You might want to expand your idea with some actual details since it&#x27;s not clear what you mean by e.g. “harder to configure and more opaque” or even just which alternatives you mean.<p>In general, I&#x27;ve seen developer preference for two reasons:<p>1. Debian &amp; Ubuntu both share a massive collection of packages which have frequently been packaged in a manner which is amenable for automated system configuration (compare e.g. the tendency to use a combination of debconf and the preference for `.d` layouts so you don&#x27;t have to modify files which will be overwritten by updates).<p>2. Ubuntu adds the entire PPA ecosystem which supports the very common case where people want LTS + a small number of packages which are updated more frequently.