I get lots of second-hand hardware in the projects I do. Mainline Ubuntu works on all of them. The other Linux's are more inconsistent. Fixing their issues with Google is less straight-forward, too, if we're talking non-technical people. I've seen them do it with Ubuntu esp where it takes an apt-get or something.

Any of them MIPS or SPARC? Or how about something a little more exotic?

How is it everyone is overlooking that I'm talking about CPU architectures?

Seriously what's with people these days just playing on a few x86 PCs and maybe a raspberry Pi and then making bold claims their distro x runs on everything. Lets talk about some real niche platforms that are non-trivial to port software to please.

"Any of them MIPS or SPARC? Or how about something a little more exotic? How is it everyone is overlooking that I'm talking about CPU architectures?"

We're talking about a system primarily targeted toward x86 machines (esp desktops or laptops) common for consumers. So, everyone assumes you mean x86 machines with various configurations of hardware. That was my assumption, too. You assessing its hardware support by focusing on architectures virtually no Ubuntu or Linux user is using or wants to use is strange. I'll go further to say it's immaterial to an assessment of Ubuntu's hardware support given its target market. There's other distro's that focus on MIPS, SPARC, and "exotic" hardware.

> You assessing its hardware support by focusing on architectures virtually no Ubuntu or Linux user is using or wants to use is strange

I wasn't doing that though. I was literally _only_ stating that the GP's comment, "Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about.", is factually incorrect since "other distributions" can and do support not only many of the same platforms that Ubuntu supports but also a whole plethora of platforms that Ubuntu does not. I didn't disagree with the GP's other compliments towards Ubuntu and I even stated that I wasn't here to criticise Ubuntu. I even went on to say that multi-platform support in Linux isn't a new thing to reinforce the point that I'm grouping Ubuntu and Debian and all other Linux distros together with regards to their ability to run on an interesting array of hardware. I just disagree that Ubuntu is the only Linux distro that runs on multiple platforms - because, simply, it's not the only distro that does that.

However what _is_ strange about my post is how a great many people have then taken my comments as a personal attack against Ubuntu or said "those platforms don't matter" just because they personally don't use them. It's pretty nuts because the fact that I'm aware of unsupported platforms means that I've ran into situations where Ubuntu didn't run and thus means those platforms do matter to some people - like myself. The fact we are having this discussion is proof that your argument of irrelevance is itself irrelevant.

I'll probably get downvoted for saying this but reading the rest of this thread and the replies in my own branch it sounding a bit like a pro-Ubuntu echo chamber where like minded enthusiasts are all reconfirming their pre-existing biases and branding opposing experiences as liars (just as I had been by another HNer). This is a shame because there is a lot to praise Ubuntu for without needing to invent additional achievements. What's worse is downvoting members for the serious crime of actually managing to run non-Ubuntu distro's on new hardware when other enthusiasts could not. It's all a little absurd and it ruins the discussion for everyone as people like myself wont bother contributing in another Ubuntu-themed thread on HN again.

It's bs, it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent, good luck running Debian / *BSD like on modern laptops.

> it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent

Kernel ABIs are pretty static so drivers can be backported for earlier kernels more easily than recompiling the entirety of Ubuntu Server for an unsupported CPU architecture - such as SPARC.

That's what I meant when I said Debian supports more architectures.

However going back to your previous point about the age of Debian, you don't have to run the default repositories. If you run "testing" or "sid" then you can be just as up-to-date as Ubuntu or even more bleeding edge. In fact it wasn't that many years ago when Ubuntu was effectively just a reskinned Debian + testing repositories (I'm talking pre Unity, upstart, etc). But at the end of the day, it's all FOSS so anything Ubuntu runs can also be run on Debian, Arch, etc. It's just Debian already ships compiled binaries for more alternative CPU architectures can Canonical do with Ubuntu. Which is why I said supporting different platforms isn't anything new to Linux nor unique to Ubuntu.

> good luck Debian / BSD like on modern laptops.*

I have done. They worked fine. In fact FreeBSD was my primary OS for a period of time and Debian has always been my primary "debian-like" platform for all bar media centres (which do run vanilla Ubuntu). I have also ran officially supported variations of Ubuntu as my primary OS for short periods of time as well. I've tried them all before I finally found what OS I felt right for me.

So I do have considerable experience backing up my claims :)

First "no one" cares about SPARC, I'm glad the focus is on platforms that people use like x64_86 and ARM, secondly *BSD like and Debian don't run well on recent hardware, it's a lie to say otherwise, at best you will have terrible battery life, wifi / bluetooth that doesn't work properly, touchpad half broken ect... BSD support for modern hardware is worse than the Linux one.

> If you run "testing" or "sid"

So you drop your stability to use beta / alpha packages that are unstable where in Ubuntu LTS you have all the recent packages / drivers that have been tested. I mean with that statement you can run anything if you can compile it.

One can complain about many things for Ubuntu but not hardware support.

> First "no one" cares about SPARC

I've had to build stuff for SPARC recently. I definitely care. And frankly your opinion of SPARC does not alter the point one bit.

> I'm glad the focus is on platforms that people use like x64_86 and ARM

So am I. Reread my post: I wasn't criticising Ubuntu one bit. I was disagreeing with the GP's comment that only Ubuntu supports other platforms.

> secondly BSD like and Debian don't run well on recent hardware

"Some recent hardware". Which is a tiny subset of the amount of hardware out there that all the aforementioned platforms do support. BSD and Debian aren't even remotely as bad at supporting hardware as people make out

> it's a lie to say otherwise

That's not a valid counterargument. That's just offensive to anyone who has achieved what you claimed wasn't possible.

> at best you will have terrible battery life, wifi / bluetooth that doesn't work properly, touchpad half broken ect...

Ubuntu still runs the same kernel ABIs as Debian, ArchLinux, CentOS, Slackware, etc. It's all just x86 Linux. Veteran users like myself can get Linux to run on most platforms without too much difficulty. So what you're really trying to say is "Ubuntu is easier to get running on newer hardware". Which is the crux of Ubuntu - it's designed to make Linux easier. However to say "non-Ubuntu distros cannot run on stuff Ubuntu can and anyone who says otherwise is a liar" is insulting to all those who do successfully run non-Ubuntu platforms, and insulting to those distro maintainers.

> So you drop your stability to use beta / alpha packages that are unstable where in Ubuntu LTS you have all the recent packages / drivers that have been tested

Debian Testing isn't unstable. As already stated Ubuntu used to be based on Debian Testing.

> One can complain about many things for Ubuntu but not hardware support.

Again, I wasn't making a complaint. I was making an observation that Ubuntu wasn't the only distro that supports multiple platforms (which the GP claimed) and used CPU architecture as an example to my point. I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with other Linux distros and with BSD but my point still stands.

[edit]

For what it's worth, on my last laptop I got better battery life out of ArchLinux than I did Ubuntu on the same laptop. All the other hardware was supported the same. And to follow on from my previous point: if I could have been bothered I know I could have improved the battery life in Ubuntu to match Arch. However at the time I needed the convenience more than the battery life (which was why I installed Ubuntu in the first place) so left the system unaltered until I had the time to distro-hop again.

I'm rather doubtful this is true. Any sources to back up your claim?

Just personal experience playing with unusual hardware platforms over the last couple of decades. Usually the download pages for the respective distros list all the CPU architectures they support Ubuntu needs a little more digging to locate their non-x86 downloads (which I believe are only ARM and POWER8). There used to be some ropy support for SPARC but that was nearly a decade ago.

These are exotic platforms, therefore go for a distribution that supports them.

I did. Again I feel the need to reiterate that my point was Ubuntu isn't the only multi-platform distro (despite the GP's claim). The rest of my post was exampling that point.