The release of Windows 8 is only eight days away, but if you aren’t hip to the formerly-known-as-Metro UI style, and prefer to use something a little more free, Canonical has just released Ubuntu 12.10. With that release, however, comes Windows 8 hate.
In its new ad, Canonical leads the release of its new Ubuntu upgrade with a direct attack on Windows 8. Bashing your competitor obviously isn’t something new to advertising, but it’s worth noting that the Windows 8 hate keeps on coming. Canonical is just another big, geek-cred hat to throw into the ring that Valve already occupies.
To be fair, Ubuntu is actually really fun to learn because it’s one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions. But even if Windows 8 is a catastrophe on the level of Windows Vista, Windows 8 will still provide more mass appeal functionality than Ubuntu will at this point in time. The better versions of most third-party clients appear on either Windows or OS X, and barely any games (by comparison) appear on Linux in general.
It’s also worth noting that recent versions of Ubuntu garner a lot of hate due to the Unity UI, which can be argued to be similar to the hate the formerly-known-as-Metro UI gets.
Either way, major operating systems just boil down to whatever needs the user has. Ubuntu launching with a direct attack on Windows 8 just seems out of place, however correct Canonical's may be.