Ubuntu is just getting worse and worse. I was pretty happy running Ubuntu server for years after moving from Gentoo; I jag lost interest in spending time taking care for that server and wanted something easy.
I went to Debian half a year ago and it's been great. Should've done it earlier.
I gave up Ubuntu when they switched Firefox to a snap
I gave up Ubuntu when they switched to the Unity desktop. ugh!
Yup, that was a whole kerfuffle. That is what got me to stop installing Ubuntu.
I never understood why people run Ubuntu on servers. It's madness. Ubuntu is a fork of unstable Debian packages. You don't want unstable on your server!
Ubuntu on Desktop I can understand. Back in the days the Debian release was really long so much software was a tad outdated after a couple of years. But Debian had a much faster release cycle now, and had pretty much incorporated all the good stuff from Ubuntu and left the bad behind.
Ubuntu is a fork of unstable Debian packages. You donāt want unstable on your server!
Unstable does not mean crashes all the time. What makes them unstable on Debian is they can change and break API completely. But guess what, Ubuntu freezes the versions for their release and maintains their own security patches, completely mitigating that issue.
There are other reasons you might not want to use Ubuntu on a server but package version stability is not one of them.
Ubuntu is a fork of unstable Debian packages
And where do you think debian stable packages come from exactly ?...
it's basicaly the exact same thing. In both case :
At some point freeze unstable (snapshot unstable in case of ubuntu),
fix bugs found in the frozen set of packages,
release as stable.
We should be clear on our terminology here. Debian Unstable is called that because the package āversionsā are not stable ( change ). It is not really a comment on quality although more frequent change also implies more opportunities for issues to be introduced. In Unstable, Debian may introduce disruptive changes either to configuration or even to the package library itself.
Regardless, taking a snapshot of Debian unstable and then separately supporting those packages completely eliminates these issues. That is what Ubuntu does.
Ubuntu LTS now offers up to 10 years of support without having to upgrade a release. This is far more āstableā than anything in Debian, including of course āDebian Stsbleā. In fact, it exceeds the stability of Red Hat Enterprise.
I have not used Ubuntu in many years but I have been considering using it again for some server use cases precisely because it is now so āstableā. I still do not like Ubuntu on the desktop and do not like snaps in particular. I do not think snaps impact any of the server packages I would use though and I do not expect Canonical to introduce them during the support lifetime of a particular release.
For personal use, the 10 years of support is entirely free. That is pretty compelling.
Ubuntu on Desktop I can understand.
Not anymore. A whole extra, unneeded, proprietary, locked-in package system. Ads in the default install.
There's Mint, Pop!, and plenty of other options that actually respect the user.
Definitely. But back in the day it was good for desktops. Ubuntu has never been good for servers.
Why?
It was awesome back when during the install you could just select "LAMP", and a full stack web server suite would be automatically set up and configured correctly out of the box. But those days are long gone.
A lot of distributions do that. OpenSuSE does that. And at least it's the kind of industrial rated system that will just keep chugging along no matter what you throw at it.
Yeah now they do. Back in the early 2000s, I only remember Ubuntu having just a single option to install everything needed to be up and running on first boot. Everything else needed some tweaking of configs and quite a bit of domain knowledge to get started at the time. It's what jumpstarted me into PHP development.
sudo tasksel lamp?
Mhm I have Ubuntu LTS on my server because my VPS provider provided me with it. :/
You donāt want unstable on your server!
"But they are maintaiend for 5 years!"
I feel that.
Three years ago I moved to fedora and RHEL based distros like Rocky for my devices and servers because Iāve gotten suck of Canonicalās shit. Donāt regret it.
I'm personally interested in Rocky Linux (for servers)
I get it.
I don't love Snaps either.
However, a thing I try to remember and wish others would as well is simply this: Canonical is a company. Their goal is to make money. They are not out to create the ultimate free as in freedom Linux distribution.
This does (to my mind) not make them evil, and ESPECIALLY doesn't make the folks who work there evil. It makes them participants in the great horrible game that is Capitalism, and expecting anything else from them is going to lead to heartache, as you've seen.
If you want a Linux distro that shares your preferences and won't try to jam snaps down your throat, you might consider giving Debian a whirl as many others have.
Continuing to ride the Ubuntu train and raging against the dying of the light when it continues chugging in the direction it's been headed for YEARS seems ... futile :)
Agreed.
For any (k)ubuntu refugees, do as I did and switch to Debian!
Or as I did and switch to fedora!
(Debian's also a really good option)
Nice to see that KDE is so well supported! I'd been running Manjaro KDE the last time I had Linux installed on my desktop but I may give Debian a try this time around.
How do snaps make money for Canonical?
There's no way to install a snap except through Canonical's snap store (or snap store proxy, which gets them from Canonical's snap store).
They're charging for kernel security live patches. They charge for LTS. If they get enough buy-in re: snaps, they're going to do the only thing a for-profit company can do.
Red Hat and SUSE also charge for extended support, it's literally the only fucking way to make money off of a distro
Canonical still offers 5 years standard at the enormous cost of 0.0$
Are you under the impression that they write all the patches?
No, but they actually do write some patches and they also do all the menial work, testing and verification to keep a piece of software serviceable for 10 years
If you think it's easy, go and attempt it yourself. The greatest cure for people talking shit about needed effort, according to my experience....
I'm not gonna speak for Canonical but snaps enable commercial vendors to more readily ship their apps on the Ubuntu platform.
Money is literally the very incarnation of evil via the Talisman it bears.
If they trying to make money then they are, not a fiber of otherwise, Evil.
You're decision to not recognize the blatant & obvious Talisman does not make you correct. It's not your choice. It's the choice of that occult chant and signature.
Humans are inherently evil. There is but a thin veneer we call "civilization" that stops of from beating each other to death with whatever object can be brought to hand.
And what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China? :)
I dunno, what does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
Ubuntu has long suffered from NIH syndrome, constantly inventing its own non-standard components (snaps, Unity, etc) and trying to make them "win" by forcing them on their own users. Reminds me of Microsoft with its non-standard Internet Explorer, its own non-standard version of Java and others.
The lesson is to use a Community distro, not a Corporate distro. When the distro's goals align with its community's, even a distro based on Ubuntu will usually be better than straight Ubuntu. For example Mint keeps the good things about Ubuntu (in Mint's opinion of course), removes the bad things like Snaps, and adds other features that the community wants that Ubuntu won't (like built-in Flatpak support among other things).
The lesson is to use a Community distro, not a Corporate distro.
Okay, but you don't see these kinds of complaints with Fedora or SUSE. While I don't necessarily disagree with your core point (community is better), this doesn't seem like an issue with corporations so much as an issue strictly with Canonical.
Been running KDE on fedora for the last 6 years after giving up on everything Ubuntu based back then. Haven't thought to look elsewhere since as its been just fine
I went through something similar 2 years ago. I was sold in PopOS, mainly because Debian based distros were easier to find help for. Almost 2 years ago I started using Fedora on my PC while still having PopOS on my laptop. Within 3 weeks I was setting my laptop up with Fedora as well, and I've never looked back (other than the regular distro-hopping bursts, lol).
It has been very good & stable over the last few years. I switched because kbuntus ancient kernel caused me issues so I needed something more current, and its worked ever since so I never looked elsewhere. Running Linux isn't a hobby for me, these are my work systems, so I don't hop without a push.
Edit: I've just rolled out fedora 40 and plasma 6 is running great
Yeah, I get you. My PC is for work, and my laptop can be used for work, but it's mostly my gaming rig (together with my Steam Deck), and my distro-hopping unit as well.
I used Fedora 40 with KDE 6 since the Beta, but KDE and I just don't get along, so I'm on Gnome 46 on both devices now.
One of the huge advantages on Linux is that you can be back in business in 20 minutes if you choose to try another distro. Similar to Windows and Mac, said Noone ever š¤£š¤£
You're being purposefully obtuse. Corporate distro means "by and for companies" which rolling releases are not
Okay? OpenSUSE Leap is a point release by and for companies. While Fedora isn't necessarily a server distro, it IS a point release designed with enterprise use in mind.
If we look at both of their strictly enterprise counterparts, I've never heard of any complaints about SUSE and any complaints with RHEL I've heard are with source availability. Neither of them have the mega amounts of bad publicity of Canonical.
This is why I moved to Linux Mint. Then, when I got tired of having to reinstall the entire OS every time there's a new version I moved again. Spare a thought for the poor saps who feel stuck with an OS from a single vendor. And sometimes even paying for the privilege.
That being said fund open source. Freedom isn't free.
Mint has an auto-upgrade tool so you don't have to reinstall each time. It used to be only for minor version upgrades but now you can auto-upgrade to a new major version as well. In any case there are plenty of great distros to choose from.
And yes! whatever distro (and other FLOSS software) you use, support them with a donation if you can! When you consider the value you are getting for free vs. what you'd be spending on proprietary software, it's not so hard to do and feels good too.
Also... the amount of money I've saved by being able to revive old hardware! I haven't bought a new computer in 11 years. My computer before that (and still working) was a gift in 2006... that bitch is old enough to vote.
I have other computers that people have given to me because they were "just too old," but for me, it was an upgrade. I revived a windows 98-era HP a few years ago, just so I could use the 9-pin connection to fix my bricked OG Xbox that I was modding.
Granted, I don't game on PC or require heavy lifting (though I am saving for a personal build, because there's some hobbies I just can't do without a good desktop), but for everyday use, I have more than enough.
I currently have 4 "working" computers. Two of them are my main, one still needs to be "reinvigorated" (it's 18 years old), and one is my server.
I have a 5th desktop that was given to me (because it was too slow/old), and it just recently crapped out on me (either because of windows bullshit, or a bad hdd. But I have my hunches). So it's about to be revived when I have time.
Hardest part was getting my wife onboard with switching to Linux, instead of buying a new computer. But now she's getting ready to switch her Mac to Linux because it's been struggling. And I think she's starting to realize that a brand-new computer isn't really "necessary", if all you're doing is email, browsing web, and editing docs. Shit, our phones can handle most of that; you don't need a $1k+ computer for that, or pay for windows software that will barely work on the hardware you have.
So yeah... end rant. Absolutely love how much Linux has breathed new life into my old hardware. Has saved me time and time again, as well as a bunch of money. I definitely need to throw a donation at a distro, cause they have saved me more than just money at this point
Mint has been my goto desktop distro for many years now. It is everything Ubuntu used to be. For servers Debian is the answer.
For those that prefer non-debian based Linux then Fedora variants are the way to go.
I was on Mint over 10 years ago and noped out of it when an auto update borked my system. I can't remember what it was, and maybe if it happened to me today, I could work my way through it. But, as it stood at the time, I remember feeling rolling was the way to go.
Someone being enraged about snap on behalf of Windows users was certainly a take I didn't know I needed.
Disappoint is a sober word here. I am actually pissed at the casual arrogance of Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical.
I'm actually baffled that this would come as a surprise to people. Canonical has been like this for a long time and you'd have to have blinders on to not see it. They are hell-bent on doing things their way and ignoring the wider Linux community and even their users. That is, of course, their prerogative and to some degree I even welcome their attempts at differentiating their distro from others. As a user though you should be aware of their history and the apparent direction they're heading.
I just wish they'd stop stalling and went all-in on snaps already, since that's pretty obviously where they're headed.
Remember Unity? They got it popular and well liked and then killed it.
This along with other things is another reason why i will continue to recommend noobs start with pop os and more advanced users to use bazzite.
I do wish pop os would change their name to cosmic os though. Their current name is too close to poop os š
CosmOS?
That's fantastic! Obviously no one will ever use it.
or something more cheerful like GladOS
Don't forget the random punctuation mixed in. It's like the title of a kids' tv show.
never thought of "poop os" but I think Pop!_OS is a stupid name, it's the only reason I avoided it and chose Nobara instead lol
I could barely make out the straw man hiding between the ads. The author is working hard for them clicks!
It's 2024, use an adblocker
Why anyone browses the web in 2024 without an adblocker is completely beyond my ability to understand. You get zero sympathy from me.
Yeah, I wonder why the author puts ads on their website in 2024 too.
Ublock origin
Baah. KBIN just ate my reply.
Point form since I forgot to save to clipboard first.
Tried mint - booted to black screen
Tried ubuntu - got silly crashes like in the post trying to install stuff. It also wanted me to sign up for some sort of support package with 5 free devices to get updates or something. Also, trackpad scrolling was uncontrollable. Would scroll up half a screen or more as I lifted my fingers off.
Tried fedora - only 100% and 200% zoom option, and no right click.
Managed to fix the fedora issues with some command line found on Google and a gnome customising addon.
n00b here, just playing. Can't migrate fully as I need VBA and Playit Live etc.
I do wonder what kind of gardware you have... And if it's maybe defective?
Asus F555D - 12G RAM, AMD R8 M350DX GPU and a sticker that says Radeon Dual Graphics. That's probably what was tripping up the system booting to a black screen.
Time to switch to mbin! The features you might miss are new comment highlighting and the all content view, but these are being worked out and mbin still has, otherwise, way more features.
I took a similar path but eventually ended up on openSUSE for my desktop. I've been pretty happy with it. I can't think of a single issue that I wasn't able to quickly resolve. I even got CUDA installed and working in under an hour.
Idk, I probably haven't used Debian derivatives long enough, but isn't installing random .deb-s somewhat of a bad practice? I mean, repos exist for a reason (ignoring the fact they usually have like 3 packages in the official repos)
But even if it is, it shouldn't prevent installing released debs you find for example on GitHub repositories.
It doesn't prevent you from doing so. It just doesn't launch the store app when you double click a . deb.
But it seems to be a bit better when using the terminal
But most Windows emigrants don't use the terminal
Some things we would want to install aren't in the official repos. Downloading the deb file is a solution to that for newer users.
A lot of software wont be distributed with a PPA to add.
Additionally, debs are useful for offline installations, with apt you're able to recursively download a package and all of it's dependencies as deb files, then transfer those over to the offline machine and install in bulk.
That being said I've never had great luck with the software center, it's always felt broken. I'll typically just dpkg -I .
Yes, depending on the context
You should try MX, it's Debian based, and they have their own repo full of .deb, up to date, never break
"I understand that Canonical has every right to make the decision about their product."
That seems fair. There are loads of distros available so why not try something else if you don't like Ubuntu?
Linux and other mainstream Unices such as FreeBSD or OpenBSD int al (that's not something I ever thought I'd be able to say a few decades back) are not Windows or Apples or whatevs. You do you and not them!
If Ubuntu fails to scratch your itch then move on. Debian is the upstream for Ubuntu so you'll probably be fine with that instead. There is loads of documentation for Debian via the wiki etc and of course most Ubuntu docs will apply as well.
You only got part of the quote, and not the part that really is what the article is about.
I understand that Canonical has every right to make the decision about their product. You want to promote Snap over Deb, fine. But don't do it in a deceiving manner.
And there is a pretty reasonable middle ground:
If you would like to keep your 'Snap store' deb-free, fine! At least have the decency to provide Gdebi by default for local deb file installation.
Give a shot for Fedora!
Does this mean you have to use apt-get to get the deb version again? Or is there an even more complicated command? I'm wondering what happens for the other Ubuntu flavors. I'm usually running Kubuntu.
Even apt is deliberately broken:
"[If] You use 'sudo apt install chromium', you get a Snap package of Chromium instead of Debian"
This was where I rage quit. Who in the hell thought it was a good idea?
Same here, it's the reason why I kicked Ubuntu off my laptop. They removed any way to choose and made it such a pain to get around the Snap bullshit. I'm on Linux because I want to choose what I do with my system.
Who in the hell thought it was a good idea?
Marc Shuttleworth
I have serious doubts about that due to the role of early Ubuntu in popularizing desktop Linux. For many including me, Ubuntu was the first taste of GNU/Linux and it was a breath of fresh air compared to the contemporary clumsy and cumbersome distros like Fedora. Only Ubuntu from those days has any resemblance to the experience we expect from desktop Linux today.
The problems at Canonical seems like a systemic institutional issue, probably related to egotistic management with temper issues. That of course means that Shuttleworth is the source of those personality disorders. But still...
I have serious doubts about that due to the role of early Ubuntu in popularizing desktop Linux.
Ubuntu didn't move overall Linux market share at all. It just took the "gateway drug" role from Mandrake/Mandriva.
Canonical
It is a good idea. Imagine you are completely new to Ubuntu and want to install chromium. You're gonna search on Google how to do that and you will probably find an old article telling you to use APT. If āsudo apt install chromiumā did not work it would be very frustrating.
Only reason it wouldn't work is Canonical killing the .deb package. That was an unforced error. So no, still not a good idea.
Seriously? Wow. That moves the whole thing into asshole territory. I'm glad I went with a distro that prioritizes not being shitty.
š¤®
Why does this break apt?
Just because, I assume (I am using Debian btw), it installs a placeholder deb-package which, while running the postinst script, installs chromium via snap commands?
It doesnāt break apt, apt just prefers snaps now.
This is as they designed it.
The issue here is that people donāt like this other thing and so the distribution which has been moving towards this other thing for like a decade now I guess is the bad guy for continuing to work towards that goal.
It doesnāt break apt, Canonical just broke their version of apt justto prefer snaps now.
FTFY
OK, so it's actually apt itself that's different on Ubuntu, not just fake/virtual/transitional deb packages in their repos.
Same with firefox
Canonical even patched apt a bit so it prefers to install snaps first.
That really pissed me off in 2018
It is about installing .deb that you manually downloaded from somewhere. You can't install them by double clicking on them, you have to install from command line.
You absolutely could in the past.
I dont mind snaps but blocking deb installs by default on file clicks is a bad look.
The sheer audacity and arrogance of giving me something for free and not caring* about me.
* "Not caring" presumably means "not doing something about my pet issue", but I'm not going to take the clickbait.
It's about not being able to install .deb packages through the installation GUI.
The whole snap issue is hardly a pet peeve. Let alone in an LTS release.
Ubuntu user here. You can/could install .deb packages with the UI?
TIL
as far as I remember I could always double click the .deb and the GUI would let me install it, pretty handy. Aaand it stopped working some time ago. I'm not using ubuntu outside of work and there's not much system package installing in work environments so I'm out of touch now, but it was handy at the time.
The discord snap is basically unusable for me so that's the only way I can have discord installed. I'll probably switch away from kubuntu next time if it inherited this problem.
There's the flatpak too, that's the version I use alongside webcord in arch.
Does that have auto updates? It's kind of annoying to download debs every week.
I'm not super well versed, I'm a Linux casual.
you can go into the command line and write "flatpak upgrade", but every time I open the discord app it apparently downloads something, idk if it's self updating correctly or not.
I'll see if I can enable it in Discover and run updates through that. Thanks for the tip.
You can everywhere else
giving me something for free
What are you talking about? It is not even "for free", they get a lot value from the community.
They're nothing without the users, it's not that they would be making it if nobody uses it anyways. Users used to love them, they trusted them, they went on spreading their system, reported issues, created tutorials, flavors, videos, tools, and so on, they helped Cannonical become what it is now.
I don't think they're giving us anything "for free."
They're getting "exposure"?
The software is broken in an obvious way, even though it used to work and they could just roll it back for the release.
They are actively trying to harm the community to somehow "force" users into snaps.
Just go Debian.
Ubuntu used to bring a bit of spit and polish at a time when most Linux distros lacked that. Nowadays it brings nothing worthwhile to the table anymore, it's just brand recognition, but what it does bring is aggravation for experienced users.
I had this realization a few years ago when I found myself fighting against 20.04 and I asked myself: what exactly is Ubuntu doing for me that plain Debian can't? The answer was nothing really, so I moved all my Ubuntu VMs over to Debian Bullseye and never looked back.
That's precisely I changed to MX Linux.
I won't use ubuntu for a long time I guess.
For my server I simply switched to Debian and add the packages I need on top, without all that proprietary snap crap.
For desktop I'm tempted to switch to an atomic distro like Fedora Silverblue (Gnome) or Fedora Onyx (Budgie), and for the Steam Deck I'd go with Bazzite.
Then...I guess stop using it? What's your issue exactly? You have a plethora of alternatives.
How dare people complain about something they don't like!
That aside, the article is shitty lol
I think he has a point that Canonical is sabotaging Windows emigrants' core user experience to force their Snaps
for sure! Just didn't like the presentation.
When you start thinking that everyone on the Internet deserves to hear your opinions on everything, it's time to shut the fuck up. This guy is at that step, and this "article" has no information in it that could be deemed useful to a reader.
I think they had a point, but they didn't care to make a high quality writing out of it. It's basically a rant
I wish Ubuntu wasn't standard
How do you mean?
I was a long-time Xubuntu fan, tried Ubuntu directly from canonical for my new laptop.
It's been a bit rocky, all things considered. I think I'm trying something else next time, maybe mint or whatever. Maybe Xubuntu, but only if this snap shit has been cut out.
Definitely time to just use debian, mint MX, or pop os even. I did a lot of hopping though and I've settled on Nobara KDE. Mint was great but the Bluetooth was finicky for some reason, and debian is mostly just ubuntu with some gui stuff removed. PopOS is basically just debian until COSMIC but still good too.
Is this snap stuff something the Ubuntu variants avoid I.e Ubuntu studio and Ubuntu budgie?
Does Linux Mint count as an "Ubuntu variant"?
Well, it's complicated, isn't it?
Ubuntu is built on Debian's skeleton. RHEL is built on Fedora. Many more examples.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but in a much deeper and more connected way than Ubuntu is based on Debian. It even shares many of the same software repositories.
The next closer level is how Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Kubuntu are just slight variations of Ubuntu. People like to call these "flavours".
Finally, you get to the closest layerāthe thousands of people who have taken a stock Ubuntu installation and swapped out one or two components to meet their requirements. We don't even think of these as distros in their own right.
It's a continuous spectrum, and any labels we try to apply will be pretty much guaranteed to have fuzzy edges.
No. It based on Ubuntu but without all the bullshit. .deb ist standard and flatpak is also built in. Whenever both are available, you get a choice right from the software manager. Mint is very much its own thing and great if you want to ditch Ubuntu.
@Rustmilian classic Mint is basically Ubuntu without snap. Then there's Mint Debian edition which is built on Debian (sort of insurance if Ubuntu goes Red Hat way).
Ubuntu variants are required to use snap if they are to be considered official
Time to move on to the Ubuntu of the Arch stream, Manjaro.
I donāt get the anger. Just install your software as snaps. Whatās the problem?
I've seen a video where the guy installed steam on Ubuntu 24.04. Of course it was the snap.
The guy usually tests distro to see of it's easy to game on it. If the drivers are easy to install, etc...
He usually launches steam, then tests Valheim, Overwatch, Tomb Raider and cyberpunk.
Overwatch didn't launch, cyberpunk neither. Valheim reported that a service didn't launch. Tomb raider was OK.
Then he uninstalled the steam snap and installed the .deb one. Everything worked.
Enforcing packages is already something that people don't appreciate on Linux, enforcing packages that don't work is surprisingly hated.
Ubuntu is supposed to be a distro for beginners, how am I supposed to recommand a distro when I have no confidence the applications will work ?
I donāt use Ubuntu myself but I put Zorin on my dadās computer. He 82 and he doesnāt know what an operating system is. He seems to be able to use it though š¤·
mint or manjaro are better anyways
But how is a new person supposed to know that? Ubuntu is still at the top of many charts. And has years of previous positive reviews.
i feel like anyone switching os should look a bit into what they entail and then its our responsibility to tell people what is better
Mint is far better, I usually recommand it. But Ubuntu is still more popular.
I didn't use Manjaro in many years, so I can't judge it. The biggest problem I see with
Manjaro is that it has access to AUR.
Manjaro has its own repos, and they take more time to release packages than Arch, which can be a good thing stability wise. But if you have applications from AUR installed then you might have conflicts with the dependencies needed and the dependencies used by the system.
As I said, I didn't use Manjaro in a while, so I don't know if it still a problem. If it is, then it's a shame that the biggest advantage of Arch, the AUR, become that much a risk for the system.
It's almost like you didn't read the article, because this specific point is addressed.
Ubuntu is just getting worse and worse. I was pretty happy running Ubuntu server for years after moving from Gentoo; I jag lost interest in spending time taking care for that server and wanted something easy.
I went to Debian half a year ago and it's been great. Should've done it earlier.
I gave up Ubuntu when they switched Firefox to a snap
I gave up Ubuntu when they switched to the Unity desktop. ugh!
Yup, that was a whole kerfuffle. That is what got me to stop installing Ubuntu.
I never understood why people run Ubuntu on servers. It's madness. Ubuntu is a fork of unstable Debian packages. You don't want unstable on your server!
Ubuntu on Desktop I can understand. Back in the days the Debian release was really long so much software was a tad outdated after a couple of years. But Debian had a much faster release cycle now, and had pretty much incorporated all the good stuff from Ubuntu and left the bad behind.
Unstable does not mean crashes all the time. What makes them unstable on Debian is they can change and break API completely. But guess what, Ubuntu freezes the versions for their release and maintains their own security patches, completely mitigating that issue.
There are other reasons you might not want to use Ubuntu on a server but package version stability is not one of them.
And where do you think debian stable packages come from exactly ?...
it's basicaly the exact same thing. In both case :
We should be clear on our terminology here. Debian Unstable is called that because the package āversionsā are not stable ( change ). It is not really a comment on quality although more frequent change also implies more opportunities for issues to be introduced. In Unstable, Debian may introduce disruptive changes either to configuration or even to the package library itself.
Regardless, taking a snapshot of Debian unstable and then separately supporting those packages completely eliminates these issues. That is what Ubuntu does.
Ubuntu LTS now offers up to 10 years of support without having to upgrade a release. This is far more āstableā than anything in Debian, including of course āDebian Stsbleā. In fact, it exceeds the stability of Red Hat Enterprise.
I have not used Ubuntu in many years but I have been considering using it again for some server use cases precisely because it is now so āstableā. I still do not like Ubuntu on the desktop and do not like snaps in particular. I do not think snaps impact any of the server packages I would use though and I do not expect Canonical to introduce them during the support lifetime of a particular release.
For personal use, the 10 years of support is entirely free. That is pretty compelling.
Not anymore. A whole extra, unneeded, proprietary, locked-in package system. Ads in the default install.
There's Mint, Pop!, and plenty of other options that actually respect the user.
Definitely. But back in the day it was good for desktops. Ubuntu has never been good for servers.
Why?
It was awesome back when during the install you could just select "LAMP", and a full stack web server suite would be automatically set up and configured correctly out of the box. But those days are long gone.
A lot of distributions do that. OpenSuSE does that. And at least it's the kind of industrial rated system that will just keep chugging along no matter what you throw at it.
Yeah now they do. Back in the early 2000s, I only remember Ubuntu having just a single option to install everything needed to be up and running on first boot. Everything else needed some tweaking of configs and quite a bit of domain knowledge to get started at the time. It's what jumpstarted me into PHP development.
sudo tasksel lamp?
Mhm I have Ubuntu LTS on my server because my VPS provider provided me with it. :/
"But they are maintaiend for 5 years!"
I feel that.
Three years ago I moved to fedora and RHEL based distros like Rocky for my devices and servers because Iāve gotten suck of Canonicalās shit. Donāt regret it.
I'm personally interested in Rocky Linux (for servers)
I get it.
I don't love Snaps either.
However, a thing I try to remember and wish others would as well is simply this: Canonical is a company. Their goal is to make money. They are not out to create the ultimate free as in freedom Linux distribution.
This does (to my mind) not make them evil, and ESPECIALLY doesn't make the folks who work there evil. It makes them participants in the great horrible game that is Capitalism, and expecting anything else from them is going to lead to heartache, as you've seen.
If you want a Linux distro that shares your preferences and won't try to jam snaps down your throat, you might consider giving Debian a whirl as many others have.
Continuing to ride the Ubuntu train and raging against the dying of the light when it continues chugging in the direction it's been headed for YEARS seems ... futile :)
Agreed.
For any (k)ubuntu refugees, do as I did and switch to Debian!
Or as I did and switch to fedora! (Debian's also a really good option)
Nice to see that KDE is so well supported! I'd been running Manjaro KDE the last time I had Linux installed on my desktop but I may give Debian a try this time around.
How do snaps make money for Canonical?
There's no way to install a snap except through Canonical's snap store (or snap store proxy, which gets them from Canonical's snap store).
They're charging for kernel security live patches. They charge for LTS. If they get enough buy-in re: snaps, they're going to do the only thing a for-profit company can do.
Red Hat and SUSE also charge for extended support, it's literally the only fucking way to make money off of a distro
Canonical still offers 5 years standard at the enormous cost of 0.0$
Are you under the impression that they write all the patches?
No, but they actually do write some patches and they also do all the menial work, testing and verification to keep a piece of software serviceable for 10 years
If you think it's easy, go and attempt it yourself. The greatest cure for people talking shit about needed effort, according to my experience....
I'm not gonna speak for Canonical but snaps enable commercial vendors to more readily ship their apps on the Ubuntu platform.
Money is literally the very incarnation of evil via the Talisman it bears.
If they trying to make money then they are, not a fiber of otherwise, Evil.
You're decision to not recognize the blatant & obvious Talisman does not make you correct. It's not your choice. It's the choice of that occult chant and signature.
Humans are inherently evil. There is but a thin veneer we call "civilization" that stops of from beating each other to death with whatever object can be brought to hand.
And what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China? :)
I dunno, what does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
Ubuntu has long suffered from NIH syndrome, constantly inventing its own non-standard components (snaps, Unity, etc) and trying to make them "win" by forcing them on their own users. Reminds me of Microsoft with its non-standard Internet Explorer, its own non-standard version of Java and others.
The lesson is to use a Community distro, not a Corporate distro. When the distro's goals align with its community's, even a distro based on Ubuntu will usually be better than straight Ubuntu. For example Mint keeps the good things about Ubuntu (in Mint's opinion of course), removes the bad things like Snaps, and adds other features that the community wants that Ubuntu won't (like built-in Flatpak support among other things).
Okay, but you don't see these kinds of complaints with Fedora or SUSE. While I don't necessarily disagree with your core point (community is better), this doesn't seem like an issue with corporations so much as an issue strictly with Canonical.
Been running KDE on fedora for the last 6 years after giving up on everything Ubuntu based back then. Haven't thought to look elsewhere since as its been just fine
I went through something similar 2 years ago. I was sold in PopOS, mainly because Debian based distros were easier to find help for. Almost 2 years ago I started using Fedora on my PC while still having PopOS on my laptop. Within 3 weeks I was setting my laptop up with Fedora as well, and I've never looked back (other than the regular distro-hopping bursts, lol).
It has been very good & stable over the last few years. I switched because kbuntus ancient kernel caused me issues so I needed something more current, and its worked ever since so I never looked elsewhere. Running Linux isn't a hobby for me, these are my work systems, so I don't hop without a push.
Edit: I've just rolled out fedora 40 and plasma 6 is running great
Yeah, I get you. My PC is for work, and my laptop can be used for work, but it's mostly my gaming rig (together with my Steam Deck), and my distro-hopping unit as well.
I used Fedora 40 with KDE 6 since the Beta, but KDE and I just don't get along, so I'm on Gnome 46 on both devices now.
One of the huge advantages on Linux is that you can be back in business in 20 minutes if you choose to try another distro. Similar to Windows and Mac, said Noone ever š¤£š¤£
You're being purposefully obtuse. Corporate distro means "by and for companies" which rolling releases are not
Okay? OpenSUSE Leap is a point release by and for companies. While Fedora isn't necessarily a server distro, it IS a point release designed with enterprise use in mind.
If we look at both of their strictly enterprise counterparts, I've never heard of any complaints about SUSE and any complaints with RHEL I've heard are with source availability. Neither of them have the mega amounts of bad publicity of Canonical.
This is why I moved to Linux Mint. Then, when I got tired of having to reinstall the entire OS every time there's a new version I moved again. Spare a thought for the poor saps who feel stuck with an OS from a single vendor. And sometimes even paying for the privilege. That being said fund open source. Freedom isn't free.
Mint has an auto-upgrade tool so you don't have to reinstall each time. It used to be only for minor version upgrades but now you can auto-upgrade to a new major version as well. In any case there are plenty of great distros to choose from.
And yes! whatever distro (and other FLOSS software) you use, support them with a donation if you can! When you consider the value you are getting for free vs. what you'd be spending on proprietary software, it's not so hard to do and feels good too.
Also... the amount of money I've saved by being able to revive old hardware! I haven't bought a new computer in 11 years. My computer before that (and still working) was a gift in 2006... that bitch is old enough to vote.
I have other computers that people have given to me because they were "just too old," but for me, it was an upgrade. I revived a windows 98-era HP a few years ago, just so I could use the 9-pin connection to fix my bricked OG Xbox that I was modding.
Granted, I don't game on PC or require heavy lifting (though I am saving for a personal build, because there's some hobbies I just can't do without a good desktop), but for everyday use, I have more than enough.
I currently have 4 "working" computers. Two of them are my main, one still needs to be "reinvigorated" (it's 18 years old), and one is my server.
I have a 5th desktop that was given to me (because it was too slow/old), and it just recently crapped out on me (either because of windows bullshit, or a bad hdd. But I have my hunches). So it's about to be revived when I have time.
Hardest part was getting my wife onboard with switching to Linux, instead of buying a new computer. But now she's getting ready to switch her Mac to Linux because it's been struggling. And I think she's starting to realize that a brand-new computer isn't really "necessary", if all you're doing is email, browsing web, and editing docs. Shit, our phones can handle most of that; you don't need a $1k+ computer for that, or pay for windows software that will barely work on the hardware you have.
So yeah... end rant. Absolutely love how much Linux has breathed new life into my old hardware. Has saved me time and time again, as well as a bunch of money. I definitely need to throw a donation at a distro, cause they have saved me more than just money at this point
Mint has been my goto desktop distro for many years now. It is everything Ubuntu used to be. For servers Debian is the answer.
For those that prefer non-debian based Linux then Fedora variants are the way to go.
I was on Mint over 10 years ago and noped out of it when an auto update borked my system. I can't remember what it was, and maybe if it happened to me today, I could work my way through it. But, as it stood at the time, I remember feeling rolling was the way to go.
Someone being enraged about snap on behalf of Windows users was certainly a take I didn't know I needed.
I'm actually baffled that this would come as a surprise to people. Canonical has been like this for a long time and you'd have to have blinders on to not see it. They are hell-bent on doing things their way and ignoring the wider Linux community and even their users. That is, of course, their prerogative and to some degree I even welcome their attempts at differentiating their distro from others. As a user though you should be aware of their history and the apparent direction they're heading.
I just wish they'd stop stalling and went all-in on snaps already, since that's pretty obviously where they're headed.
Remember Unity? They got it popular and well liked and then killed it.
This along with other things is another reason why i will continue to recommend noobs start with pop os and more advanced users to use bazzite.
I do wish pop os would change their name to cosmic os though. Their current name is too close to poop os š
CosmOS?
That's fantastic! Obviously no one will ever use it.
or something more cheerful like GladOS
Don't forget the random punctuation mixed in. It's like the title of a kids' tv show.
never thought of "poop os" but I think Pop!_OS is a stupid name, it's the only reason I avoided it and chose Nobara instead lol
I could barely make out the straw man hiding between the ads. The author is working hard for them clicks!
It's 2024, use an adblocker
Why anyone browses the web in 2024 without an adblocker is completely beyond my ability to understand. You get zero sympathy from me.
Yeah, I wonder why the author puts ads on their website in 2024 too.
Ublock origin
Baah. KBIN just ate my reply.
Point form since I forgot to save to clipboard first.
Tried mint - booted to black screen
Tried ubuntu - got silly crashes like in the post trying to install stuff. It also wanted me to sign up for some sort of support package with 5 free devices to get updates or something. Also, trackpad scrolling was uncontrollable. Would scroll up half a screen or more as I lifted my fingers off.
Tried fedora - only 100% and 200% zoom option, and no right click.
Managed to fix the fedora issues with some command line found on Google and a gnome customising addon.
n00b here, just playing. Can't migrate fully as I need VBA and Playit Live etc.
I do wonder what kind of gardware you have... And if it's maybe defective?
Asus F555D - 12G RAM, AMD R8 M350DX GPU and a sticker that says Radeon Dual Graphics. That's probably what was tripping up the system booting to a black screen.
Time to switch to mbin! The features you might miss are new comment highlighting and the all content view, but these are being worked out and mbin still has, otherwise, way more features.
I took a similar path but eventually ended up on openSUSE for my desktop. I've been pretty happy with it. I can't think of a single issue that I wasn't able to quickly resolve. I even got CUDA installed and working in under an hour.
Idk, I probably haven't used Debian derivatives long enough, but isn't installing random .deb-s somewhat of a bad practice? I mean, repos exist for a reason (ignoring the fact they usually have like 3 packages in the official repos)
But even if it is, it shouldn't prevent installing released debs you find for example on GitHub repositories.
It doesn't prevent you from doing so. It just doesn't launch the store app when you double click a . deb.
But it seems to be a bit better when using the terminal
But most Windows emigrants don't use the terminal
Some things we would want to install aren't in the official repos. Downloading the deb file is a solution to that for newer users.
A lot of software wont be distributed with a PPA to add.
Additionally, debs are useful for offline installations, with apt you're able to recursively download a package and all of it's dependencies as deb files, then transfer those over to the offline machine and install in bulk.
That being said I've never had great luck with the software center, it's always felt broken. I'll typically just
dpkg -I.Yes, depending on the context
You should try MX, it's Debian based, and they have their own repo full of .deb, up to date, never break
"I understand that Canonical has every right to make the decision about their product."
That seems fair. There are loads of distros available so why not try something else if you don't like Ubuntu?
Linux and other mainstream Unices such as FreeBSD or OpenBSD int al (that's not something I ever thought I'd be able to say a few decades back) are not Windows or Apples or whatevs. You do you and not them!
If Ubuntu fails to scratch your itch then move on. Debian is the upstream for Ubuntu so you'll probably be fine with that instead. There is loads of documentation for Debian via the wiki etc and of course most Ubuntu docs will apply as well.
You only got part of the quote, and not the part that really is what the article is about.
And there is a pretty reasonable middle ground:
Give a shot for Fedora!
Does this mean you have to use apt-get to get the deb version again? Or is there an even more complicated command? I'm wondering what happens for the other Ubuntu flavors. I'm usually running Kubuntu.
Even apt is deliberately broken:
"[If] You use 'sudo apt install chromium', you get a Snap package of Chromium instead of Debian"
This was where I rage quit. Who in the hell thought it was a good idea?
Same here, it's the reason why I kicked Ubuntu off my laptop. They removed any way to choose and made it such a pain to get around the Snap bullshit. I'm on Linux because I want to choose what I do with my system.
Marc Shuttleworth
I have serious doubts about that due to the role of early Ubuntu in popularizing desktop Linux. For many including me, Ubuntu was the first taste of GNU/Linux and it was a breath of fresh air compared to the contemporary clumsy and cumbersome distros like Fedora. Only Ubuntu from those days has any resemblance to the experience we expect from desktop Linux today.
The problems at Canonical seems like a systemic institutional issue, probably related to egotistic management with temper issues. That of course means that Shuttleworth is the source of those personality disorders. But still...
Ubuntu didn't move overall Linux market share at all. It just took the "gateway drug" role from Mandrake/Mandriva.
Canonical
It is a good idea. Imagine you are completely new to Ubuntu and want to install chromium. You're gonna search on Google how to do that and you will probably find an old article telling you to use APT. If āsudo apt install chromiumā did not work it would be very frustrating.
Only reason it wouldn't work is Canonical killing the .deb package. That was an unforced error. So no, still not a good idea.
Seriously? Wow. That moves the whole thing into asshole territory. I'm glad I went with a distro that prioritizes not being shitty.
š¤®
Why does this break apt? Just because, I assume (I am using Debian btw), it installs a placeholder deb-package which, while running the postinst script, installs chromium via snap commands?
It doesnāt break apt, apt just prefers snaps now.
This is as they designed it.
The issue here is that people donāt like this other thing and so the distribution which has been moving towards this other thing for like a decade now I guess is the bad guy for continuing to work towards that goal.
It doesnāt break apt, Canonical just broke their version of apt
justto prefer snaps now.FTFY
OK, so it's actually apt itself that's different on Ubuntu, not just fake/virtual/transitional deb packages in their repos.
Same with firefox
Canonical even patched apt a bit so it prefers to install snaps first.
That really pissed me off in 2018
It is about installing .deb that you manually downloaded from somewhere. You can't install them by double clicking on them, you have to install from command line.
You absolutely could in the past.
I dont mind snaps but blocking deb installs by default on file clicks is a bad look.
The sheer audacity and arrogance of giving me something for free and not caring* about me.
* "Not caring" presumably means "not doing something about my pet issue", but I'm not going to take the clickbait.
It's about not being able to install .deb packages through the installation GUI.
The whole snap issue is hardly a pet peeve. Let alone in an LTS release.
Ubuntu user here. You can/could install .deb packages with the UI?
TIL
as far as I remember I could always double click the .deb and the GUI would let me install it, pretty handy. Aaand it stopped working some time ago. I'm not using ubuntu outside of work and there's not much system package installing in work environments so I'm out of touch now, but it was handy at the time.
The discord snap is basically unusable for me so that's the only way I can have discord installed. I'll probably switch away from kubuntu next time if it inherited this problem.
There's the flatpak too, that's the version I use alongside webcord in arch.
Does that have auto updates? It's kind of annoying to download debs every week.
I'm not super well versed, I'm a Linux casual.
you can go into the command line and write "flatpak upgrade", but every time I open the discord app it apparently downloads something, idk if it's self updating correctly or not.
I'll see if I can enable it in Discover and run updates through that. Thanks for the tip.
You can everywhere else
What are you talking about? It is not even "for free", they get a lot value from the community.
They're nothing without the users, it's not that they would be making it if nobody uses it anyways. Users used to love them, they trusted them, they went on spreading their system, reported issues, created tutorials, flavors, videos, tools, and so on, they helped Cannonical become what it is now.
I don't think they're giving us anything "for free."
They're getting "exposure"?
The software is broken in an obvious way, even though it used to work and they could just roll it back for the release.
They are actively trying to harm the community to somehow "force" users into snaps.
Just go Debian.
Ubuntu used to bring a bit of spit and polish at a time when most Linux distros lacked that. Nowadays it brings nothing worthwhile to the table anymore, it's just brand recognition, but what it does bring is aggravation for experienced users.
I had this realization a few years ago when I found myself fighting against 20.04 and I asked myself: what exactly is Ubuntu doing for me that plain Debian can't? The answer was nothing really, so I moved all my Ubuntu VMs over to Debian Bullseye and never looked back.
That's precisely I changed to MX Linux. I won't use ubuntu for a long time I guess.
For my server I simply switched to Debian and add the packages I need on top, without all that proprietary snap crap.
For desktop I'm tempted to switch to an atomic distro like Fedora Silverblue (Gnome) or Fedora Onyx (Budgie), and for the Steam Deck I'd go with Bazzite.
Then...I guess stop using it? What's your issue exactly? You have a plethora of alternatives.
How dare people complain about something they don't like!
That aside, the article is shitty lol
I think he has a point that Canonical is sabotaging Windows emigrants' core user experience to force their Snaps
for sure! Just didn't like the presentation.
When you start thinking that everyone on the Internet deserves to hear your opinions on everything, it's time to shut the fuck up. This guy is at that step, and this "article" has no information in it that could be deemed useful to a reader.
I think they had a point, but they didn't care to make a high quality writing out of it. It's basically a rant
I wish Ubuntu wasn't standard
How do you mean?
I was a long-time Xubuntu fan, tried Ubuntu directly from canonical for my new laptop.
It's been a bit rocky, all things considered. I think I'm trying something else next time, maybe mint or whatever. Maybe Xubuntu, but only if this snap shit has been cut out.
Definitely time to just use debian, mint MX, or pop os even. I did a lot of hopping though and I've settled on Nobara KDE. Mint was great but the Bluetooth was finicky for some reason, and debian is mostly just ubuntu with some gui stuff removed. PopOS is basically just debian until COSMIC but still good too.
Is this snap stuff something the Ubuntu variants avoid I.e Ubuntu studio and Ubuntu budgie?
Does Linux Mint count as an "Ubuntu variant"?
Well, it's complicated, isn't it?
Ubuntu is built on Debian's skeleton. RHEL is built on Fedora. Many more examples.
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, but in a much deeper and more connected way than Ubuntu is based on Debian. It even shares many of the same software repositories.
The next closer level is how Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Kubuntu are just slight variations of Ubuntu. People like to call these "flavours".
Finally, you get to the closest layerāthe thousands of people who have taken a stock Ubuntu installation and swapped out one or two components to meet their requirements. We don't even think of these as distros in their own right.
It's a continuous spectrum, and any labels we try to apply will be pretty much guaranteed to have fuzzy edges.
No. It based on Ubuntu but without all the bullshit. .deb ist standard and flatpak is also built in. Whenever both are available, you get a choice right from the software manager. Mint is very much its own thing and great if you want to ditch Ubuntu.
@Rustmilian classic Mint is basically Ubuntu without snap. Then there's Mint Debian edition which is built on Debian (sort of insurance if Ubuntu goes Red Hat way).
Ubuntu variants are required to use snap if they are to be considered official
Time to move on to the Ubuntu of the Arch stream, Manjaro.
I donāt get the anger. Just install your software as snaps. Whatās the problem?
I've seen a video where the guy installed steam on Ubuntu 24.04. Of course it was the snap. The guy usually tests distro to see of it's easy to game on it. If the drivers are easy to install, etc...
He usually launches steam, then tests Valheim, Overwatch, Tomb Raider and cyberpunk.
Overwatch didn't launch, cyberpunk neither. Valheim reported that a service didn't launch. Tomb raider was OK.
Then he uninstalled the steam snap and installed the .deb one. Everything worked.
Enforcing packages is already something that people don't appreciate on Linux, enforcing packages that don't work is surprisingly hated.
Ubuntu is supposed to be a distro for beginners, how am I supposed to recommand a distro when I have no confidence the applications will work ?
I donāt use Ubuntu myself but I put Zorin on my dadās computer. He 82 and he doesnāt know what an operating system is. He seems to be able to use it though š¤·
mint or manjaro are better anyways
But how is a new person supposed to know that? Ubuntu is still at the top of many charts. And has years of previous positive reviews.
i feel like anyone switching os should look a bit into what they entail and then its our responsibility to tell people what is better
Mint is far better, I usually recommand it. But Ubuntu is still more popular.
I didn't use Manjaro in many years, so I can't judge it. The biggest problem I see with Manjaro is that it has access to AUR.
Manjaro has its own repos, and they take more time to release packages than Arch, which can be a good thing stability wise. But if you have applications from AUR installed then you might have conflicts with the dependencies needed and the dependencies used by the system.
As I said, I didn't use Manjaro in a while, so I don't know if it still a problem. If it is, then it's a shame that the biggest advantage of Arch, the AUR, become that much a risk for the system.
It's almost like you didn't read the article, because this specific point is addressed.