In defense of Ubuntu, additional comments

It has been much talk about giving back to the Linux community on this
subject, but I think that most people forget the most important group:
the users. Contribution back to the different related Open Source
projects is a good thing, but they do contribute more than one should
believe:

*Ubuntu is the distro that "any one" can use and uses - and it has the
habit of just working on most Hardware. The Ubuntu variations have
someting for all with it's different desktop variations and the server
edition.

I'm teaching this days and had 29 new students (only five with some Linux
experience) in the class last Monday. I had 8 Ubuntu CDs and managed to
have all the 29 students to kick out the Windows partion on their (school
owned) Lenovo Lap Tops an install the Ubuntu system within 3 hours --
including my welcome speech and so on!

It wasn't even a plain installation, they did make six new partitions
during the installation: One free for future use, 4 for Linux and one
swap. Everything went OK, and I could start the education after Lunch.
That said: I did prepare the session with an Open Office presentation
that everyone could follow. In order to make this happend successfully,
one need a distro that works well and that is Ubuntu's most important
contribution (besides spreading it out to the world).

Making a distro on one CD that is simple to install and use -- and
powerful enough to make sysadminds, musicians, developers and hackers
happy is no less than a fantastic contribution! And Ubuntu's popularity
gains the other distros as well because more and more people and
organizations are using Linux. I'm sure that other distros borrows good
ideas from Ubuntu too, so Ubuntu do really give back in many ways.

Jostein