So, is the Linux distribution market now ripe for disruption?
I wonder who out of today's major players could be the next big thing. OpenSUSE seems the closest to Ubuntu in terms of user friendliness (Linus' comments notwithstanding) due to tools like YaST [1] and a PPA-like mechanism called the openSUSE Build Server for extra prebuilt software [2]. People certainly have speculated about it online for a while but we're yet to see an exodus of Ubuntu users to openSUSE.
On a related note, a major thing Ubuntu and its derivatives have going for them is the great font rendering out of the box. I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches [3], as defaults.
[2] That said, although I've been following their releases lately I haven't used a SUSE distribution as a daily driver since SUSE 9.3, so I don't know how the quality compares; any openSUSE users here that can chime in with a comment?
> On a related note, a major thing Ubuntu and its derivatives have going for them is the great font rendering out of the box.
This. The default freetype rendering is horrible to my eyes, even worse than Microsoft's SmearType(TM).
> I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches, by default.
Patents, I guess. Quoting Wikipedia:
> Microsoft has several patents in the United States on subpixel rendering technology for text rendering on RGB Stripe layouts. This had caused FreeType, the library used by most current software on the X Window System, to disable this functionality by default. Apple was able to use it in Mac OS X due to a patent cross-licensing agreement.
I do not know if Canonical has reached a similar agreement with Microsoft like Apple. Perhaps someone from the Ubuntu camp can enlighten us.
I'm really rather happy with openSUSE. I have a VPS and a RPi running Debian stable and beta respectively, but my main laptop has been running openSUSE for years and I prefer it if possible. I think this one has been updated at least since 11.4, and I've started using their "rolling stable" release (for lack of a better description), called Tumbleweed, which is really neat![1]
YaST is nice since it's there if one doesn't know how to change certain things (or if one cannot be bothered) simply with the config files, though they are always there for direct editing. Another nice thing is the wide array of Window Managers available, I've been using KDE4 for a long while but recently found myself using i3 more and more.
Regarding package management, I find zypper a delight to work with, since repository management is straight-forward (and so is gpg-key-management). It's also rpm-based, which I think makes packaging a lot easier, but YMMV.
opensuse is very good. to me (having used both) it feels more transparent - it's easier to change / configure things. you get all the automated help, but it's easier to dig down and fiddle around.
having said that, i am waiting for my openbsd to arrive. i plan to keep opensuse on the laptops, but am going to try openbsd on the server / firewall / everything box.
I also moved away from Unity after about a year or so of using it (some good ideas, but too unstable for my taste), and instead of going Debian, which was my initial impulse, I decided to give Ubuntu Gnome a try. This is a Ubuntu variant that isn't talked about much, and it's still early days for them, but it shows some promise.
You basically get the same Ubuntu base you're used to with all the repositories and PPAs intact, which if we're being honest are probably second to none in the whole Linux landscape, with a pretty vanilla GNOME 3 stack.
The devs just put out a call for more contributors today (http://ubuntugnome.org/urgent-need-for-more-contributors), and I'd love to see this distro take off. I'm also interested in seeing how they'll handle the whole Mir situation.
The Ubuntu Gnome spin looks very promising with the combination of the Ubuntu ecosystem and the Gnome desktop environment.
the only fly in the ointment (for me at least) is the distros uncertain future as Canonical developers are not keen on moving to the latest version of Gnome (http://www.webupd8.org/2013/10/ubuntu-1404-lts-to-stay-on-gt...) and longer term the focus will be on QT and other technologies as Unity and Mir mature.
I left Ubuntu just because I don't trust them (issues 2 and 3), but I don't understand why people make a big deal about the default DE. I switched to Mint because I know everything "just works" with my laptop on it, and just changed the DE to i3. I previously used i3 on Ubuntu with no problem, I can't imagine it'd be too hard to use xfce or whatever else you wanted on Ubuntu.
I consider myself a power-user, I have used a myriad of operating systems, from Slackware to Gentoo, OpenBSD or Plan9.
Yet I like Ubuntu, the desktop works just fine (Believe it or not, I find Unity a nice DE) I can find practically any application in it's repositories (Or by PPA/Deb) and I can install an LTS and forget about upgrading for years.
Is there anything wrong with this? I find the new Dash Amazon search stupid but it's one click away of being disabled, and I'm not happy with Mark's opinions but that doesn't affect directly my experience with the OS.
So I don't see what the big fuss is about, many people say Ubuntu is not Linux anymore, and I agree in some sense; but I like what Canonical is doing with Ubuntu.
So until I find another distro that suits me, I will stay with Ubuntu, that doesn't mean I don't love Gentoo or Arch anymore, but lately I need to get work done, and my parents are using this PC therefore it needs to be available 24/7 without any kind of breakage.
I've also switched to Debian, back in August. I don't like Unity, but the deciding factor was the rolling update characteristic of Debian Testing. Ubuntu just plain breaks in every semi-annual update, and I missed the rolling aspect of Gentoo (which I used before Ubuntu).
Debian testing is reasonably up to date, updates continuously and requires much less maintenance than Gentoo. It's about as hassle-free as Ubuntu. Ubuntu does have some useful PPAs, but if you pick the right version, you can just add an Ubuntu PPA to Debian and it will work.
I could live without some of the political aspects of Debian (there's no Firefox in the default repos???), but they are really just minor hassles. Import a couple PPAs, and you are rolling.
For those of you looking for an alternate distro, my shortlist was Debian Testing and Arch Linux. Arch does look like it has a killer community: techie and helpful, lots of available documentation, much like what I remember from Gentoo. Debian won because I'm less inclined to workstation tweaking and more inclined to real work nowadays.
It would be much more informative to hear from people who use Debian for things that require 3D acceleration -- Minecraft, running Windows games under Wine, Blender.
I have a laptop with nVidia Optimus, so I use Bumblebee. Ah, I see this is in the Debian repos [1] -- maybe I should give Debian a try!
My recommendation: Arch Linux. Focusing on "bleeding edge" is nothing to scoff at, a lot of the software coming out lately get major improvements almost weekly.
There is also the fact that you're running a clean system. You install once, grab what you need, and you're left with a stable system where every potential problem has a very easy and well-documented fix. You do not suffer things like screen tearing because some unwanted compositor you do not actually use is conflicting with your Desktop Environment.
There are plenty of good distros, and they all have the lack of Ubuntu in common, my favorite is Arch, but your own opinion is the only one that matters, take an afternoon to check out the various favorites.
After having used Ubuntu, Arch and now Debian testing, I can say that Ubuntu is a great way to get to know Linux. At least it was when I used it with Gnome 2.8. At some point I grew tired of all the unnecessary software bloat, though. I loved Arch, until the moment I had to unexpectedly fix a non-booting system after some update. It just wasn't for me, although the minimalism of it felt great.
Now to Debian testing. It's almost perfect. I'm missing a bleeding-edge software update from time to time, but usually you can cherry-pick from Debian sid. There haven't been any issues with updates breaking stuff. I'm using XFCE, so it is fairly light-weight. I can even install Steam and play a game from time to time. It gets out of my way when I want to be productive, but I can still customize it without it getting bloated.
I have to disagree. Ubuntu is a great way to get to know Ubuntu. Debian, while _incredible_ has somewhat the same flaw, but in its case is worth the tradeoff.
Slackware or Arch are great ways to get to know Linux.
I must disagree with you in turn, in most particulars. Arch's wiki is an information source par excellence, and I find that the information contained therein is often just what I need to get my Debian system working correctly. The init systems will likely diverge at some point, but as far as I know that decision is not final yet, and I prefer systemd anyway. Are there some particulars you can divulge?
Ubuntu, like most mainstream distributions, has design choices and UI that abstracts away as much as possible the act of administering a Linux system. A lot of things you will do on Ubuntu are specific to Ubuntu systems, and even more so with distros like RHEL and Gentoo. Then you have oddities like GoboLinux.
It's one of the oldest sayings in the community that "if you know Slackware, you know Linux". This is somewhat less true for Arch but pretty close and still has the same spirit.
I've run Slackware, Debian, you name it and built my own LFS systems and run those as well. Slackware is as "raw Linux" as it gets, but due to frustrations with recent versions, I switched to Arch and haven't looked back for my Linux systems. It makes administration much simpler without having to do much that's specific to the distro and different from what you should expect in Linux.
That isn't something even remotely true about Ubuntu -- and apparently getting less so as time goes on.
tl;dr: what I'm trying to say here is that there are users and there are administrators. If you can't administrate your Linux system, you don't know Linux. Ubuntu tries to be a Linux system for users without needing to be a sysadmin. This is an idea that's "okay" I guess but in my opinion still not ready for primetime. Using a Ubuntu system isn't "knowing Linux".
While great points are made in each successive post, my child poster specified "Ubuntu with Gnome", which is a long time ago, in fact that was back when Ubuntu (IMO) was the best entry into Linux.
Now, I feel Ubuntu took away the administrative capabilities of a system that has not yet grown out of its need to be administered.
What stops you from saying that "Arch is a great way to know Arch" then? It's not as if it doesn't have its own package manager and all, like any other distro...
It's not the having a package manager that makes it specific, it's that it's ports-like. It's also a great feature that I'm a huge fan of.
It doesn't do nearly as much patching as other distros (save for Slackware or CRUX) to packages making reporting bugs upstream much more straightforward.
Arch is one. Continuous updating (never having to reinstall, nor running an LTS with 4 year old software), pretty much any software you might ever need in the official repositories or in the AUR (Arch User Repository), lots of freedom to tinker.
Updating it needs some care, since once every few months a breaking change is announced requiring some manual intervention. But that's not a problem if you subscribe to the mailing list.
> Also, would anyone talk about FreeBSD vs Linux? What are some reasons to choose each?
As a huge FreeBSD supporter, I feel there are many great reasons to choose FreeBSD, between the theoretical: well designed kernel, unified system; direct lineage to Unix; to the more legal: permissive licensing model; and the more technical; UFS support, BSD Jails, security work leaching over from OpenBSD. And personally, Ports being my favorite (source) packaging system.
But Linux has the killer feature: GPU support. Now, this is generally down to better community on the desktop, and the entire ecosystem is better, between drivers. Windowing systems, Video Games.
So even I, a massive FreeBSD supporter, have stopped running FreeBSD on my desktop out of pure practicality. It just isn't practical to do such.
Head over to distrowatch.com, and just download a handful of distributions that look interesting to you. Either run a liveCD or install to virtualbox. May be I'm a dork but I find seeing what other people put together quite interesting.
For the non-linux experienced I would recommend starting with Mint (of which there are 4 versions, Cinnamon, MATE, KDE, Xfce.)
I use Arch in my personal machine but Linux Mint for work (http://www.linuxmint.com/about.php). It is also based on Debian and Ubuntu, but they're not set on simplifying the desktop the way Ubuntu is. In fact, they have an experimantal desktop (cinnamon, http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/) which aims to be a modern desktop for people who want more than gnome offers, and looks great.
I recently changed a machine to Arch after a failed Ubuntu 13.10 upgrade. Its very strange. I was able to build a cross compiler following clear instructions:
Arch is great, but you can get yourself into a world of hurt if you do not remember to do a system update every couple of days. I've b0rked a couple of Arch installs this way and fixing them is an hour or two of frustration usually.
I've used FreeBSD as my desktop for a long time and would continue using it if it supported the hardware in my new home machine (no drivers for this particular WiFi USB adapter, and not that great support for Intel graphics[1], unfortunately I was in a hurry and didn't have the time to pick and choose the hardware). I have only the best words for FreeBSD. The best way I would describe the experience of using it is you can just feel the clarity of thought that the commiters have. Almost everything is really well thought out, clean, logical and backed with fairly good arguments. Documentation is excellent -- I never had to dig around the internet to find a solution. Everything is well explained in The Handbook[2] or the man pages. A few corner cases you might encounter usually get solved quickly on the very helpful mailing lists. The community is likewise excellent. Aside from a few snide regulars (just users, not developers), people are very helpful and polite.
Ever since I switched to Linux (it's been a few months now) because of those drivers issues, a small part of me dies every time I sit in front of this machine. :) What comforts me is that FreeBSD is focused on the server side, and doesn't compromise that for desktop battles which IMHO are lost to proprietary systems anyway. I would gladly accept using any convenient piece of crap on the desktop, such as Ubuntu or any other Linux distro, if that means FreeBSD stays focused on serious business(tm). On the server, you can take it from my cold dead hands.
Now, to get in the right state of mind for using it on the desktop you have to understand one simple fact -- no desktop related software is part of FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a whole operating system developed in unison consisting of the kernel, standard BSD and POSIX userspace and some necessary third party software without which it would simply not be a complete Unix system. Everything X (and desktop) related is part of the Ports system (i.e. third party software ported to FreeBSD but not part of it). This means that if you want Ubuntu level integration and functionality of your desktop you'll have to configure it yourself. I've seen many people who didn't understand this point clearly get frustrated and angry and miss the beauty of it.
So, for desktop use:
Pros (in no particular order):
* The sound system -- unlike the Linux mess, FreeBSD always had a sound sound system. ;) No need for PulseAudios of the day or whatnot to get multichannel, etc. it's all working right there in the kernel.
* The Ports -- you simply get the latest versions of applications as soon as available. Note however that sometimes Ports contributors and commiters can lag and you might end up waiting, but since the Ports tree is unique and shared among all supported releases of the system there is no policy of keeping outdated version of applications (it's partially a side effect of the fact that Ports are not part of the system and as such need not be stable, although some important things, and where it makes sense, have multiple versions maintained). High profile software usually gets updated within a few days.
* One of my favourites is GELI, the GEOM[3] module for disk encryption. It's so straightforward and easy to use (command line tools only) it's a real joy. It supports cool stuff like having a USB stick as a token in addition to a password. Because it's part of GEOM you can layer things completely freely, although with some caveats if you use GPT partitions.
* Some enterprise/server class features that might come in handy on the desktop -- Jails, GEOM in general, ZFS, PF...
* For Linux only applications there's Linuxulator (kernel translation for system calls) which works great although it's a bit dated (I think it doesn't support stuff added since Linux 2.4, may get updated eventually). Works with no performance penalty.
* Sanity and peace of mind (granted, this is subjective)
Cons:
* It may not have the drivers for some popular desktop hardware. FreeBSD is really server and enterprise oriented and it shows in driver availability. YMMV and always check the Hardware Notes for a particular release. Nvidia cards are fully supported with the proprietary driver.
* My personal pet peeve -- for years and years TeX Live wasn't available for FreeBSD. It's slowly changing and it should go into the Ports replacing the ancient teTeX (similar for Sage Math).
* The Ports -- yes they are in the cons too. While it didn't bother me that much, building stuff from source can be a burden. On faster machines it's not that scary, but each time Perl, pcre or something other that a lot of stuff depends on gets a version bump, if you're not careful, things can get hairy. On the other hand PKGNG, the new binary package management system, is great and once the new format packages become widely and officially available all of this will become a non-issue.
* As I said, you have to configure most things of interest on a desktop machine yourself. Apart from what vanilla desktop environments offer themselves, there is very little system level hand holding. OTOH, most if not all of it is documented.
* I'm not sure of Gnome 3 status right now, there were some problems. KDE 4 on the other hand has a great ports team supporting it and it's regulary updated, no problems there.
General remarks that are neither cons nor pros:
* Flash works fine in my experience (since it's Flash for Linux it requires Linux emulation enabled) but since HTML 5 become the norm I never bothered with it (for stuff not supporting HTML 5 video I just used applications which use Mplayer to stream flv and that's actually how I prefer it).
* Gaming -- if it works in Wine it will work in FreeBSD (having an Nvidia card is recomended).
[1] The basics work from 9-RELEASE onward at least up to Ivy Bridge graphics, but going to console from X via Alt+Ctrl+F<n> doesn't work and I think there are some other minor issues. Nothing absolutely critical, but I like things that work to work properly, it's the FreeBSD way after all.
I have both installed for a few years now (Debian on Desktop and Server, Ubuntu on Laptop). First of all every article mentioning something like "I switched recently and everything is fine" just gives me a little sad smile. Yes - every Distro after a fresh install will usually work pretty well by now. Problems tend to show after using it daily for a few months.
My experience is that new Ubuntu versions tend to mess up things often, but I also notice that stuff gets fixed rather often within days. And otherwise one can find lots of workarounds and help thanks to a large and active community. That includes a workaround to disable the internet search for everything in the dash for example.
Debian is fantastic on the server and updates just worked there for me so far. On the Desktop on the other hand the situation is a lot more problematic. Old desktop software is generally just worse than newer one. And software on Debian tends to be outdated so much that I run constantly into old bugs which are solved often for months or even years in current application versions, but not yet in Debian. Pretty much every Desktop application where you want newer versions is simply not available. And applications generally won't get updated between release cycles because that's just not what stable does (except for security fixes). Even finding a browser which simply runs on all websites tends to be a constant pain. So you start trying to work with backports, custom compiled versions, installing packages build for Ubuntu and whatever you can do to get applications you need running - which can cause more and more problems in your system and you will get less and less help from the Debian community because those are (understandably) not "their" packages.
When you bring up those problems the community often recommends using "testing" or "unstable" and while those generally have newer apps they are still mostly outdated. Also while most updates on testing and unstable work most of the time they did mess up my system once in a while on updates so badly that I tended to only update on weekends after a while to have enough time to fix my system before I had to work with it again for the week (which is why I switched to only using stable now for the last 3 versions, maybe unstable/testing have gotten better since then, I can't tell about that).
I still love Debian for it's policy and community. And because I can fix problems often myself (or with the help of the community) and hope that my feedback is useful once in a while and will improve it in the long term I still continue to use it despite the pain. But unfortunately I can't recommend any Debian version right now for the Desktop for people without good Unix knowledge unless they work only with a very restricted set of desktop applications (so might be fine for company desktops where users are not allowed to install anything anyway).
> Pretty much every Desktop application where you want
> newer versions is simply not available.
I'll never understand why this argument is made so frequently. The only explanation I can think of is that I use entirely different apps than most people do.
I use Debian Stable on my desktop computer, and I have the latest, or nearly the latest, versions of the apps that I use most. I use backports, third-party repos, and binaries that I download directly from upstream. For example, I get the following apps from the sources listed below:
Things change all the time. Last time I searched (shortly after wheezy release when I first needed a newer Firefox and Iceweasel was not yet in backports) I couldn't find a current Firefox version build which worked on 64-bit Linux. So yeah - your link is one I haven't seen back then (not checking every week...) so I installed the nightly build instead which was recommended to me. Which worked for a while - until I think maybe 2 weeks ago when it first had some troubles on screen-updates, which got fixed one release later, but that fix-release broke flash (I stopped counting how often flash broke after an update by now, yeah, we all hate it, but still...). But thanks for the link, I will give that release you posted a shot next weekend - maybe I get a working browser back then for a while. Note - you can get stuff working again always in some way, but over the years I had to do that for a working browser over and over and over again every few months!
And well, I mentioned backports and binaries and compiling stuff yourself etc. But that has it's own share of troubles. Problems I had with backports for example had been package conflicts and missing source dependencies, which means hunting problems in there sometimes already fails in the "get shit compiling" stage. Then certainly not all apps are in there. A quick check for the apps I use often showed: Pidgin and xchat are in there (but both 1 version behind, which means several months...) while clang, Filezilla, MyPaint, Pencil and Audacity for example are not.
A quick comparison on my Laptop showed that for all of those except Pencil (which seems outdated on both systems) newer versions are available at the moment in Ubuntu - in around half the time even the most current version. Also one gets a simple installer with the newest version for each of those (except clang) on Windows (just somewhat sad to see how it is often easier to run free software tools on Windows).
And this is still pretty much at start of this release cycle, experience tells me that it tends to get worse until the end.
For me there is a more mundane reason why I think about switching my servers over from Ubuntu to Debian.
"Graphics"
That's right. It seems that Ubutu even on servers starts some high-res console or does other stuff that causes a black screen during boot. It requires fiddling with alt-fx keys to get a console. I never had such issues with Debian.
I switched away from Debian because so many software was out-dated and an installation has max 3 years of support (Love the Ubuntu LTS versions), which I care about because I don't have a fully-automated server/service deployment environment using Ansible or something and manual reinstalling a server is a chore, especially if it's not really necessary.
I have the Ubuntu LTS installed on most of my servers and I've never had to worry about graphics or using Alt+Fx (those are the extra tty's on the desktop Ubuntu for me).
According to the Ubuntu documentation [1]:
"Unlike the desktop version, Ubuntu Server does not include a graphical installation program. Instead the Server Edition uses a console menu-based process."
There is no "graphics" issue for me. Are you sure you were installing Ubuntu Server and not Ubuntu Desktop?
Yes I'm sure, during installation it's all ncurses/text, but when boot, it does use some high-res graphics mode showing the ubuntu logo. I like the high-res console, very spiffy, but it often causes troubles on the hardware I used.
>It seems that Ubutu even on servers starts some high-res console or does other stuff that causes a black screen during boot. It requires fiddling with alt-fx keys to get a console.
That sounds like it might be a side effect of kernel mode setting and/or splash screens. You can try to disable both by changing
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash <possibly some other things>"
to
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset <possibly some other things>"
in /etc/default/grub and see if it still happens.
Edit: I'm assuming you're using Ubuntu Server or Minimal CD.
I recently switched to Ubuntu from FreeBSD because of driver support problems (i.e. not willingly) and here's my take:
* Unity: I don't see what the big deal is. Granted, it's a subjective thing. As someone who generally dislikes DEs and would normally use just a tiling window manager maybe I don't appreciate the finer points in DE wars. I've been reluctant to install Xmonad because of the fear of what might break, and I have to say I've had no particular annoyances with Unity which I wouldn't have with any other desktop environment. Indeed, all the annoying stuff actually comes from GNOME components that they left. I find the Dash and HUD quite nice.
* Online scopes and advertising. In recent years I've come to the conclusion that a free (as in beer) general population friendly OS just isn't going to happen. The work needed to polish things to compete with Windows and OS X in this aspect is extremely boring. No hacker (or even average programmer) is going to spend his free time doing that. You have to be paid to do it. The money has to come from somewhere, thus advertising. I'm not a big fan this, but what Canonical is doing is at the moment our best shot of having a viable desktop OS which just works and lets you get on with your life (and even Ubuntu isn't there yet). And you can disable it with a single switch. Big deal.
* Shuttleworth trolling people... Well, it's certainly legitimate to not want to use an OS developed by a company owned by a person who says controversial stuff, but I don't see the technical angle. For example, is OS X better of worse because Jobs was a strange type? And as for Mir (that's what the issue revolves around), if Mir is a bad idea Wayland is also a bad idea. You just can't think Wayland is all peachy and Mir a horrible thing because they both basically do the same thing. All the talk about splitting the community (what community would that be?) makes no sense -- if Canonical decided they need complete control of their graphics stack it's a legitimate decision, and no one has any moral ground to attack that decision. In developing Mir they are not interfering with Wayland in any way, they are simply not participating. (BTW, I don't think either Wayland or Mir are good ideas, we'll end up with the situation we have in OS X, where X can be tacked on when necessary, and it is often necessary, with who knows what kind of crappy support.)
I'm no fan of Shuttleworth or Ubuntu, I really just don't care about either on any emotional level, but I'd like a FOSS OS which is also free as in beer AND just works on the desktop and lets me get on with my work and life. After you get to a certain age in life, fiddling with the OS gets old real fast.
I'd like to see CentOS, but with the desktop environment stuff kept more up to date.. Would give you solid underpinnings that lasts for years, then a modern UI on top (Gnome 3, KDE what have you, Chrome, Firefox).. I know its mostly doable, and did use a CentOS 6 desktop until a while ago, but ran into some issues with modern desktop apps.
I also had an experience of installing debian recently, and finding it 'just work' extremely well.
Especially if you have a set up (window-manager, etc) that you like and aren't searching for a new cool updated-by-other-people UI (like windows, OSX, KDE, Gnome and Unity), then debian is really quite easy to set up.
I have hopes for the Tanglu project delivering on the promise of rolling releases based on Debian Testing for desktop use. But they aren't quite there yet unfortunately.
RHEL/CentOS currently provide ten years of (varying levels of) support in total for each release [1]. After that there's also the Extended Life Cycle Support.
But you don't get all the benefits :( For example, Xubuntu (IIRC) won't even have a Wifi widget for setting up your network. If you mount a pendrive, how do you access? You have to open a a file explorer or you won't see it... etc.
Debian Edition aside, the things people complain about are generally things that Mint removes; in fact, looking at the three bullet points from the original article:
* Unity - Completely ignored in Mint, in favor of MATE (Gnome 2 fork) and Cinnamon (Gnome 3 fork, I believe?)
* Amazon Search - removed
* Mark Shuttleworth - Only upstream where no one has to care about him
+1 Mint. I used Ubuntu, not Debian, because things "just worked." Ubuntu over time seemed to get slower and more intrusive, so I tried out Mint. It is fast, not over complex, and things like media and devices Just Work. I'm a fan of the Cinnamon interface, although in practice I use a minimal tiling window manager like i3 or wmii.
I'm a big fan of the Debian way of doing things. Next time I have an excuse I'll try LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition.)
I wonder who out of today's major players could be the next big thing. OpenSUSE seems the closest to Ubuntu in terms of user friendliness (Linus' comments notwithstanding) due to tools like YaST [1] and a PPA-like mechanism called the openSUSE Build Server for extra prebuilt software [2]. People certainly have speculated about it online for a while but we're yet to see an exodus of Ubuntu users to openSUSE.
On a related note, a major thing Ubuntu and its derivatives have going for them is the great font rendering out of the box. I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches [3], as defaults.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YaST
[2] That said, although I've been following their releases lately I haven't used a SUSE distribution as a daily driver since SUSE 9.3, so I don't know how the quality compares; any openSUSE users here that can chime in with a comment?
[3] See http://www.infinality.net/blog/.