Ubuntu Linux is the most popular distribution for a reason - it works!
January 28, 2020

Ubuntu Linux is the most popular distribution for a reason - it works!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Ubuntu Linux

We use Ubuntu Linux in our organization for webservers, database servers, and various other servers.
It is our Linux distribution of choice. It helps us provide unix-like services with business support available. We are able to be confident that any packages we need will be available in repositories, and installing software is truly simple using the apt system. Online help is easy to find as it is such a popular distribution as well.

Pros

  • Updating is really easy and straightforward, especially for LTS releases.
  • Package availability is second to none.

Cons

  • Unified patch management still is a challenge. Landscape is just not as polished as we would like.
  • Not every appliance is built upon Ubuntu, so we have some variance in our OS environment.
  • We find that we spend much less time custom compiling software compared to our old distribution, which was Red Hat.
  • Installing and updating software from packages saves a significant amount of time.
We mainly chose Ubuntu Linux for its broad compatibility and package availability. Where we have a choice we prefer to deploy software on a Linux platform rather than Windows. Ubuntu is supported by our backup software and we find that updates typically complete without errors. Support has been good when we have needed them, although I can say the same for Red Hat as well, our previous distribution. We do use Suse and CentOS for some appliances where we do not have the choice of distribution. I have found those to be serviceable as well, although we don't have the latitude for package install or patching as much with them as with Ubuntu Linux.
Support has been serviceable, occasionally we would like a response sooner, but we have had no high importance cases thus far. Knock on wood! I would lump this in with 'good enough' support. It won't blow you away or be especially proactive as other companies may be. You do get access to knowledgeable support engineers, however.

Do you think Ubuntu delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Ubuntu's feature set?

Yes

Did Ubuntu live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Ubuntu go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Ubuntu again?

Yes

I would say that Ubuntu Linux is a well rounded distribution for server and desktop needs. If you are looking for bleeding edge performance or packages you may want to look at a distribution that does rolling releases, but this is usually not needed in a business setting outside of HPC in my experience. The large selection of window managers allows for great customization when used in a desktop setting. We prefer to leave our servers without a GUI, obviously, for performance and resource reasons.

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