Your best overall Linux distribution of choice
February 23, 2019

Your best overall Linux distribution of choice

Leonel Quinteros | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Ubuntu Linux

Web application servers run Ubuntu Linux in our organization. It's a great operating system and especially a great Linux distribution when you look for stable server setups with modern versions of the software. We use it for web servers running either Apache or Nginx, and VPN servers that are super easy to set up in Ubuntu to help us maintain our data and keep our systems protected while accessing from outside the network. We also use it for any other server appliance like file servers, cache servers (Memcached, Redis) and anything else. Any new server inside the organization will run Ubuntu Linux as well.
  • Availability across cloud vendors is unmatched, you can expect that any cloud or hosting setup will offer a Ubuntu Linux image for you to use.
  • Community support is great. Canonical does a great job supporting the system and the community does its part with forum participation, documentation and email support.
  • Being based on Debian, it offers a more "modern" stable system than the former, with newer versions of most software. If you want the quality and stability from a Debian distribution, but also want modern software, this is the distribution of choice.
  • The desktop environment is one of the bests for end users in the Linux ecosystem.
  • Server setup and configuration is easy with the extended utilities and software from Canonical.
  • It's a standard among Linux distributions, so you can trust that almost any Linux software will be packaged for your Ubuntu distribution.
  • I'd like to see Canonical REALLY betting on desktop Linux and move one step forward with innovation in that area to improve user adoption.
  • Desktop UI decisions have been not-so-happy in the past. The ability to move back and forth with Unity has pushed a lot of users in favor of options. Having REAL desktop environment options is something to improve as well.
  • Improvements in interoperability with other OSes would be very welcome. Sometimes it's just hard to communicate with MacOS or Windows across some protocols. Maybe it's due to the private nature of these protocols, but alternatives are around, we just need to compile and improve them.
  • Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
  • Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
  • Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.
Historically Ubuntu has been one step forward from Red Hat and CentOS distributions about software versions and tools usability. In the last years they've caught up and it's very comparable, but at this point, my decision was already made and I will continue choosing Ubuntu, even when I work with many CentOS instances across organizations. Windows Server is a niche option for me now. It only makes sense for LAN servers to use Active Directory and deploy Windows workstations across an organization. Other than that, even Microsoft is pushing .NET Core to run on any platform, so there is no reason to host .NET software on Windows Servers anymore.
Ubuntu Server setups are great for most server solutions. Security is good enough and usability is off the charts compared with other alternatives. You can get a full LAMP setup after a few apt commands. When security or stability is critical though, Ubuntu may not be the best option. Maybe downgrade to the latest Debian stable or go with some BSD solution for these scenarios. For Windows users looking for a Linux Desktop distribution, Ubuntu is the number one option for me.