📚 Ubuntu is a popular distro with a very large user base, yet it is not often recommended or praised in most forums/subs. This remains a statistical mystery to me…

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT BLAMING OR PRAISING UBUNTU IN ANY WAY. I AM NOT COMPLAINING OR SAYING IT SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT BE MORE POPULAR. I AM TALKING ABOUT USER NUMBERS AND STATS.

When looking at Steam OS linux stats, Ubuntu has the most users right after Arch (not counting SteamOS). Other recent stats and the high number of dedicated websites for it also confirms Ubuntu is widely used.

However on most « general » (non distro specific) forums and subreddits, Ubuntu is rarely mentioned or recommended compared to other distributions. Not only that, but there seem to be little hype or enthusiasm towards new releases compared to other distros. For example, to questions such as « what is your favourite distro » or « which distro would you recommend », Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Debian and Fedora seems to be recommended A LOT more often. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that the math doesn’t add up.

If Ubuntu wasn’t appreciated or disliked for some reason (Snaps, for example), users would distro hop and it wouldn’t have such a large user base. So there’s lots of Ubuntu users yet not much praise, hype or enthusiasm towards it… I’ve been very actively on linux since almost half a year, and this is puzzling me.