How about a Ubuntu feature?

Posted Jan 12, 2005 11:11 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Ubuntu flown under the LWN radar? Are you /kidding/? For its age, it's
doing /amazingly/ well PR-wise, in the entirely Linux community including
on LWN. Go try the LWN search. Excluding comments and security alert
and vuln references (but including security updates as there seems no
quick way to exclude them), Ubuntu is /already/ mentioned in 100 articles,
including this one. I dare say that's a better record for its age than
probably any of the other distributions, including the big five
(SuSE/Novell, RH, Mandrake, Debian, Slack, in the order they popped into
my head), which now should really be the big seven, including Gentoo and
Ubuntu.

Glancing at the list, LWN is now announcing the regular Ubuntu traffic,
has coverage of two December community meetings, is mentioned in the Sept.
and Oct. 2004 timelines, is mentioned multiple times in relation to
Rosetta, there's heavy coverage of the Matari (I think that last is an i
with some sort of accent, from other coverage, LWN's coverage seems to
have it as a missing-char square, on my setup) Conferences, lots of
coverage of Hoary and Warty including a Warty Starter's Guide, coverage of
the Ubuntu images controversy both in Ubuntu Traffic and a mention from an
article covering the Debian "Hot Babe" controversy, more community
meetings (Oct/Nov)... and I quit scanning at that point.

By comparison with Debian, which returns the search-limit 500 hits with
the last one on June 2, meaning just over seven months to get 500 hits,
Ubuntu, based on Debian, gets 100 hits in ~3.5 months, so will have
probably over 200 hits in a similar 7 month period. Yet, as I already
mentioned, Ubuntu is based on Debian so any articles mentioning that will
be a hit for Debian as well. Again, how much bigger is Debian than Ubuntu
and what's based on what? 2/5 the hits is certainly beyond any reasonable
expectations, I'd say.

I'm not complaining that it's too much. Good for Ubuntu! However, saying
it has flown under the radar IMO more correctly reveals simply that the
LWN coverage has apparently flown under /your/ radar, as LWN coverage has
been far higher than many would argue Ubuntu deserves at this point. In
fact, it could be easily argued that if coverage continues at this torrid
pace, there's serious potential for a backlash, as people simply get tired
of seeing the name.

Hmm... That Warty Starter's guide looks like it might be what you are
after. The LWN article is a very short pointer to the off-site article,
but here it is. I guess you can follow the link from there, and make your
comment on the LWN pointer page when you are done, for anyone else that
might find it and be interested. http://lwn.net/Articles/115349/

Duncan