Ubuntu has been causing a bit of a stir in Linux-land recently. It arrived on the scene late last year, and rapidly moved its way up to become one of the favoured distros. I thought I would give some of my thoughts on why I believe that Ubuntu is important:

1. Ubuntu is a free, Debian, desktop distribution. There aren’t as many of these as you would think. Linspire, Lycoris and Xandros all have free elements to them, but are ultimately commercial entities. While Ubuntu is commercially backed, they have remained committed to it being free. Mepis is the other option, but is really only ’semi’ free - the author would like you to pay for it. Libranet likewise. The other options are often liveCDs that have installation options, rather than the other way round.

2. Ubuntu is committed to Debian. Everything is going to be fed back into Debian, which is very important, IMHO.

3. Ubuntu is Debian that works. Perhaps like no other distro before (I know, controversial) Ubuntu has managed to do the majority of things correctly, and produce a distribution that actually works well as a desktop OS.

4. Ubuntu is competition. Fedora was fast becoming the main option for a free Linux desktop - Ubuntu has provided some much needed competition to provide the impetus for innovation. Importantly, Ubuntu seems to be providing a bit of competition for Debian, and will hopefully inspire Debian to continue to develop and improve itself.

5. Ubuntu is corporate. This may not seem important, and some would disagree. But I think that Canonical are going to try very hard to put Ubuntu on corporate desktops - which will provide some of (4) for Novell.

OK - this has been written a little more hastily than I intended. Feel the Ubuntu love!

Let the flames begin.

mrBen

Mitch asked me to put something together for a section in the new church website, which is due out soon. So I put together this:

Reimagining Community

Ever read those articles which start by stating a question, and then, in the process of attempting to answer that question ends up revealing more and more questions? This is one of those articles.

I am very much a 21st century man; a typical Gen-Xer, if you will. And I have been trying to imagine how the church will, and should, change in order to better meet the needs of this century.

My area of concern is that of communication. In many ways it would appear that we are trying to communicate in exactly the way that Jesus communicated; we have confused the medium with the message. Jesus was a thoroughly modern man - he communicated using the methods and style of teachers in his day; parables, groups of disciples, preaching on the hilltops were all things of his time. But what of ours?

People are just beginning to catch on to the televisual media that has been so embraced by our culture. Churches are beginning to use video and music to challenge and teach. This is brilliant; this is so last century.

Welcome to the 21st century; this century is one of interactive media, of websites, instant messaging, discussion forums and podcasting. And no, podcasting is not a reference to the parable of the sower!

Do you have an email address? A website? A weblog? Any online friends? An instant messaging account? An mp3 player? An RSS feed reader? If you don’t know what these things are, then maybe you should find out. The iPod generation is upon us (no matter how much the mindshare annoys me).

What would Jesus do? Well, I reckon he would embrace these media, because they are the media of the day, and he would use them to promote His message - the Good News, that is timeless - forever cultural and yet ultimately counter-culture.

mrBen

Yesterday, for those who forgot, was exactly 2 years since the first ever post on Jedimoose.

Hope you celebrated, but if not, then BigAl and I are planning a big anniversary party in a few weeks time.

mrBen