Why does it seem like most people despise Ubuntu even though it is actually a good Linux distro?

Because it feels like the Windows of the GNU/Linux world. It's bloated and contains countless god-awful things (e.g. Amazon stuff, etc.).

@jaspervanbrian
Because, unlike arch, it doesn't make you a 1337 haxx0r.

A depressingly high number of people identify distros by the default graphical environment that comes with it. For example, since Ubuntu used to come with Unity as the default desktop environment, people would foolishly decide they didn't like Ubuntu because they didn't like Unity. They would install an entirely new distribution to avoid Unity.

Now Ubuntu ships with Gnome by default. I'm not crazy about that either, but that doesn't mean I'm not using Ubuntu. LXDE and Openbox are my preferred graphical environments and they work just fine in Ubuntu.

@rEaL-jAsE

Except very much unlike Windows, the bloat is easy to remove, never to return. And the appearance is easy to change, also very unlike Windows.

@theKarlisK

Um, what "support" do you need?

So would Ubuntu be the best distro to use if one was wishing to use a computer like a non-dev windows user? What would be an appropriate distro for a mainstream dev windows user (or are they the same) - understanding that by "mainstream" I mean someone that doesn't remotely think that Visual Studio must be built locally from a cli ? I realize there is no right answer, but curious to see what y'all will say.

"""""good""""" is subjective

@monkeyboy

I recommend Ubuntu because its catalog of available packages is by far the biggest of any distro. When someone writes something that has Linux support, they almost always have Ubuntu in mind, so the effort, in my opinion, is lowest.

@Haxk20
Sarcasm my dude. Sarcasm.
For the past few months, I was an Arch-User myself.

And Ubuntu is a perfectly fine distro, if you use it, like you'd use arch.
So no ready-to-use desktop-install, but only a minimal base-system, and then installing the packages you need.

I don't find ubuntu as a bad distro.
Default Ubuntu is bloated, agree.
But there are so many other Ubuntu based non-bloated distros, and they won't be there without Ubuntu.

And technically, if you found default Ubuntu bloated, you can install minimal-ubuntu a.k.a server version and just install the other apps that you only need.

@monkeyboy I recommend Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Elementary.

And yes all are Ubuntu based distros.

I think that Ubuntu isn't a bad distribution per se - but the company behind it and a lot of it's decisions and the treatment of community makes it an total no go for me.

Canonical tried to pull an full 'lets treat community / foss development like an enterprise ecosystem' stunt.

And failed miserably imho.

Yes when it came to their interests they shared a lot of affection and threw candy... But non official spins were mostly treated less good and the communication between canonical and other devs / distros / etc wasn't always "nice" to be polite.

Then came the decisions (there were alot… just naming the tip of the iceberg) which should (I guess) make Ubuntu "competitive, unrivaled (enter more buzzwords". Launchpad, Bazaar, Mir, Snap, Unity and so on.

And they didn't learn that not only their NIH (Not invented Here) syndrome Made alot of the community angry but that the wasted men power and rotten projects (as in only sponsored by Canonical) led to a strong antipathy

@monkeyboy I used to have Ubuntu, but would definitely say Linux Mint (love the Cinnamon desktop). The distro is similar to Windows in that it comes with batteries included, lots of useful stuff pre-installed (LibreOffice, Software update, Shutter screenshots, VLC, GIMP, etc), the feel of its start menu is alike, and it's got 'desklets' (desktop widgets).

It's kinda bloated and unity is slooow. Also they do some really edgy stuff like the thing with Amazon ads and tracking.

And instead of investing in Wayland they decided to put a lot effort in Mir which failed in the end...

In the end they are willing to learn from their mistakes.

But I still recommend most people to begin with Linux Mint.

Because it is easy and people like to suffer

@Haxk20 which bloatware? maybe it's different for ubuntu flavours, but i've never noticed any.

Unless you count snaps as bloatware.

@Haxk20 hm, guess that's only the original version. i can vouch for ubuntu mate, at least.

I quite like Ubuntu on servers, but on desktop, not so much.. I wouldn't say that it's a bad distro, it's just that I don't like how it makes a lot of software choices that don't match my preferences and I'd have to change. Better build my own then. Arch allows for this by default, but for any other distribution I'm also more drawn towards the netinstalls. Essentially Ubuntu targets a demographic that a lot of power users including me don't quite match.

Because it's mainstream

If it has latest kernel, terminal, vscode, distro is pretty irrelevant for me.

@Haxk20 I can vouch for this, stuck with Ubuntu based for the majority of my time on Linux and now since I'm using i3 and Sway etc I'd like to compile stuff like custom Swaybars, but the default repos don't have cutting edge enough packages.

FYI - I wouldn't consider myself a power user