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reviewer930072 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Open-source, easy to use, and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is simple."
  • "We'd like to have a bit more of a friendly user interface."

What is our primary use case?

We are primarily using the solution for programming. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is very easy to use.

We find the solution quite stable. 

The solution is cheap and open-source. It's not expensive at all.

The initial setup is simple.

What needs improvement?

We'd like to have a bit more of a friendly user interface. 

They seem to put out new releases too often and the solution changes too quickly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for more than ten years. 

Buyer's Guide
Ubuntu Linux
September 2025
Learn what your peers think about Ubuntu Linux. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product has been good. There are no bugs or glitches. The performance is good. It doesn't crash or freeze on us. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have more than 100 users on this solution currently.

How are customer service and support?

I've never contacted technical support. I just use the solution for personal tasks. I haven't had any issues that required me having to reach out to support for assistance. 

How was the initial setup?

We found the initial setup to be very easy. We simply downloaded it from the internet.

I'm only part of a small department. Therefore, I'm not sure, company-wide, how many people are needed to perform maintenance, or if any maintenance is required. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is open-source. We don't have to pay in order to use it. I use it for personal use, and therefore it is free.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a customer and an end-user.

We're using the latest version of the solution. With Ubuntu, you need to configure and install some packages.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been quite happy with the solution's capabilities. 

Ubuntu is easy to use, and user-friendly. However, sometimes, it changes too quickly, and they release changes too quickly.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
VamsiKrishna2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Trainee at Eidiko
Real User
Refreshes automatically and works well
Pros and Cons
  • "Windows needs a refresh option to refresh its screen, but Ubuntu doesn't need that. It refreshes automatically and works well."
  • "It could be better for working with software at a high resolution."

What is our primary use case?

We have 250 to 300 users in our organization working with Ubuntu, including about 50 engineers.

What is most valuable?

Ubuntu is quite flexible. It is a direct software, where we can work directly on its OS. It works to its maximum capacity. Windows needs a refresh option to refresh its screen, but Ubuntu doesn't need that. It refreshes automatically and works well.

What needs improvement?

But it could be better for working with software at a high resolution. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Ubuntu for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Ubuntu is stable. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Ubuntu an eight out of 10. It could be easier to learn and have better documentation. With Windows, it is quite easy to learn from a particular guide or manual. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Ubuntu Linux
September 2025
Learn what your peers think about Ubuntu Linux. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user1556859 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Director at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
User-friendly, plenty of features, and secure
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Ubuntu Linux are it is user-friendly, has plenty of features that you can develop and builds your own code. Additionally, it is secure and easy to operate."
  • "The solution could improve by having better integration."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Ubuntu Linux for running applications.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Ubuntu Linux are it is user-friendly, has plenty of features that you can develop and builds your own code. Additionally, it is secure and easy to operate.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve by having better integration.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Ubuntu Linux for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is bug-free and stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have approximately 400 people using this solution in my organization.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is easy and takes less than 20 minutes.

What about the implementation team?

I can do the implementation myself. However, we have a five-person technical team of mostly engineers that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is open source and we do not need to pay for a license.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Ubuntu Linux an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1053252 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Presales Consultant/ Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
MSP
Open-source, user-friendly, stable, and has a good online community
Pros and Cons
  • "The main distinguishing feature between Ubuntu and other Linux distribution is that Ubuntu has excelled at user-friendliness. It's very easy to use."
  • "One of the reasons people don't use Ubuntu on servers is because they are not as secure as Red Hat."

What is our primary use case?

I don't use Ubuntu very much, but I have been testing it for approximately ten years. 

There are some that are running their data centers off of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Linux can be used for anything. Anything that you can do on Windows, you can do in Ubuntu. For example Microsoft Office, Microsoft is really famous for, their Windows platforms, and Office suite. 

In the past, the open-source community had alternative software such as Open Office or even another project called Libre Office. These open-source solutions provided an office suite similar to Microsoft Office. However, with the new Office 365, you don't need Windows to work on Office these days. Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel are all web-based. You can run Ubuntu and open your Firefox browser and use it.

What is most valuable?

The best way and the easiest way to get into Linux is with Ubuntu because they provide lots of hardware support out of the box.

You don't have to go into the deep parts with Ubuntu to install and configure it. There are many, ready-made guides online for Ubuntu, which is good. 

The Linux distribution is the best for laptops. If you are using laptops, you don't want to be running Oracle Linux there or Red Hat. It's going to be Ubuntu.

I like the easiness of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a great product. It's awesome.

Canonical as a company, who is responsible for Ubuntu, is doing a great job at making Ubuntu very easy, plug and play, and they are good at porting applications to Ubuntu. If you're talking about Linux, the easiest Linux distribution you can encounter is Ubuntu.

The distribution with the most packages available to it is Ubuntu.

In terms of user-friendliness, Ubuntu is the best it can get in the Linux world. To say that it could be improved would be unfair. They are the ones bridging the user-friendliness gap in the Linux world.

The main distinguishing feature between Ubuntu and other Linux distribution is that Ubuntu has excelled at user-friendliness. It's very easy to use.

What needs improvement?

Ubuntu, as a distribution itself, is filled up with a lot of bloated software. That is the main reason why enterprise companies, mainly in the US, prefer to go with Red Hat, and SUSE is preferred mainly in Europe. 

Red Hat and SUSE provide less bloat on their OS.

Ubuntu is based on Debian, which is the first Linux distribution to ever come into existence, or the first mainstream Linux distribution. Debian also is bloated with a lot of software and sometimes some of the software is old. 

I would love to see Ubuntu strip down. They have a server edition that is stripped down.

Instead of having a billion different distributions, why can't there just be one? This would improve Linux and I would love to see this happen.

One of the reasons people don't use Ubuntu on servers is because they are not as secure as Red Hat. They could be more secure, but for them to be more secure, you need to strip the bloatware. Bloatware is when you have several applications that are not needed and already installed in the operating system. They have a server edition and that comes stripped of the bloatware.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Ubuntu Linux for more than ten years.

I have used the latest edition of Ubuntu Linux. If I am not mistaken, the latest release is 20.04 LTS.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is a broad topic. Ubuntu is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability? It Depends. It's Linux, you can do anything with it. 

It depends on what you mean by scalability. You have to be very precise. If you're talking about data center and scalability, then, yes, it's scalable. 

There are open-source projects that are being used, whether it be with Ubuntu or with Red Hat or with SUSE, to scale data centers, or to establish a scale-out architecture. It is possible to achieve scalability with Ubuntu, depending on the scenario. 

With any other Linux distribution, you can achieve quite the same.

How are customer service and technical support?

There is a large community online.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I'm using something called Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux.

I have used many operating systems. I have used Debian, CentOS, Fedora, Red Hat, and SUSE.

I have also used distributions that have very weird names as well.

How was the initial setup?

Linux has always been a technology for technical people. Ubuntu bridges that gap. With Ubuntu, you don't need to know the technical parts of it very well to install it on a laptop and you can use Ubuntu without having any Linux knowledge.

It is very straightforward and can be installed anywhere. That's the convenience of it. 

For example, if tomorrow you face an issue and you Google it online, you will find many people who face the same issue and will provide workarounds or resolutions for the problem.

It is very easy to install.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the hardware you are installing it on, but normally it is 20 to 30 minutes to install onto a laptop or a server.

What about the implementation team?

You can install it yourself. It is similar to installing Windows. There is no difference. You burn the ISO image to the USB, boot the server or the laptop and follow the instructions. You click the "next" button until it is complete and you are good to go. You give it your password, the settings that you would like, and that's it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Ubuntu is a free product. 

If I am not mistaken, you can purchase support contracts that are available from Ubuntu.

You can always purchase Ubuntu, use it as often as you would like, and you can get enterprise support. 

Canonical has its licensing scheme, but I think the product is free to use. 

It has a GPL license, (General Public License). This license is always and will always be free to use. 

I am not familiar with the prices because I never had to contact Canonical for support and inquired about how much it would cost for their support. 

In general, you can always download their software and install it at any time for free and use it for free, according to the GPL license.

What other advice do I have?

I am mainly a free VM Linux advocate. I love open-source products in general. 

At home, I have a server I'm running Linux on. I'm a Linux open-source enthusiast with more than 10 years of experience with multiple Linux distributions as a hobby. 

In my line of business, I interact with Linux environments a lot and Unix space environments in general.

I would recommend Ubuntu for anyone who's trying to learn Linux. 

For anyone who is not technical but wants a free operating system on their computer, I would definitely recommend Ubuntu.

I think there's something that needs to be clarified; Ubuntu shouldn't be compared to other distributions. These are just distributions. In the end, they share the same kernel. That is the thing with Linux. Linux is not a complete operating system. I will take the kernel, I will bundle it with a bunch of applications and then I will release it to the public and say that this is a distribution, which is not an operating system. 

I would recommend that it be compared based on the kernel, not on distribution to distribution. Ubuntu was made for something. It was made to be user-friendly, it was made for laptops. It is doing a great job on that. 

No other Linux distribution is doing as good of a job on that. For example, Red Hat or Oracle Linux, are not good on laptops, but they are good for servers. Red Hat is really good on enterprise servers.

If you are going to run any data centers that are all based on Linux, it should be based on Red Hat or SUSE. If you are running any Oracle databases or Oracle applications, it would be better to run them on Oracle Linux, even though Oracle Linux and Red Hat share the same binaries. 

There is no difference between the commands in Red Hat and Oracle Linux.

Linux is a messed up world. Everybody has their own agenda, their own thing and it's basically the same. If you go to Ubuntu with Oracle Linux in the back end, it's the exact same. 

This is the biggest nightmare with the Linux industry or the Linux world, that every day there is a new Linux distribution.

It's great. I would rate Ubuntu Linux and eight out of 10. 

It's a great product, very easy to install. It provides an alternative for Windows. 

Some people don't want to pay Microsoft or can't afford Microsoft, they want to have their own operating system solo on their hardware. Ubuntu provides that and gives you the option to give you support for it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1635111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Programma / Project Manager at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Open-source, scalable, and easy to install
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is stable."
  • "The learning curve is quite high for non-technical users. Therefore, it's not a suitable solution for a general office environment."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for data storage. 

What is most valuable?

The data storage capabilities are great.

We love the fact that this solution is open-source. It's free to use.

The product can scale.

The solution is stable. 

The solution is easy to install.

What needs improvement?

I can't really speak to any missing features.

There are some costs on offer that could be lower.

The learning curve is quite high for non-technical users. Therefore, it's not a suitable solution for a general office environment.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for five years. It's been a while, although I don't use it too much.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. We have found that there aren't any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is quite scalable. If you need to expand it, you can do so as a company. 

It's the base of our data platform. 70,000 people are using it. The IT team alone is 5,000 to 6,000 people. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I've never dealt with technical support directly. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are, as I have never called them for assistance.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have two major operating systems: Microsoft and Linux. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution is quite straightforward and easy to install. It's not too complex or difficult. However, I cannot speak to how long it takes to deploy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is open-source. I'm not sure if we pay for any licensing or services and if we do, I am not sure of the exact costs. It's not a part of my responsibilities.  

What other advice do I have?

We use both cloud and on-premises deployment methods. 

I'm not sure which specific versions we are using and if they are the latest or not. 

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been quite satisfied with the product so far. It's been great.

I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies. I wouldn't recommend it if you were deploying it as an office environment, however, for the data platform, it's perfect.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Dimitris Iracleous - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Technical Instructor at Code.Hub
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Is stable and flexible
Pros and Cons
  • "Ubuntu Linux is flexible because it has a lot of new features, so you can use it without any problems."
  • "You have to do a lot of configurations yourself. It is not very user friendly."

What is our primary use case?

It can be used to write an application that is for all kinds of users to operate as an independent application.

What is most valuable?

Ubuntu Linux is flexible because it has a lot of new features, so you can use it without any problems.

It is a stable, open source solution as well.

What needs improvement?

You have to do a lot of configurations yourself. It is not very user friendly, but if you wanted to be a technical person, you may use it. However, you may still have a lot of difficulty with the configuration.

They could make more automations for the average user.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for 6 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never had problems with stability.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is straightforward, but you have to study beforehand. It isn't as straightforward as Windows is. You have to know some things you have to do.

It took about two hours, but it could be higher than that because we had to check for things. We didn't need a lot of reboots as compared with Windows, but I had to decide a lot of technical things during the installation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's an open source solution, but you can make donations if you'd like to.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Ubuntu Linux at eight and would recommend it to those would like to implement it.

For average users, I would recommend Windows because it's the system most people use. If they are gamers, they will not find any game applications, as Ubuntu Linux is mostly for developers.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1428423 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Technical Support at a real estate/law firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Easy to set up, simple to use, and doesn't drain battery power on laptops
Pros and Cons
  • "It's faster than Windows."
  • "When you talk of some of the flexibility, like you want to install from scratch, Windows is more user-friendly compared to Linux."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for our Linux servers. 

We use it for file transfer and remote desktop connections.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very simple.

I like that it doesn't get corrupted as easily as Windows. When it comes to viruses, it's more secure.

Especially on laptops, it doesn't drain much battery.

The solution is straightforward to set up.

It's faster than Windows.

What needs improvement?

When you talk of some of the flexibility, like you want to install from scratch, Windows is more user-friendly compared to Linux. Linux is more for the more techie people. You have to go through a terminal, a prompt to do some setup, and other things. Windows offers more help for you when you install it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for more than five years at this point. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't gone through scalability. It's more for an individual setup in my case. However, they're supposed to be much faster than Windows.

We only have a couple of people using it in our organization, as most actually use Windows. 

How are customer service and technical support?

We don't use technical support. We have our own team and we learn as we go on our own.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've also used Windows. I prefer Linux over Windows. We're doing some testing where we hope that we can put some applications in Linux eventually. We're testing Docker and similar solutions.

How was the initial setup?

It's very similar to Windows 10 in terms of installation. If you're using a desktop, then more or less you can find those commands in Windows Servers as well. However, for Linux, it's a bit more in its own process. Linux is good on its own. The difference with Windows is Windows would require a lot of licensing, and their applications slow down.

When you install it, it's easy. However, there are some applications for which you have to look for help online. There are commands that you can use to be able to install them.

If you compare it to Windows, Windows is basically straightforward. It's easier to install Windows than Unbuntu Linux. When you talk servers, when you talk of workstations, Windows is a bit faster. The way I see it, we do have to do some settings, however, when you're able to run the installation properly, Linux ends up being much faster to run as the boot time is a few seconds faster, and shutdown time is much, much faster.  

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Unlike Windows, which you have to pay for, this solution is free for the most part. We don't use it too much and therefore do not incur much of a cost.

Licensing is basically just for some applications. You get licenses if you want them to support you for Linux. For Ubuntu, you don't pay licenses. You pay for the support if you want them to support you.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We may have evaluated other options, however, it was a long time ago. 

What other advice do I have?

For Linux, we're using Ubuntu. We have set up everything using Ubuntu. We do have some servers with Oracle Enterprise Linux. Those are running inside our HP DL380 servers. And then I do have Linux Mint and Elementary OS on my laptop and in my desktop at home.

I use multiple versions of the solution, including 20.04, 18.04, and 16.04.

We do have so many players in the Linux field. You do have Canonical, and they have their own Linux. Then, you have others that are based on Ubuntu. Ubuntu is based on the Debian model. You also have, on the other side, Red Hat and the SUSE Linux, which is IBM Linux. There are different providers, however, the core is almost the same. It's more of the setup that is available for you.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1604358 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technician / Network & Systems Administrator, ITAS Program at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Versatile, highly-stable, and the best-supported one by the community
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the fact that I can make it very secure with my own knowledge, which makes it different from Windows that does things in the background by magic, and you hope that it's secure. I like the availability of starting with Linux with totally minimal permissions for anybody and then increasing it on an as-needed basis. This is probably the most important to me."
  • "The biggest improvement, which is also applicable to Linux in general, with Ubuntu Linux is getting things standardized as to where you're going to put your configuration files and how they're going to work. Package names also need to be improved so that the package name doesn't have any match with configuration file systems and things like that. Ubuntu is still better than some of the others, such as Red Hat Linux or CentOS."

What is our primary use case?

It is mainly a LAMP server with Apache, MySQL, PHP, and other things for the students to do their web development stuff. It's all done up with LDAP capabilities of getting into it. The web server side is open to the internet, so they can sit at home, VPN in, and do all their work. They can actually see what the public-facing side ends up looking like. Then we've got our main learning management system because we do our own self-hosted Moodle instance kind of thing. It's all running on a Linux server and doing well. Our DNS servers and things like that are all separate. Two of them are internet-facing, and one of them is internal.

I am very close to its latest version. I try and stick to using the long-term release versions, like every second year when they release the new long-term release one. So, I have some servers that are actually on 20.04, but I've got a web server at home that's on 16.04. I've got Nextcloud and things like that on that server, so I'm afraid to do a full load upgrade on it because I don't want to break anything. That's why I wish I had it set up as a virtual machine that I could take a snapshot of and blow it up and go, "Oh, okay. I'll revert." We can't do that with the hardware box.

In terms of its deployment, at work, I do everything on-premises in VMware vSphere itself. I work with the IT program at the university. It is an Applied Systems one, so it is a two-year diploma program. I've got a whole bunch of different servers set up for them, and it is a mix. Our domain itself is with Active Directory, and everything is Windows, and then just about everything else is running on Linux servers. Our VPN is also Windows because it makes it simpler for users to connect easily. You don't have to download keys and install them and then be able to talk to OpenVPN properly.

What is most valuable?

I like the fact that I can make it very secure with my own knowledge, which makes it different from Windows that does things in the background by magic, and you hope that it's secure. I like the availability of starting with Linux with totally minimal permissions for anybody and then increasing it on an as-needed basis. This is probably the most important to me. That's where I also love CentOS for Linux because you do a minimal install, and then there is a whole bunch of stuff you can't do without installing packages, which is quite nice in some ways and painful in other ways.

I like the versatility of it. When I first started here, which was like eight years ago, we were running some stuff as virtual machines inside a Linux host instead of doing it with VMware. Then we finally got VMware licensing, but before that, we were doing some virtual machines within Linux itself, and it was working quite well.

What needs improvement?

The biggest improvement, which is also applicable to Linux in general, with Ubuntu Linux is getting things standardized as to where you're going to put your configuration files and how they're going to work. Package names also need to be improved so that the package name doesn't have any match with configuration file systems and things like that. Ubuntu is still better than some of the others, such as Red Hat Linux or CentOS. For example, in your named server, the package itself will be BIND 9, but then the configuration files are in etc/named, and the service is called named. Why isn't the package name matching up? Little things like that prevent it from getting more mainstream use from everyday users. They should standardize things between different distributions and even inside the single distributions. You can't expect people to adopt it as your desktop system if you do weird things. It is great for us Linux nerds, and we can deal with it, but you can't expect your general public to just be able to jump in and say, "Oh, it's like this here, but it's not like it there."

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for probably 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is great. You turn it on, and it runs. I do have a couple of these that do automatic updates for the important stuff. I just get an email telling me that this is being updated so that I can check and make sure everything is okay, which is always the case, but it is worth checking anyway. You can back out of the updates fairly easily, unlike Windows that magically does things. I don't mind that in general, but you never really know what it is doing. It just says, "Oh, here are your updates. You've got these six things." You can't pick just one to update. You've just got to say, "Yeah, go ahead and update," and then hope it doesn't blow up in the meantime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I've never really scaled things up much. Usually, I pick a system and make it a certain size and availability. I've done it with virtual machines where I've increased drive space and things, but I've never really done the scalability side to where it can boost up another server to take a load off. I'd love to try it, but I've never had a situation where I really needed it.

In general, we have probably about 50 users at a time. It is not a huge number, but in terms of usage, it is extensively used. Ubuntu is just about everything other than the basic Windows domain stuff. Domain controllers and VPN are all we've got on Windows currently. 

Our situation right now is just right. I've got Jitsi Meet, which is a video conferencing type server, and I might increase capabilities there. In general, I don't think we're really going to expand much, but you never know in this day and age how much things change in IT. At one time, we were doing OpenStack ourselves, and I told people, "Yeah, we're competing with Amazon Web Services, but only at this little level." Finally, it got changed out anyway because they kept changing it so much.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've never dealt with their tech support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I personally used CentOS Linux quite a bit during most of our learning years in the IT program. Red Hat was kind of your big standard out there at the time. When I came into this job, because there were only a few things, what we had was really just Ubuntu Server. As we did bigger upgrades, I eventually started changing them and replaced the CentOS ones with Ubuntu ones just to standardize. They were kind of bouncing around at the time, and I don't like bouncing around too much.

I'm just about to do a project and try and switch that over to Windows. There is some stuff that I like with the Linux one, but I'd much rather manage it in Windows because it is much easier where you just say, "Add this host," and it's done. It is magic. It happens and updates everything and stuff. I don't have to go and remember to change the serial number. My biggest problem is that I'll make changes and save them, but nothing happens, and I go, "Why?"

How was the initial setup?

The installation is very straightforward for the desktop and the server. It comes up with that nice setup. I love the fact that you can take it off a USB stick as a live distribution, and then do your install and actually click the stuff that you would like it to install automatically, or you can wait until it's done as long as you know what you want to install. I do find it quite good.

For its maintenance, one person is required. I do it all. It's funny when we get our IT section to come down and give a briefing on how our whole IT department for the university works, and they talk about server group, networking group, project management group, etc. When they're finished, I go to the students, and I say, "So for the ITAS program itself, see all that on the board? That's me."

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is 100% free.

What other advice do I have?

I love using it. I'm strictly on the server-side. I've got a laptop with Ubuntu Desktop on it because we teach it here, so I might as well make sure I'm still playing with that a little bit once in a while, but I'm mainly on the server-side.

It is the best-supported one by the community. I still recommend it to anybody who asks me, "What should I do here?" It's nothing about our current CentOS turning into rolling releases, which has 14 million people in an uproar because they think, "Well, it has always been so stable without rolling releases. Why would you change it?" That doesn't bother me at all. I just look at that community being out there, whether it's Stack Overflow, Ubuntu forums or web pages, etc. There is just 10 times more information available for Ubuntu, which sometimes is harder to filter through. You'll get somebody's answer, but it's from a five-year-old distribution that isn't supported anymore, and it doesn't work that way anymore, but I do think the community itself is great.

I'm going to give Ubuntu Server a 10 out of 10 because it is so stable. I never had any issues with it in terms of stability. Even when I've done big upgrades where you got lots of stuff on an individual server and lots of different things going on, and you say, "Okay, do this distribution upgrade because it should be stable," it always works out. I've got one at home that I'm kind of scared to upgrade. I don't think I'll have a problem with it, but I'm kind of scared to do it anyway, just in case.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Ubuntu Linux Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: September 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Ubuntu Linux Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.