5 types of people who should be using Ubuntu

Since the the release of Ubuntu 8.04 a couple of weeks ago there has been a number of reviews done to show what is good or bad about Ubuntu. Reviews certainly have their place and we all like to know what is going to work and what we will have to tweak. However, I thought that perhaps a better question to asked is who should be using Ubuntu?

So after some serious thought, here is my list of 5 types of users that should be using Ubuntu.

1) The Basic Home Users

These are those people who do nothing more than turn on their computers, open their internet browsers and check email, surf the internet, listen to music and maybe balance the checkbook. These basic users don’t do much that is resource intensive. The most advanced of these users may edit some photos and synchronize their music with their music player of choice.

Why should they use Ubuntu? It is simple, secure and allows them to do everything they need and want to. These basic users don’t want to think about viruses or spy-ware. They want to check their email, read the news and listen to music. Ubuntu allows you to do that with almost no effort. Ubuntu provides a simple interface and the secure Firefox browser. Linux by nature is generally considered (and rightfully so) more secure than most of its competitors. So that means no annual fee for virus protections and virtually no spy-ware risk.

2) The SOHO Users

The Small Office Home Office crowd is really a perfect fit for Ubuntu. This user group generally needs a stable, easy to use, low cost solution to computing. They are focusing on their work and they don’t want to wast time trying to keep their hardware and software up to date with each other. These users tend to use the internet and business applications to get their work done so that they can enjoy the fact that they are not corporate drones or at least they have found a way to escape the daily trip to the office.

Why should they use Ubuntu? In addition to being simple and secure, Ubuntu is stable and free! A lot of people still think that Linux is a do it yourself operations system, but that is just not the case anymore. Ubuntu and most other major Linux distributions install with relative ease and once they are going you can pretty much forget about them. Since moving to Linux last sumer I have found that the number of restarts I have had to perform is a fraction of what it was using Windows. Ubuntu (as well as other distros that I’ve played with), just doesn’t seem to have the stability issues I dealt with in Windows. Ubuntu also offers a wide variety of free business applications. From the OpenOffice.org office suite, to project management and accounting programs, Ubuntu offers it all.

3) The Cost Conscious User

Let’s face it the economy isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now. For those that are looking to save a few bucks, Windows is not going to be your best friend. A new copy of Vista will run you between $200 and $300. If you need to upgrade you computer it will obviously be more. The other option is to buy a new PC with Vista pre-installed but that will be even more expensive.

Why should they use Ubuntu? Well to start with its FREE! Just download and install, no dollar cost at all. Plus almost all the software that will run on Ubuntu is FREE. While the free thing is nice, I think the bigger thing might be that Ubuntu requires far less resources to run than many other operating system. That means that if you bought a computer in the last three years it will probably run Ubuntu and run it well. The fact that Ubuntu allows you to extend the life of your computer should alone be enough to get the cost conscious to consider making the switch.

4) The Socialist Users

This group can be defined a number of ways, but I like to think of them as the people who are interested in advancing society through common works. These are the people that realize the world can be better if we work together for that purpose. They advocate “Green” initiatives, conservation, improved education and other social justice causes. This group is often confused with Communist and Social Dictatorships that we have seen in Russia and China, but are in fact dramatically different. This group advocates social issues not central control and generally does not have a major issue with capitalism as long as it is not trampling on those social issues.

Why should they use Ubuntu? Ubuntu is for the most part a community driven product meant to improve society through the advancement of knowledge. This is true of almost all GNU/Linux software. Ubuntu and Linux are by nature products that work to bring people together and not to separate individuals that can not afford a product or are unwilling to abide by some licensing agreement that is designed more to prevent competition than to spur innovation and advancement.

5) The Blogger/Webmaster Users

This group of users is pretty strait forward. These are users that have a website or blog that is not hosted by WordPress, Blogger or TypePad (or other lesser known hosts). If you are in this group then you probably like to try out changes to your site before you actually go live.

Why should they use Ubuntu? LAMP. Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP make up the LAMP software stack that is used by many of today’s open source web applications. Ubuntu lets you install the LAMP stack by executing a few commands and that allows you to host your blog or website locally so that you can check out any changes you make before changing your live site.

In the end, I’m sure we could come up with many more groups that could benefit from using Ubuntu. We can also assume that a number of different Linux distributions will most likely satisfy the users listed above. We can talk about what is great in Ubuntu 8.04 and what needs improvement, but the Ubuntu desktop is already in a position to satisfy the needs of a large majority of today’s users.

Neal

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