Ubuntu’s popularity often makes it the default choice for new Linux users. But there are tons of other Linux operating systems that deserve your attention. As such, I’ve highlighted some Ubuntu alternatives so you can choose based on your needs and requirements—because conformity is boring.
I don’t think that’s particularly wrong, tbh.
The key words being targeted at regular desktop users.
Obviously far from being one of the first distros, or distros with a GUI. But targeted at regular desktop users - i.e. “normies”? Absolutely.
People need to remember how crappy and janky the desktop was before Canonical spearheaded a lot of usability improvements.
If only they had continued along that path :/
There were lots of distros that tried to target regular users before it. Mandrake/Conectiva/Mandriva, Corel, Mepis, Lindows, Linspire etc. just off the top of my head.
Hell, Lindows came preinstalled on Walmart PCs at some point.
targeted at regular desktop users
While Slackware and Debian are the oldest still-maintained Linux distros, I don’t think either had a desktop-first approach.
I considered putting logos of some of the many more user-friendly pre-ubuntu distros in the meme but was lazy.
Debian was intended to be for regular desktop users back then too, though.
…Except Debian wasn’t even user-friendly when I used it two years after Ubuntu’s release. Red Hat Linux (not RHEL, which came later) was the only distro I’m aware of before Ubuntu that was more UX-focused.
Edit: I forgot about a few others — SUSE, Corel Linux, Lindows/Linspire, and others. Buuuuuuut most of those distros don’t exist anymore. I still stand by that Debian didn’t used to be as noob-friendly as it is these days.
Yeah, no.
It was one of the first that didn’t make you to want to tear your hair out, I’ll give them that.
That’s what I interpreted from the “targeted at regular desktop users” part.
Certainly not one of the first distros. But one of the first that almost any normal person would actually be able to install and use? Absolutely.
There were multiple before it that claimed to be easy for anybody to use, but most of them still weren’t by a long stretch.
