[kwlug-disc] Linux Journal says Mandriva best distribution

[Paul Nijjar]

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 05:29:36PM -0400, unsolicited wrote:
>
>
> Having said all this ... ubuntu is a relatively new player. For some  
> reason it has been far more 'successful' (pervasive, today?), than  
> Mandriva. I can't think why, and correct me if I'm wrong, except that a 
> deep pocketed, marketing savvy, philanthropist (?), came along.

Other deep-pocketed marketing savvy philanthropists have tried to
polish Debian into a "desktop-ready" distro, but who uses Linspire
now? 

I think that you are correct in that having deep pockets and marketing
savvy helped, but it is interesting to note what was different: 

- Deep pockets were used to hire a lot of core Debian developers
  for the new distro.
- Marketing savvy was used for the AOLesque shipit.ubuntu.com CD
  giveaway instead of on more traditional marketing.

It did not hurt that Debian users are zealots who loved their distro
(and its infrastructure) but got aggravated by the long release
cycles. 

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org