Canonical deserves most of the critics they get.
Ubuntu users on the other hand don’t deserve even the slight amount of critic they get for just… Using Ubuntu. like, at least they use Linux, we should be encouraging them to keep using it.
I have my own criticism of Canonical, but most of what I hear from the anti-Ubuntu crowd isn’t even grounded in reality.
My favourite one recently was that upstart was Canonical NIHing systemd.
NIHing?
Not Invented Here. Basically, reinventing the wheel just so they can have full control of a project.
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Not Invented Here-ing? lol
Didn’t upstart show up in jaunty jackalope? I don’t recall systemd being all that big back then. Also, jaunty booted in 30s to desktop on a 4200rpm spinning rust IDE drive, Intel m processor. In my book they succeeded there but yeah, the attitude they have about contributing to current projects is bullshit.
Why would you need 5 distros?
Different use cases! One each for: my desktop, my laptop, my home theater PC, my tablet, and my gaming handheld.
(This is a joke. But, I do use a different distro for my tablet [due to the touchscreen] and my gaming handheld.)
Which tablet do you have?
I’m using Ubuntu (well Kubuntu everywhere that I have graphical displays) on most devices, but I have:
- SteamOS on my Steam Deck
- Arch on my PinePhone
- Debian on some development boards
- Fedora and OpenSUSE in VMs because I’m interested in their development
there’s just no reason to start using it when mint exists
Wayland
true
what do you actually need Wayland for though? waydroid is the only one i can think of
I have 2 monitors at different refresh rates
same and never had an issue with x11. two monitors at different resolutions and different refresh rates.
You haven’t noticed the issue then. X11 tends to run everything at the lowest common denominator, and doesn’t allow per-monitor scaling.
news to me as ive run this setup for 8 months now and it runs with 0 issues. one is always at 144 and other at 60. minor performance drop with both on at the same time although that’s to be expected, but it definitely doesn’t set them both to lowest denominator.
60hz graphics tablet and 144hz gaming trashitor running fine on nvidia. Graphics tablet didn’t even need drivers installed and huion app launched every time unlike windows.
(I didn’t downvote you, just fyi, don’t know why someone would)
I personally have no issues with x11 if i’m using just one monitor, but if I use two or more I have nothing but issues. I am a tired sysadmin and don’t want to fight my personal equipment at home.
Configuring Kubuntu for my liking is way easier than configuring mint for my liking, and some of that mint configuration is going out of the way to undo things the mint maintainers did intentionally.
Mint not officially shipping with KDE is a source of my personal frustration. Would have checked it out more thoroughly otherwise.
Then you chose right! Regarding Ubuntu I have been using it for work VMs and it’s adequate, my current annoyance is that you can’t easily change the UI colours to distinguish different projects, because it’s not the “Ubuntu way”, maybe I’ll find a hack.
Nothing wrong with Ubuntu.
Plenty wrong with Ubuntu.
If you use it wrong, sure. There’s a use for almost anything; just gotta figure out what’s appropriate.
Ubuntu is perfect for my non-technical, 76 year old father to run his own plex server where I don’t have to help too much.
I like Ubuntu, use it as my main laptop os, and main server’s os for a production system that’s been upgraded through 3 LTS versions without issue. Three.
I don’t think windows can do that, at all.
Have you ever upgraded the Ubuntu laptop? Cause that’s my main gripe with Ubuntu. Server upgrades work, desktop upgrades never did for me.
Have you ever upgraded the Ubuntu laptop? Cause that’s my main gripe with Ubuntu. Server upgrades work, desktop upgrades never did for me.
I wonder about this. I have been running Ubuntu on one of my laptops for years, and updated it several times withouth hitch. All the way from around 18.10 to 22.04 (non-lts, so I upgraded to every release) until the laptop was replaced.
Usually the breakage happens if one has tons of shitty third-party repos and thus will get package conflicts when upgrading. And those are solved by removing/replacing all software installed from those repos and then after upgrade reinstalling them again if needed.
Well I haven’t used Ubuntu in quite a while, so my anecdote is probably just way outdated. But now there are so many other good offerings I see no reason to come back.
I started my PC on Ubuntu 16 and upgraded it through the years alll the way up to 24. Never had an issue. Mainly use it for plex and for Dolphin emulator (for the kids)
I can’t speak for plain Ubuntu, but I’ve got desktops running both Kubuntu and KDE Neon that have been upgraded version to version for over a decade now. (Ok I lie. The Kubuntu one is a laptop.)
I get the annoyance around tribalism/elitism, some people in other posts pointed out the fact that silly dramas and bad/dumb linux takes scares out new users but tbh I feel more confortable with a vocal community, even a silly one. Feels healthier and more alive to me than a mute and apathetic one.
If something goes wrong, if something displeases someone we will hear about it, people will get angry, at the worst we get a nice entertainment to watch and a good laugh, at the very best it leads us to some nice changes.
It’s something I grew to like about Linux, even the silliness of it all, even how you can’t really tell if people are dead serious or not about the stupidest things.
Amen brother. I’m really hoping a lot of these gotchas get ironed out in some way as more people start choosing Linux over windows. I would be really happy to see some smoother experiences in the coming year or years. Don’t get me wrong, things are a bajillion times better than ten years ago, but there’s still a ways to go yet.
I switched to fedora cold turkey a few months ago and honestly its a better experience than windows by far. As a bonus games that work poorly or don’t work on the os they were made for, work on linux now.
That’s really cool to hear! I had a bad Fedora experience on my surface pro 4, it was silverblue - an immutable distro. Not a great start, so I think I’ll be giving it another shot in it’s natural glory some time this year.
Ubutu sucks really bad. I installed it checks notes 17 years ago and I didn’t even get internet running out of the box. Fedora 41 is just so much better and I can’t see how anyone can argue with that.
Yes, Fedora 41 is undoubtedly better than a 17 year old version of Ubuntu.
I believe that was the joke
Yeah, I don’t get the hate and intentional division being sowed there.
I’m not a fan of Ubuntu since they went all Thanos Snap (the final straw was replacing
debpackages inaptwith snap stubs), but I can applaud that they’re using Linux.Just seems like low effort, pointless gatekeeping to me.
Yeah I never understood the hate but today I did read a comment saying Canonical (the company that develops Ubuntu) had injected some amazon telemetry into one of the search functionalities, that and using Snap is what makes some people shit on it. I didn’t verify the telemetry thing FYI.
I can definitely understand people being upset at telemetry injections.
The above is to say I don’t think it’s exclusively people gate keeping, dome people have legitimate issues with it.I haven’t seen people shit on mint a lot and it’s an easy distro. Honestly most people are super supportive of mint. That being said there is definitely some amount of gatekeeping.
That was the point where I stopped using it.
They included a global search function which in a default installation sent your search terms to Amazon and returned search results from them.
It also sent them to a web search (with real time results while you typed, including image previews). So it was possible to get shown NSFW images accidentally inside your OS, without opening a browser.
It was just really bad design, and a heavy-handed attempt of monetizing their OS.Of course that could all be removed with a bash one-liner, but it showed where Canonical was headed,
Canonical is even putting advertisements into
aptffs. They are insufferable:
The thing is, that noobs see linux = ubuntu, and ubuntu makes sure it stays like that.
I do not like that.
Yeah no it does suck it made me think the Linux experience was at least 3x worse before I tried another distro.
And not just a DE thing, every part of the distro feels like it was slapped on without actually thinking of the consequences.
- netplan
- apt
- default systemd dependencies
- ubuntu GNOME
- snap
- ubuntu pro
- cloudinit conf
You can find forums and docs from as old as Fedora 11 that’s still relevant yet Ubuntu utterly fails to keep consistency across a single version update because they changed something that’s only mentioned in the changelog.
Every downstream of Ubuntu is essentially focused on removing all the BS the upstream has so you can use your computer without something breaking like it’s
Archan overused meme about Arch.There is no right answer to the correct distro, only a wrong answer, and that is Ubuntu because practically anything else including its downstreams like LM are better for you as a user.
without something breaking like its arch
I have had seven full-system failures across the last two decades using Ubuntu that could not easily be troubleshooted and fixed.
I have had exactly zero with Arch.
Take that as you will.
Fair enough, edited lol
«an overused meme about Arch» was a very nice edit I must say xD
xD
I had similar bad luck with Linux mint. So many things just didn’t work, or didn’t work correctly. Wifi issues, sound issues, graphics issues, issues setting up particular things for software development. I’ve switched to NixOS and I’m having a much easier time. A significant amount of my improved experience could be attributed to more patience or just an improved ability to deal with problems. I also suspect cinnamon was causing some of my problems, somehow whereas now I have GNOME on my main rig and lxqt on my laptop.
My experience with Ubuntu was filled with bugs and i hated snaps, suggested it to a friend and installed it for him and he kept getting errors and bugs everywhere for some reason, he had the impression that linux is a buggy mess. I’m not suggesting ubuntu to a new user ever again, fedora is the way to go, i just wished they had nvidia drivers in their repos it would have made it easier for new users
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Q: what does
apt install firefoxdo? Surely it uses apt to install Firefox, right??? A: The command gets highjacked by snap, which promptly crashed and hangs.Ran into this just a few hours ago, made the mistake of suggesting Ubuntu as a sane default (instead of debian or something else), never making that mistake again hopefully.
Mint fixes that. Based on Ubuntu, it intentionally disables Snap, and all apt commands actually use apt.
Or yes, just straight up use Debian if you don’t mind older apps outside Flatpaks.
LMDE, Linux Mint Debian Edition was my goto for a long time.
I’m interested in what made you choose LMDE over stock Debian
Is it because you found the UI more convenient and organized? Or was it before Debian 12 and you wanted to avoid technical difficulties with nonfree software?
Yeah, this was around the time they first released it. Back then I had issues with downloading and installing Debian, regardless of drivers. I was inexperienced, and was using Mint (ubuntu-based) already, so the UI (gtk2, mate) was a huge plus for my restricted specs (a netbook)
You can also install Linux Mint Debian Edition which isn’t based on Ubuntu at all.
Happy cake day!
Note that on the negative side it inherits most of the issues of Debian, including extremely old packages.
Also, Debian 12 finally got very user-friendly enough to the point I would recommend it over LMDE.
That’s true, but if you want you can change to testing repos. I still prefer it over vanilla Debian due to polish. I find even using Cinnamon DE in Debian it’s just rougher around the edges than Mint.
Fair enough - if you’re a fan of Cinnamon, LMDE will always be a bit more polished. I can see your use case :)
Use debian testing if you want up-to-date software. The name implies it’s unstable, but it’s really not. Debian stable absurdly stable, and debian testing is regular stable.
True, but if something’s actually wrong, you’ll have less support with that. But I know many people run it without major issues.
Except I just uninstalled Mint’s default Firefox because whatever additional theming they did to my boy fucked up the right click context menu. FF is now flatpak.
I’m pretty sure Mozilla encourages use of the flatpak. Flatpak FF is definitely the way to go.
Firefox isn’t in the repos of Debian, so any derivative (derivative (derivative)) distro must deal with that in some way.
This is the way. Debian net install. Or even better, boot over iPXE, ephemeral kernel in RAM with only backups and static binaries written to disk. Snapshotting handled by BTRFS
What does
apt install firefoxdo in Debian?package »firefox« has no installation candidateFirefox isn’t in Debian’s repository, cause it moves too fast for Debian’s release cycle and is too complicated for their security team.
Debian instead offersfirefox-esr
Ubuntu instead offersfirefoxsnapHere’s a thought: Before installing packages you don’t understand, go to the Firefox site and follow their instructions which work fine on Ubuntu and doesn’t install snap.
I’m not a fan of snap either, but with all software, people need to RTFM. Not do the dumb thing and then cry on the Internet seeking hive mind rage when the dumb thing happens.
I think expecting people running Ubuntu to RTFM is a longshot. The people installing it want an experience where they don’t want to put any effort into learning how things work. If they did they probably would run something else.
I’ve followed those directions, only to find snap firefox was reinstalled a few months later.
Switched to Debian, much happier.
Usually I hate when people ditch an entire distro because they don’t understand or refuse to understand its quirks, but…
Switched to Debian
At least there was a happy ending.
Where was I refusing to understand its quirks? After several years of using snap-based Firefox, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like the snap based installation of firefox. So, I followed the directions to go back to a deb-based Firefox installation. But Kubuntu “helpfully” reverted it a few months later, and that cycle repeated a few times.
I specifically requested the deb-based installation and it ignored my wishes. I know what operating system that reminds me of, and it isn’t Linux.
I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong for wanting a .deb-based Firefox and that snaps are better anyway. Even if that’s true (I don’t care to argue), I chose a path and Kubuntu overrode my choice. Silently, too.
I’ll also note that I started using Kubuntu back in 2008 or so, and stopped last year. I used it on both my desktop and laptop machines. So, it wasn’t like I just tried it for a few hours and got upset; I was a long time user that was quite familiar with how it worked. For most of that time, I was really happy with Kubuntu, but having it override my explicit configuration was extremely frustrating.
Others can continue to use it, that’s fine with me. This isn’t a personal attack on anyone’s choices.
So would you prefer they just remove the
firefoxpackage from new releases without offering an upgrade path?
I use (K?)Ubuntu (I installed KDE on Ubuntu so now it thinks it’s Kubuntu? Weird) and I don’t get the hate. I worked with raspberry pis and such on Linux for a bit so when I got a new computer, I decided to main Linux on desktop as well, since I felt confident enough in it and I went with Ubuntu as I felt it was an obvious choice.
I heard of Linux Mint, but I hate mints and didn’t want to live with a distro named after them.
Only regret is that I didn’t fresh install Kubuntu as I have some gnome ghouls left behind, but eh, if I really wanted to I think I can get rid of them. Just don’t want to risk deleting other preinstalled stuff.
Ubuntu works just fine, the problematic part about it is how it shoves its proprietary app store down everyone’s throats, which is very much against Linux ethos, both in terms of proprietary software and user freedom.
If you don’t mind that and are comfortable with Ubuntu in other ways, hooray, you’ve just found your distro.
What app store? Apt get?
Snap
Never heard of it until now 😂
I just looked it up in my system and I see “app centre”. I vaguely recall that opening when I first installed Ubuntu, haven’t seen it since.
That’s how well they integrated and hid this atrocity in plain sight :D
But it gets worse. When you try to use apt, it looks up if there is a snap package available, and may install that instead, so you may have used the store without being aware of it. They also consider phasing apt out completely.
I don’t care what some distro snob thinks… I use ubuntu and have few problems. I replace the snaps and move on. I’ve been using Linux longer than most of them have been alive. They can pretend that makes me behind the times but somehow I always seem to be ahead of them. Having made my stance clear.
I don’t care what distro they use. Why would I?
Ironic - one of the reasons I like Ubuntu based distros is the easy access to snaps.
Fascinating. I was just wondering if anyone could actually like snap and I personally knew no one until now.
FWIW I’m a long time Kubuntu user and I like it very much. But the snap experience has me on the brink of switching to a different distro.
I’ll use one if it is something more obscure. I do however replace things like firefox and vlc with the source repo.
Switching Firefox from the apt repo to the snap is one of the things I did when using KDE Neon on my laptop (on my desktop with Nvidia I did the opposite on Kubuntu).
I don’t know what you mean about VLC though - while it’s available as an official snap published by VideoLAN, it’s also in the apt repos on all Ubuntu versions.
Its probably fixed now but for years vlc suffered from several bugs on ubuntu the worst being it launching multiple windows despite having that disabled in settings. I started using the PPA and now I just skip ubuntu maintained versions.
Ahh, well that’s a different thing. The snap though is maintained by the VideoLAN folks and part of their official repo.
I’ll keep it in mind but will probably just keep doing what I do. I only reload every three or four years.
for me it’s snaps and the release model that suck. Also, apparently, arch-based distros are more noob-friendly, thanks to ArchWiki
arch-based distros are more noob-friendly
I’ll take some of whatever you are smoking. And I am typing this on an Arch Linux system.
Sure, I love that I have a high degree of control; but, if I were planning to ask a new user to install Linux, I would not be handing them Arch. The Install Page may look nice; but, it’s a minefield of “oh go chose something” and you come back three hours later having read way too much detail about bootloaders.Arch is fantastic for choice, but the KISS principal is not available via pacman. It may be available in AUR. So, go learn what AUR is, spend way too long picking an AUR package manager only to learn it’s not available their either and you need to build it from source.
Joking aside, I do need to try the SteamOS install. That might actually be a noob-friendly Arch distro.
That’s why i said “arch-based” not “arch”. I don’t know about manjaro actually, lots of people on the internet complained how broken it is (or rather was broken, idk), so i decided not to try it. But i’ve tried and am currently running EndeavourOS. The installation process is as easy as the one of Ubuntu, while OS remains stable, despite me using AURs and manually compiled packages. AURs are far more friendly compared to PPAs. Not to mention the fact that i wasn’t always able to find the package i needed among PPAs, and manual compilation often did not work due to Ubuntu’s update model.
I don’t quite understand, what do you mean by “KISS is not available via pacman”, so please, elaborate. To me pacman is as simple to use as apt.
Also, didn’t know SteamOS is already available for public, good to know. Gonna try it some day.
I don’t quite understand, what do you mean by “KISS is not available via pacman”
I was making a joke about Arch not being simple and pacman not having packages one would expect, often having to turn to AUR to find such packages. Seems the joke failed to land and now we’re in “explaining a joke is similar to dissecting a frog” territory.
guess, you sould’ve kept your joke a bit simpler, stupider even :D
I use snaps on multiple non-Ubuntu systems because they solve problems for me in a cleaner way than anything else has done so far.
I also find arch-based distros to often be quite obnoxious to manage, but that’s just me.
what are the usecases for snaps and flatpaks in the home desktop environment anyway? What are their benefits? Isolation?
They let you run a rock solid stable base OS with updated user applications.
Flatpak makes Debian actually great and removes its biggest drawback.sounds like an unnecessary overcomplication tbh
In both cases, you get isolation of the applications, yes. In the case of snaps, you can also isolate your system services from each other, limiting the effectiveness of attack chaining since an issue in cups (for example) won’t leave an attacker able to (for example) access your GPU.
They also decouple the application releases from your distro if you don’t use a rolling release distribution.
it’s either you’re too paranoid about the attacks, or i’m too careless
ubuntu is an excellent base, but there’s no reason to use it over other distros based on it. it does nothing better than others and forces snaps on you to the point of not even having flatpak installed by default unlike almost every other distro that is even remotely modern.
Meh, I tend to install snap on the non-Ubuntu distros I use. I also think it does a lot of things better, namely “not making me think about my OS when I don’t want to.” Of course, Kubuntu does that better than Ubuntu does.
I was no fan of Ubuntu. It made me think about the OS nonstop.
Why is Firefox taking like 8 seconds to load the first time I run it? Much slower than Windows.
Why do all of my PPA packages break for months straight after a major OS update?
Why is my CPU using 100% of a core when I connect my Xbox controller? Turns out that was a bug in libusb that had been fixed OVER A YEAR AGO but Ubuntu’s packages were so terribly out of date I couldn’t have the fix yet. That was the last straw.
Moved to OpenSUSE and never looked back. My system is basically pristine now.
