwd' would assign a password to the root account, or how to add other people to the /etc/sudoers file, you have no business administrating any Linux box beyond your own (and Ubuntu 'forcing' you to use sudo all the time is probably a good thing for the sake of your own machine's stability too I'd guess).
  • TehChupacabra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Everybody needs to take a step back and think about what we are seeing happen before our eyes. I don't know (nor do I particularly care) if you use Linux, but for some of us, this is digital evolution unfolding. A revolution is taking place. of course it's going to get a lot of unnecessary media coverage. That in no way takes from the significance of what is happening. I don't use Ubuntu, I don't like Ubuntu, but that does not change the fact that a free, community developed that originated at 0.01 as "Linus Torvald's Unix" has (through the support of the community and fans) has grown to the point where it may not be more than a few releases away from overtaking the $oftware giant most of us have cursed the name of for years because of it's Monopolizing hold on the Industry.
    It is irrelevant whether or not you use or even like Ubuntu/Linux
    Linux was made by the people, Linux is for the people, Linux is the people's PC revolution, and Ubuntu is charging at the front lines.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Linux includes the letter U you dUmbass
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I take back the bad things i said about Linux. I am likng it a lot now with Ubuntu.
  • plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yep, bury for inacurrate because it misses all the GDM themes (number and age of people olding each others evolving with the releases), the "erotic" backgrounds story, and also the background which was used by Edgy Eft BETA (which was by far the best ever shipped by default with Ubuntu) and had been removed because it didn't please M. Shuttleworth. It can be seen here http://pics.computerbase.de/1/5/7/4/6/15_m.png
  • Mejogid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"because they are actually writing new subsystems and doing real development that will improve the system overall"

    Redhat, IBM, Sun & Novell all contribute huge amounts to open source - Novell alone is the main contributer to Tango, Compiz and Mono. Redhat & IBM make huge contributions to the kernel and Sun is responsible for the entire openoffice suite. Ubuntu contributes nothing on this scale, and claiming that they 'are actually writing new subsystems and doing real development work' is completely misleading and untrue.
  • johnstar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I found a warty cd the other day and found out it used to have the toram command, I want it back!
  • Disease, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You should write birthday cards
  • sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ah, I see somebody dugg down each of my comments. I don't think it was databeast, because otherwise you would have dugg down my initial response. For some reason, it seems Ubuntu is above reproach. Critique it in anyway, you will get flamed and/or dugg down, so one of my points has been proven by that digger. People, Ubuntu or any other distro is perfect for everybody's needs, hence that there are multiple distros. Because it doesn't have separate user and admin passwords by default (still a bad thing. Databeast, you taught me about sudo passwd, and I've been using Linux for years - you think the new users will be able to do that?

    databeast is making broad generalizations that the Red Hat certified people apparently don't know how to use other distributions. That is a bigoted statement, that ironically is direct opposition the Ubuntu philosophy, which is a philosophy that I can dig(g). Somehow people dugg him anyway, how surprising :p . I'm actually not Red Hat Certified, but will get my certification my Linux + in a few weeks; because I don't want be tied to a certain distro myself (professionally, the Red Hat certification can't hurt, however) He said "if you could never figure out that 'sudo passwd' " He's confusing not being able to with not being arsed to. But I didn't like that feature of Ubuntu and it wasn't something that I felt comfortable with, so I changed distros. That's all. No big deal. He is basically right that Linux is Linux; bash is the same, Gnome is the same, KDE is the same and I've told Ubuntu fanboys the same thing when they go about a new "Ubuntu" feature that is just part of Gnome or "How to do X in Ubuntu" when its just basic Linux. I was merely pointing out one thing that I consider bad in Ubuntu that is very different from most other distros.

    Now since databeast mentioned sudo passwd, I've downloaded Fiesty Herd 5. If I like it, I might just install it and read the man passages for sudo and separate the user password from the admin one (although it will remain my opinion that the user should have a separate password by default) I think I see why Ubuntu choose this, for ease of use and Mac actually has something similar, but raise this objection to Ubuntu because I don't want them sacrificing security for ease of use.
  • megalopata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My experience with this OS was really said, so i just bought macbook pro and happy at the moment..
  • Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I agree. Way too many Ubuntu articles, especially since I think PCLinuxOS is far superior. On the other hand, it is awesome to have so much linux news on the front page. I'm all for spreading the word. I don't care what distro anyone uses, as long as they give linux a fair shot. I installed PCLinuxOS and was so impressed I dumped Windows immediately. I only boot into XP to run F.E.A.R and Far Cry.
  • sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Oh cool. You're flaming me now. For what? You're hating "Ubuntu haters" when all I said was that I don't like that by default the admin and user password are the same. Why are you being such a dick about it? I still think by default the user and admin password should be different. You might want to get off your high horse, you'll fall and hurt yourself.

    I do know how to edit the /etc/sudoers file, but know I didn't know about sudo passwd and nobody told me when I asked about this issue before. I didn't know all that much about sudo, since Ubuntu is the first distro that I've used that used it. And I've used plenty. I've played with Red Hat 5.something, but couldn't stick with it, I could stick with Mandrake 7 for good while. Than I install SUSE 9.1 and have been using Linux since. I guess I could have looked into the help files about sudo passwd, but I had some other, more minor, annoyances with Ubuntu, so I didn't bother and switched. Instead of just letting me know about sudo passwd, so I can give Ubuntu another chance (even if I decided to just wait until Feisty comes out), you have choosen to flame me. Why? I don't hate Ubuntu, I'm not flaming it, I'm not trolling and yet you act like an asshat.
  • sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I've used several versions of it and switched from SUSE to Hoary. But don't use it anymore. I quite Ubuntu at first because of the fanboyism. So I got over that and reinstalled and discovered to my horror that it no longer had separate administrator password. The user password being the admin password is completely unacceptable. The excuse is that only first user can get admin rights by default, but this is very bad. It always used sudo, but at least it had separate passwords. Yes, this issue does annoy me so much that I can't use Ubuntu because of it. It's not hatred, it's passing over a distro because of security concerns. And yes, this is REALLY (as you would put it) a big ***** a difference.
  • sanguinemoon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ps, another reason to NOT use Ubuntu. Criticize it in any way at all and get flamed. Nice way to promote "Linux for Human Beings."
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