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Sushrit Moundekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at InfoCepts
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
An open-source operating system that provides good flexibility and security
Pros and Cons
  • "Ubuntu Linux has good security features and a lot of software compatibility."
  • "People with a Windows background may not find the solution's user interface user-friendly."

What is our primary use case?

We use Ubuntu Linux as an operating system for the installations we do on any of the servers. It's an open-source solution that is easy to customize.

What is most valuable?

Ubuntu Linux has good security features and a lot of software compatibility. Not many operating systems support software like MicroStrategy, but Ubuntu Linux is quite flexible and provides all the interfaces and compatibility for different software.

What needs improvement?

Ubuntu Linux is not easy to use because its interface is quite tricky. People with a Windows background may not find the solution's user interface user-friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Ubuntu Linux for three years.

Buyer's Guide
Ubuntu Linux
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Ubuntu Linux. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Ubuntu Linux is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Ubuntu Linux is a scalable solution. Around 50 users are using the solution in our organization.

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

We were previously using Windows. We switched to Ubuntu Linux because it was flexible and secure.

How was the initial setup?

The solution's initial installation is difficult, and you would need a Linux administrator.

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

Ubuntu Linux is an open-source operating system.

What other advice do I have?

We are using the cloud version of Ubuntu Linux. Users can choose Ubuntu Linux if they have a vast environment and want a secure and scalable operating system.

Overall, I rate Ubuntu Linux a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
System Administrator at Maxar Technologies
MSP
Top 20
You get most of the packages you need and all the latest updates very fast
Pros and Cons
  • "Ubuntu is great because you get most of the packages or software you need. You get the latest updates and stuff fairly fast."
  • "We don't have any support, so we search for answers online. However, it can sometimes be a little messy to find the information if you have a highly specific question or a strange problem. It would be nice if finding information were a little simpler. Maybe they could have some portal that could point you to where you can find information."

What is our primary use case?

We use Ubuntu Linux for software development to create a desktop environment for our developers, and we also have some VMs running Ubuntu-based services. 

What is most valuable?

Ubuntu is great because you get most of the packages or software you need. You get the latest updates and stuff fairly fast. 

What needs improvement?

We don't have any support, so we search for answers online. However, it can sometimes be a little messy to find the information if you have a highly specific question or a strange problem. It would be nice if finding information were a little simpler. Maybe they could have some portal that could point you to where you can find information. I think that's more of a general issue with open-source stuff. That's how it works.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Ubuntu for three or four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

For desktop usage, we find Ubuntu is quite stable. We seldom have a problem with it even running on laptops. I think it's one of the better Linux distributions for running on laptops, and it supports various kinds of laptop hardware. 

How are customer service and support?

We don't have any paid support. We use open-source knowledge bases or forums. We're used to that, so that works fine actually. We haven't tried any professional services for support because we manage the clients ourselves.

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

We use different Linux distributions depending on our needs. Ubuntu is good for our desktop workstations, but Red Hat is server based, and it's more stable over time, so we use that on the server for backend stuff. It depends on where it's going to run. We use Ubuntu for workstations and Red Hat or CentOS on the server side.

Ubuntu might have some room for improvement on the server side. But then again, we haven't used it much for that use case, so I don't know. It's easier for me to say what Red Hat or CentOS are missing on the desktop side. Nothing comes to mind that Ubuntu is missing in terms of desktop deployments. 

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Ubuntu is fairly simple. It's just a workstation, so that's a relatively straightforward setup. 

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

We have special workstations with Ubuntu preloaded because it was the best for artificial intelligence within the hardware. We got the whole system, including the hardware, software, and setup. We have support with the total package, but that's the only thing we have to pay for, and we haven't needed to use that support. In general, we don't have any license costs for Linux systems. Some of the Red Hat systems have license costs, but most are open-source or free versions.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Ubuntu eight out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Ubuntu Linux
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about Ubuntu Linux. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
MdZaman - PeerSpot reviewer
IT manager at a agriculture with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
A stable solution which is easy to install, but lacks local support and is less user-friendly than Windows
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is stable."
  • "The solution is not user-friendly in comparison with Windows."

What is our primary use case?

We use the latest version of the solution.

It is useful for running our personal applications. 

What needs improvement?

The solution is not user-friendly in comparison with Windows. It should be more so. 

We used the technical support of Microsoft Windows, as Ubuntu does not offer any support of its own. It would be nice to see local support. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Ubuntu Linux for eight years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

How are customer service and support?

Ubuntu does not offer local tech support, thus necessitating that we take advantage of Microsoft Window's. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution is easy to install.

What about the implementation team?

The installation can be handled on one's own. 

Only a single person is required for the deployment. Specialized skills are not required. 

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

We do not incur a licensing fee for the solution, as we make use of the free version. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Windows is a more user-friendly solution than Ubuntu Linux. 

What other advice do I have?

I would not recommend the solution to others, but Windows instead. 

We only have 15 users making use of the solution in our organization.

I rate Ubuntu Linux as a seven out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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. 

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director at SafeSquid Labs
Real User
Easy to learn, simple to manage, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "Ubuntu Linux is very easy to learn, manage, and keep updated."
  • "The solution is a little complicated to customize and could be made easier."

What is our primary use case?

We are using this solution in my organization as a software development platform.

How has it helped my organization?

Ubuntu Linux is a very good platform for software development. If you want to deploy dependencies for a particular software on Ubuntu it is probably the easiest. If you compared it to Red Hat or any other distribution of Linux, getting the dependencies and other configurations in place is quite a hassle. We have saved time by using this solution.

What is most valuable?

Ubuntu Linux is very easy to learn, manage, and keep updated.

What needs improvement?

The solution is a little complicated to customize and could be made easier.

In a future release, the implementation of lightweight desktops and remote access for server platforms could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution within the past 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Ubuntu Linux is scalable. However, there could be better documentation to assist in scalability in many areas, such as PCP scanning.

We have approximately 40 people using the solution in my organization. We have plans to increase usage in the future.

How are customer service and technical support?

It is not very difficult for us to find support for Ubuntu Linux by ourselves since we have already been using it for many years. We generally do not need support from anywhere.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is easier than any other solution.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation ourselves.

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

The solution is free.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have evaluated other distributions of Linux, such as Red Hat.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others. For those thinking about whether they should try out the solution, I would advise them to go ahead and give it it try.

I rate Ubuntu Linux a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com
Consultant
Top 20
Do a proof of concept (POC), scaling as large as you can as close to your intended production environment.

What is most valuable?

It's a free and open source software-defined storage (SDS) that runs on various platforms such as Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, IBM Z, among others.

It can be used for a bulk object including as an alternative to OpenStack Swift, Swiftstack, and others. Can also be configured for the block as well as the file.

How has it helped my organization?

Hmmmm…….Good question.

What needs improvement?

Ease of use, ease of management, ease of deployment, ease of troubleshooting, resiliency, automation, and performance.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used various versions of Ceph off and on at different times, going back several years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, on the other hand, deploy in a controlled environment, stay within the “box”, and it works well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For my use, I did not scale it very large, as was concerned with doing so and with not having enough hardware to maintain performance.

In other words, depending on what you are looking to do, while being SDS, Ceph is also hardware dependent, as is all SDS.

However, it also needs CPU, memory and fast storage for OSDs as you scale activity.

How are customer service and technical support?

N/A, relied on various forums and Ceph site (looked at Red Hat site info, however, found ceph and other sites more useful).

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

I have used and do use various others, including services such as AWS S3 /EBS /EFS /EC2 instance, as well as Azure Files/Blobs/etc, GCS.

Also on-prem software, including Microsoft S2D, VMware vSAN, OpenStack/Swift among others.

How was the initial setup?

Depends on your experience, and what you are trying to do, there are some useful scripts floating around, or you can get a turnkey kit solution from vendors such as Fujitsu, SUSE, Red Hat, and many others.

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

Look beyond the initial cost, for example, free if open source version, or price for a kit from Fujitsu, SUSE, RHEL among others.

Look at ongoing costs for maintenance. This is particularly important if you are going the free route as you will end up paying regarding allocating or using more of your staffs time to support, maintain, upgrade and enhance.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

VMware vSAN (still have), Microsoft Windows Storage Spaces Direct/S2D (still have), Dell EMC ECS/Atmos (still have), OpenStack Swift (still have), AWS S3 (still have), Azure (still have), Datacore (did a trial), and many others.

Some others to look at and consider include Dell EMC ScaleIO, Elastifile, Hedvig, HDS HCP, NetApp StorageGrid, Nexenta, Noobaa, Rozo, Starwind, Storpool, Virtuozzo, and WekaIO, among others.

What other advice do I have?

Do a proof of concept (POC), scaling as large as you can as close to your intended production environment.

If needed, use Google, AWS, Azure or some other cloud to do the POC in.

Look for several things in your POC including what are the hardware performance and resource (CPU, memory, I/O, SSD) dependencies, how easy to manage, tune, troubleshoot along with resiliency.

For example, fail nodes and see how system recovers as well as what you need to do to support the environment. Don’t be scared of Ceph, be prepared and informed, use it where it makes sense and is capable of meeting your needs. Make sure that you can get ceph to work for you, vs. you having to go to work for ceph.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user1215906 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. System and Storage Administrator at a government with 51-200 employees
Real User
Reliable with a quick setup, but could be more secure
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has proven to be scalable. It can scale quite well."
  • "It could always be a bit more secure."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for web applications.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very flexible.

We've found the solution to be stable and the performance is reliable.

The solution has proven to be scalable. It can scale quite well.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

What needs improvement?

I have less experience with this solution than others, however, I can't recall specific improvements or features I would like to see.

It could always be a bit more secure. If they could continue to work on making it more and more secure in upcoming releases, that would be ideal.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about two years or so at this point. It's been a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is good. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability potential of the solution is good. If a company would like to expand the solution, it can do so with relative ease. It's not hard. 

We have about 50 people in total who are currently using the solution.

Whether we continue to use the solution or increase usage will depend largely on end-user requirements. It's not really up to us for the most part.

How was the initial setup?

The solution has been very easy to install. It's not overly complicated or difficult. it's pretty easy in general.

Normally, the deployment is pretty fast.

We have a technical team of two administrators that can handle any maintenance requirements.

What about the implementation team?

I can handle the implementation myself. I do not need to call on consultants or integrators. It can be managed in-house.

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

We are not buying any licenses at the moment.

What other advice do I have?

We are simply customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with Unbuntu Linux.

We are using the latest version of the solution. I cannot recall the version number off-hand.

I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten overall.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations and other users. We've had a good experience overall.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Ubuntu Linux Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Ubuntu Linux Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.