Ubunchu! Learn Linux Through Manga and Understand Free Software Community Culture

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:00:00 +0800

The world’s first! Ubuntu school romantic comedy manga.

Ubunchu!, whose Chinese translation calls it Wubangchu, is a manga drawn by Japanese manga artist 瀬尾浩史. It was once serialized in Ubuntu Magazine Japan and has now ended.

The manga introduces the Ubuntu system in a light and humorous tone. Whether you are a newbie or an old hand, you can experience the fun of Linux from it.

It does not use the technique of operating system anthropomorphism (OS-tan). Instead, it truly acts out how Linux is used in daily life.

This manga was published in 2009. The system that appears in the manga is roughly from the Ubuntu 9.04 era, and later the heroine spends an entire day and night upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10. Perhaps because of trademark issues, the manga uniformly calls Ubuntu Ubunchu?

Although it is old, the things it talks about are still applicable today! For example, GNOME still occasionally fights with X Server and crashes. ( ~~Just cut X11 support directly and switch to Wayland, then you do not have to worry about this problem~~ )

Compared with Linux comics drawn by Daniel Stori and xkcd, Ubunchu! does not talk about too many technical things. It mainly talks about Linux and free software community culture, as well as the real-world difficulties encountered when promoting Linux to Windows users.

1. Ubunchu! Characters
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如月あかね: President of the System Administration Club. A fanatical Unix believer who prefers browsing the internet from the command line and did not know desktop graphical systems existed until high school.

御堂マサト: A Windows user, vice president of the System Administration Club, and Kisaragi’s archenemy.

椎名里沙: A Macintosh user and natural airhead, but also the first person to promote Ubuntu to the club members.

篠崎あきは: President of the Computer Science Club, opposed to free software solutions.

2. Resources for Reading Ubunchu! Online
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Official website of the manga’s original author: うぶんちゅ！ - 株式会社架空線

This manga is released under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license, and users may freely modify and share it.

English translations (the translators obtained authorization from the original author):

Chinese fan-translation resources online are incomplete.

3. Episode Summaries of Ubunchu!
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Although this manga series can be freely reposted, for length reasons I only include the covers.

Episode 1: Ubunchu Appears!

うぶんちゅがやって来た！

Linux CLI hardcore faction vs. Windows user vs. Mac user.

Unexpectedly, it is the Mac user who first wants everyone to try Ubuntu? By the end, even the Linux CLI hardcore faction is shocked by Ubuntu’s friendly interface.

As long as you have Wine, you can even play Windows bishoujo games!

Episode 2: CLI and the Little Sprites

ＣＵＩとコビトとお姉さま

Introduces Linux command-line concepts.

In this episode, Shiina Risa treats Linux commands as little sprites working inside the computer, and the Linux desktop environment GNOME happens to mean a small sprite in English.

Ubuntu vs Linux Mint: Which Is Better for Desktop Users? My own comparison

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 23:00:00 +0800

What Are the Differences Between Ubuntu and Linux Mint? Which One Should Desktop Users Choose?

In this article, Ivon shares my own comparison between Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

Versions at the time of writing:

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Linux Mint 22

Why should you choose Linux Mint, and where is it better than Ubuntu? I only understood after using Mint recently: this is what the Linux desktop should have become. The first impression Linux Mint gives is that this distribution cares more about desktop users.

1. Linux Mint is what the Ubuntu desktop should have become
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Ubuntu development began in 2004 and is handled by Canonical, a company founded by former Debian contributor Mark Shuttleworth; Linux Mint started in 2006 and is maintained by a group of volunteer developers, without forming a company.

Both distributions are still being updated today, but has Ubuntu’s desktop, especially GNOME, really become easier and easier to use? Ubuntu used to call itself “Linux for Human Beings”, but why does the Linux Mint desktop instead look more like the humane form the Linux desktop should have taken?

Ubuntu desktop

Linux Mint desktop

Twenty years ago, in the context of that time, Ubuntu could be called one of the most newbie-friendly Linux distributions. It worked out of the box, you could finish installation without typing a pile of commands, and you could get it for free!

For a long time in the past, Canonical lost more money than it earned. Back then it was still a small company, much smaller than Red Hat, but it still promoted Ubuntu with real enthusiasm. You could even mail the UK headquarters, and they would send you installation CDs by post.

Old Ubuntu installation CDs. The system logo means a group of people surrounding each other and holding hands

Ubuntu originally used GNOME 2 as its desktop environment, and the system included many convenient graphical tools to help users manage the system. With Ubuntu 14.04, Canonical launched its own Unity desktop environment, replacing GNOME 2 and extending into the phone interface of its own Ubuntu Touch, intending to build a unified cross-platform interface. At the time, Wayland had just appeared and was preparing to replace the X11 protocol. Canonical perhaps wanted to seize the initiative, and even created a fork of the Wayland protocol called Mir. Separately, to solve the cross-platform package problem, it launched Snap. Its ambition was obvious.

Why is Ubuntu’s default taskbar on the left? That design appeared during the Unity era and has continued to this day.

But Ubuntu’s old sense of mission around promoting the Linux desktop (roughly 2008 to 2018) seems to have gradually disappeared, turning into a focus only on enterprise and server users. You can see that from the design of its official website.

This is not to say Ubuntu no longer contributes to Linux desktop development, but the scale of its improvements seems to be less than other Linux distributions. Many desktops developed by later arrivals have surpassed Ubuntu in friendliness.

Linux Mint on Ivon's Blog

Ubunchu! Learn Linux Through Manga and Understand Free Software Community Culture

1. Ubunchu! Characters #

2. Resources for Reading Ubunchu! Online #

3. Episode Summaries of Ubunchu! #

Ubuntu vs Linux Mint: Which Is Better for Desktop Users? My own comparison

1. Linux Mint is what the Ubuntu desktop should have become #

1. Ubunchu! Characters
#

2. Resources for Reading Ubunchu! Online
#

3. Episode Summaries of Ubunchu!
#

1. Linux Mint is what the Ubuntu desktop should have become
#