The original post: /r/linux by /u/mi-wag on 2024-09-28 13:49:14.

Hi guys,

If you look around, you will notice that many Linux distros, which are primarily aimed at “normal” desktop users, are based on Ubuntu. The most prominent examples here are probably Linux Mint, Pop!OS and Zorin OS.

But why exactly is this the case? And why not use Fedora, for example, or, to give another example, OpenSuse? What makes Ubuntu better than the others?

I did a bit of research into the differences between Fedora and Ubuntu and found the information that the packages in Fedora are more up-to-date and those in Ubuntu are often older or outdated. That would actually be a point in Fedora’s favor.

I have also had this experience. VirtualBox from the Ubuntu repositories is still on version 6.1 or so, the latest is now 7.0 or already 7.1 (I don’t know exactly but definitely 7). And VirtualBox is the kind of software where you are forced to install it from there, because only then will it work. If you download it as a flatpak, you still have to set it up for the distro which is very complicated.

Apart from that, you always find relatively different information about the two, such as that Fedora is supposed to be more stable than Ubuntu and has fewer bugs, whereas elsewhere you read that Fedora is supposed to be buggy. Then you read that Fedora is more complicated than Ubuntu, then somewhere else you read that both are equally simple. Just tons of information that somehow contradict each other.

But there must be some reason why the people who wanted to bring out a new distribution thought they’d rather use Ubuntu as a basis than Fedora, for example.

What exactly makes Ubuntu better than Fedora or other distributions? Or is Ubuntu actually not the best base for a distro and not worth the hype? What would be the best base then?