Why Richard Stallman Does Not Recommend Ubuntu – and What Beginners Should Use Instead
Many newcomers wonder why Richard Stallman is critical of Ubuntu, even though Ubuntu has long been one of the most popular Linux distributions for beginners. The short answer is simple: Stallman judges distributions mainly by whether they respect the user's software freedom. That is exactly where his criticism of Ubuntu begins.
One of the best-known reasons was Ubuntu’s former Amazon and online search integration. Stallman described this as a kind of surveillance or “spyware” because local desktop searches were connected to online services. GNU notes that this feature has been disabled by default since Ubuntu 16.04, but still argues that Ubuntu continues to include or promote components and options that do not fully respect user freedom from the GNU Project’s point of view.
The broader issue is even more important. The GNU Project recommends only distributions that include exclusively free software and do not steer users toward nonfree software, nonfree drivers, or firmware blobs. Those principles are laid out in the GNU Free System Distribution Guidelines, and Ubuntu is not among the distri…login to view the rest of this post