The OS on desktop situation isn't comparable to the OS on mobile situation. You can buy any PC and expect being able to replace its OS. On phones, you have to look for the ones where it's possible, and depending on the phone, it's possible despite the efforts from the manufacturers for not allowing it.

Also in PC OSs, there isn't a corporation dictating what programs you are allowed to install. In iOS there is, and soon in Android too.

IMO, these corporations have managed to amass an amount of power where there's no longer consumer freedom. Therefore, there's no free market. We have reached a point where the law must intervene to restore capitalism.

If you're worried about a for-profit company having sway over your computer, Ubuntu is not really the choice to make. Please consider running upstream Debian; there are very few downsides, but the upside is that it is run by an organization that is not (and never will be) driven by profits. Also, it seems a little silly to donate to Ubuntu, which is maintained by a for-profit company.

Ubuntu controls a big voting block in debian’s organization. They forced systemd in, for example.

Devuan is a good enough compromise for me. The OS is stable, and the only issues I’ve had involve hacking curl|bash scripts that fail to realize they should just install the debian version.

(Steam and docker run well.)

Even without counting Ubuntu, was there a significant number of people against systemd in Debian, with convincing arguments?

Summary of some of them can be read at https://lwn.net/Articles/452865/

Debian’s debate page can be read at https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/initsystem/systemd

Nothing there supports there were a significant number / more than a minority of people against systemd in Debian outside Ubuntu, which was the extraordinary claim I was (implicitly) complaining against.

I see the convincing arguments against systemd, mostly wrt to the support of the FreeBSD kernel in Debian. I wasn't familiar with them, it's interesting, thanks.

> If you're worried about a for-profit company having sway over your computer, Ubuntu is not really the choice to make.

Why not? The point is not to not have anything supplied by a business. The point is to avoid being controlled by a business.

Ubuntu does not have the same hold over your computer that Google has over your phone. The software is open source. You can switch distros easily as it does not have lock-in.

So the argument for running Ubuntu is I can choose to not run Ubuntu? I've already made that choice!