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Software developer and prolific blogger Herman Ounapuu,
writing in a blog post
I liked Ubuntu. For a very long time, it was the sensible default option. Around 2016, I used the Ubuntu GNOME flavor, and after they ditched the Unity desktop environment, GNOME became the default option.
I was really happy with it, both for work and personal computing needs. Estonian ID card software was also officially supported on Ubuntu, which made Ubuntu a good choice for family members.
But then something changed.
Ounapuu recounts how Ubuntu's bi-annual long-term support releases consistently broke functionality, from minor interface glitches to catastrophic system failures that left computers unresponsive. His breaking point came after multiple problematic upgrades affecting family members' computers, including one that rendered a laptop completely unusable during an upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. Another incident left a relative's system with broken Firefox shortcuts and duplicate status bar icons after updating Lubuntu 18.04.
Canonical's aggressive push of Snap packages has drawn particular criticism. The forced migration of system components from traditional Debian packages to Snaps resulted in compatibility issues, broken desktop shortcuts, and government ID card authentication failures. In one instance, he writes, a Snap-related bug in the GNOME desktop environment severely disrupted workplace productivity, requiring multiple system restarts to resolve. The author has since switched to Fedora, praising its implementation of Flatpak as a superior alternative to Snaps.
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Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
, Funny)
by
DarkOx
( 621550 )
writes:
Looking forward to the Slack community growing with more Ubuntu and RH refugees both those ecosystems seem to be in full on self destruction mode.
Re:Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
, Funny)
by
Seven Spirals
( 4924941 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:15PM (
#65144771
Come to where the flavor is, come to BSD country. Now with 100% less SUCK than Linux. We'll welcome you, won't whine to you about a Code of Conduct, break your baseline, or force System===D down your throat.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
r1348
( 2567295 )
writes:
It also won't work on your mom's laptop.
Re:
Score:
by
Gilmoure
( 18428 )
writes:
NetBSD; yeah, it runs on that.
Re:
Score:
by
BeepBoopBeep
( 7930446 )
writes:
As long as your harware is like a decade old.
Re: Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
by
Big Hairy Gorilla
( 9839972 )
writes:
I think most hard core diy-ers will end up on BSD if linux devolves. as a hard core diy-er myself I did try BSD on both servers and desktops and was both pleasantly surprised how easy the slide was, but ultimately found the extra elbow grease required to outweigh the benefits
... *at this time*
If you stick to core functionalities like web browsing, email clients, basic media playback applications.. I agree BSD is a viable alternative.
But we are taking about ubuntu here
... the windows of linux... Ubuntu use
Re: Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
by
BuGless
( 31232 )
writes:
on Thursday February 06, 2025 @08:56AM (
#65146459
Homepage
I was forced to use Debian
... i don't like systemd for servers, I have my reasons
I'm very happy with Debian on desktops (for the past 15 years).
For all servers I migrated to Devuan, perfect for avoiding systemd.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
HotNeedleOfInquiry
( 598897 )
writes:
Resisting the urge to post the canonical "BSD is Dying" rant.
Most here are too young to get it anyway.
Re: Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
"The fact that every iPhone runs it makes it a bigger install base than Linux"
Uh no. Android is more popular than iPhone.
Re:Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
, Interesting)
by
dvice
( 6309704 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:26PM (
#65144807
If you have many users, you will have many unhappy users also.
It looks like I originally installed Ubuntu 12.10 ( cat
/var/log/installer/media-info ). So it is not like it is impossible to just keep upgrading.
That reminds me that this future where we now live is pretty awesome. I have not upgraded my computer for over a decade and I can still run the popular new games like Minecraft and Team Fortress 2. Amazing that the mother board still holds. CPU fan died years ago as did some of the case fans. If you wonder how come the CPU doesn't just catch fire, it is because of big heat sink on top of it and the laws of thermodynamics.
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Re:
Score:
by
karmawarrior
( 311177 )
writes:
Debian is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It's the same environment except no f---ing Snaps.
And it's Snaps that's really broken everything with Ubuntu. It's buggy to the point that I've repeatedly lost data because of it, from Firefox bookmarks/passwords/history to entire LXD images.
My only issue with it is the installer isn't anything like as "Just works" as Ubuntu's efforts.
Re:
Score:
by
CAIMLAS
( 41445 )
writes:
I'm still using a initv debian system.
It still works. Switch and leave it.
Re: Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
, Interesting)
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
drink@hyperlogos.org
on Thursday February 06, 2025 @06:15AM (
#65146257
Homepage
Journal
"The disadvantage of that is that you have to use sysvinit, which is awful, which is why so many projects across virtually every Unix variant (GNU/Linux included) have migrated to replacements."
Until this moment, I thought you might know something.
Sysvinit with startpar is great. It works beautifully, which is much more than you can say for systemd.
The reason everyone switched to systemd is GNOME. They made it mandatory. By the time we all found out that GNOME 3 is total trash, systemd was everywhere.
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Re:
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by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
sysvinit had a litany of problems
It did
not
sysvinit exemplifies the Unix way. It is one simple tool that does one thing well.
The one thing it didn't do was start services in parallel. So we got startpar. That provides that functionality. It didn't need to be baked into the init system.
The big complaint about sysvinit was that people had to write init scripts. This is made simple and easy by boilerplate, which also includes using startpar. Also, do you
really
want people who can't write a shell script in charge of maintaining packages whic
Re:
Score:
by
scalptalc
( 6477834 )
writes:
And it's Snaps that's really broken everything with Ubuntu. It's buggy to the point that I've repeatedly lost data because of it, from Firefox bookmarks/passwords/history to entire LXD images.
I've been on a FreeBSD desktop since starting at 4.11. Can you please tell me
how a package manager
can be allowed to f**k up user data on a machine? Real question. Shouldn't it just be applications that are getting borked? Is there no logical separation in Linux these days? All the mainstream "free" OSes are getting too complicated for their own good (except perhaps for OpenBSD), and apps do step on each others' toes once in a while, but what you describe is nonsense. Get out.
Re:
Score:
by
karmawarrior
( 311177 )
writes:
In Firefox's case, it was indirect: If you uninstall the Firefox Snap, enable the Mozilla repository, and then install Firefox, after a few days or weeks Snap will undo everything you just did and reinstall its version, resetting anything you've done since the uninstall. This is despite apt-get install firefox (no special flags, no version numbers, etc) installing the Mozilla version. Unless you notice right away, you'll find you now have two separate but similar Firefox user data areas, one managed by Snap
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>"Debian is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It's the same environment except no f---ing Snaps."
Actually Linux Mint is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It is as close as you can get to Ubuntu with far less suck (which I have explained why many times elsewhere). The next step down the chain would be Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), which discards the Ubuntu base, but is still friendlier than Debian. Then, finally, Debian. So you have several rungs down the latter and don't have to jump off
Re: Everyone Comes Home to Slackware Eventually
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
In my case, systemd.
Devuan solved it nicely.
Don't upgrade.
Score:
, Insightful)
by
CubicleZombie
( 2590497 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:14PM (
#65144763
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
When a system dies and needs to be rebuilt, it gets whatever is the latest. But until then, I upgrade nothing unless it stops working.
Share
Re:Don't upgrade.
Score:
, Funny)
by
timeOday
( 582209 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:28PM (
#65144815
For me it's usually just that one new application that I want to have. Surely just upgrading a package here or there couldn't be
that
bad?
4 hours later, fdisk.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
GuB-42
( 2483988 )
writes:
You would probably be better off with Debian then.
Debian is a stable, reliable and conservative distro, often lagging behind in terms of updates, but if you are the kind who doesn't like to change things that work, then it may be your best option.
Re:
Score:
by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
Or perhaps even "oldstable", or at least keeping stable when it changes to oldstable.
FWIW, these days I use Debian stable. In past times testing would usually break seriously once during the development cycle...seriously enough that I'd need to do a re-install. So I always kept my user partition separate from the system partition, so that wouldn't be a big hassle. But its possible to start our running testing, not switch when testing changes to stable, and then not switch when stable changes to oldstable
What took you so long?
Score:
by
systemd-anonymousd
( 6652324 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:15PM (
#65144769
"scopes," Amazon adware (ubuntu-lens-shopping), early adopter of systemd, Snaps, unattended-updates, "Unity," automatic telemetry, etc. Ubuntu leads the way in anti-features.
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zfs
Score:
by
RegistrationIsDumb83
( 6517138 )
writes:
Don't forget that one time they knew they had a zfs corruption bug but still pushed it out anyway.
Package Manager Delivers Large Sausage
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by
Pseudonymous Powers
( 4097097 )
writes:
I don't know who looked at package management in Linux and decided what we really needed was another package manager. Well, okay, actually I do know: It was Canonical.
Breakage
Score:
by
madbrain
( 11432 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:19PM (
#65144781
Homepage
Journal
I wish it was just Firefox shortcuts that broke.
My Samba setup broke every single time time from 18.04 to 24.04 . It wasn't too hard to fix, but annoying.
VNC in a separate xfce4 display also broke each time. That has been a major pain in the ass. I couldn't figure out how to fix it with 24.04, and had to revert to 22.04 .
Snaps have been a disaster. A lot of stuff like Firefox doesn't work in VNC.
I have been mainly using Ubuntu because of the built in support for ZFS. I think it's time to move on, though. Not sure what to try next.
Oh, and as mentioned before, Wayland is also a major problem. It should not be replacing X without being stable and reaching feature parity with X Windows.
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Re:
Score:
by
jenningsthecat
( 1525947 )
writes:
I think it's time to move on, though. Not sure what to try next.
I moved from Ubuntu to Mint around the time of Unity, and I've been very happy. Given that its upstream is Ubuntu, I liken it to having the advantages of Ubuntu without the suckiness. I think it's probably the easiest, and possibly the best, place to start for anyone leaving Ubuntu.
I use some Ubuntu repositories, have installed a few programs from Debian packages, and have a few Snaps, Flatpaks, and Appimages that I run for convenience. So far I've found zero reason to look for an alternative distro.
Re:
Score:
by
whoever57
( 658626 )
writes:
VNC in a separate xfce4 display also broke each time
I haven't got TigerVNC working on my Gentoo setup because apparently TigerVNC now
needs
Gnome3. The current TigerVNC isn't compatible with MATE.
Ubuntu
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
The Windows of Linux world. Nuff said.
Don't use Firefox Snap
Score:
, Informative)
by
gabrieltss
( 64078 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:23PM (
#65144799
I upgraded with not problems from xUbuntu 20.04 to 22.04.
It's easy to get rid of the Firefox Snap and use something else. I'm doing it just fine.
Uninstall firefox Snap:
sudo snap disable firefox
sudo snap remove --purge firefox
Or:
sudo umount
/var/snap/firefox/common/host-hunspell
sudo snap remove firefox
Create a directory to store APT repository keys if it doesn't exist:
sudo install -d -m 0755
/etc/apt/keyrings
Import the Mozilla APT repository signing key:
wget -q
[mozilla.org] -O- | sudo tee
/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc >
/dev/null
If you do not have wget installed, you can install it with: sudo apt-get install wget
The fingerprint should be 35BAA0B33E9EB396F59CA838C0BA5CE6DC6315A3. You may check it with the following command:
gpg -n -q --import --import-options import-show
/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc | awk '/pub/{getline; gsub(/^ +| +$/,""); if($0 == "35BAA0B33E9EB396F59CA838C0BA5CE6DC6315A3") print "\nThe key fingerprint matches ("$0").\n"; else print "\nVerification failed: the fingerprint ("$0") does not match the expected one.\n"}'
Next, add the Mozilla APT repository to your sources list:
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc]
[mozilla.org] mozilla main" | sudo tee -a
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list >
/dev/null
Configure APT to prioritize packages from the Mozilla repository:
echo '
Package: *
Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org
Pin-Priority: 1000
' | sudo tee
/etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla
Update your package list and install the Firefox
.deb package:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox
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Re:Don't use Firefox Snap
Score:
, Funny)
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @05:01PM (
#65144953
It's easy to get rid of the Firefox Snap and use something else. I'm doing it just fine.
... many lines of instructions
...
Even easier to just install Linux Mint.
All the benefits of Debian and Ubuntu with Snaps disabled by default.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
karmawarrior
( 311177 )
writes:
sudo snap disable firefox
sudo snap remove --purge firefox
This is absolutely not enough because if you try to then install Firefox from the Mozilla PPA Ubuntu will, using an automated process (some say "unattended upgrades" but even Canonical doesn't appear to know and there's debate in the Launchpad bug reports on this) uninstall the Mozilla version, and reinstall the fucking snap.
Plenty of online "advice" on how to prevent this from happening, but the only one that worked for me was switching to Debian.
Bas
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>"Ubuntu will [...] uninstall the Mozilla version, and reinstall the fucking snap. Plenty of online "advice" on how to prevent this from happening, but the only one that worked for me was switching to Debian."
Perfectly valid. Or switch to Mint, which also would work because they supply, support, and update a "real" Firefox package (along with other native ones where Ubuntu is trying to force SNAPS).
And with Mint you can choose from the well-known/used, traditional Mint or the LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edi
Re:
Score:
by
gabrieltss
( 64078 )
writes:
xUbuntu has never noticed or done anything about me not using a Snap of Firefox. So far....
Re:
Score:
by
Calydor
( 739835 )
writes:
If this wall of text to uninstall and reinstall a program is actually what goes for 'easy' on Linux I dread to ask about something difficult like connecting a printer.
Solution
Score:
, Informative)
by
firecode
( 119868 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:26PM (
#65144805
Use Debian.
Share
Re: Solution
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Big Hairy Gorilla
( 9839972 )
writes:
Do one better . Use Devuan .
Re:
Score:
by
JamesTRexx
( 675890 )
writes:
Use Devuan
Indeed. Went from Ubuntu to Debian when Ubuntu defaulted to Gnome 3 (I hate dumbed down interfaces), then went from Debian to Devuan as soon as it became stable (because of systemd troubles).
Fun thing is, I could migrate both times by replacing the apt source url and only a little tinkering while performing apt udate/upgrade like uninstalling a package and reinstalling it later.
Re:
Score:
by
dskoll
( 99328 )
writes:
This is the way. I've been a happy Debian user for going on 25 years. I took a look at Ubuntu around 2010 or so, but saw no compelling reason to switch from Debian.
Same, went to Fedora
Score:
by
The-Ixian
( 168184 )
writes:
I have found a lot more stability with Fedora, though I question the weird WM dev team decision to do OS upgrades on reboot (thus making every OS update a double reboot affair).
Re:
Score:
by
caseih
( 160668 )
writes:
Interesting. I've never had dnf try to reboot my system.
ALL sandbox style app/package managers suck ass
Score:
, Insightful)
by
rtkluttz
( 244325 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:28PM (
#65144817
Homepage
I do not want 57 different copies of the same library on my machine. I don't want all inclusive apps that that have to be unpacked to run or make it difficult or impossible to share data between apps. I don't like that style of package management even on phones, much less full fledged PC's. Those are the dislikes just general to the technology, but then I really get pissed when there are specific implementation bullshit like snaps updating when they want to rather than when i tell them to. Snap, flatpak, appimage all can suck it. Give me a real package manager that keeps my system lean and mean and keeps ME, the owner of the device, in control of my updates and the data shared between those apps.
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Purpose
Score:
by
JBMcB
( 73720 )
writes:
Non-native package managers are good for the following purposes:
1. Installing packages not distributed by your native package manager
There, that's the list.
Re:
Score:
by
Junta
( 36770 )
writes:
There's another scenario. If you add a bunch of third party repos, there's a very very high risk that they will mess with each other.
If you stick with the 'big ones', you are fine, but go off on adding the various little copr/ppa repos and... it can go pretty badly.
Re:
Score:
by
organgtool
( 966989 )
writes:
Amen to that! Containerization is great for servers, but keep it the hell off of my desktop. For IoT, there may be some advantages via immutable OSes with containerized apps, but they're an outlier.
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>"I do not want 57 different copies of the same library on my machine. I don't want..."
Exactly. I think containerization has a place, but not on my machines. I don't want to be forced into it. And if I did want to use it for some reason, it would be Flatpak, NOT SNAP.
That is why I use Linux Mint. And if something upstream goes insane (which it hasn't and it has been several years), there is Mint LXDE (rebased on Debian). And then, of course, there is Debian. I really don't understand why anyone wou
Re:
Score:
by
willy_me
( 212994 )
writes:
Flatpaks definitely suffer from the problems you have identified. Default behaviour is to be far too secure for most Linux users. That being said, it is really easy to remove these limitations using something like Flatseal.
Snap is valid complaint
Score:
by
MBGMorden
( 803437 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:31PM (
#65144827
I can agree with the complaint about Snaps. The old package system worked so well but these self contained snaps are just frustrating. I totally get using snaps for large packages like Chrome or Libreoffice or the like, but I don't want to install a snap for a random command line utility.
I'm using the Ubuntu based Linux Mint for now, but if they keep pushing it I'll be migrating to Debian (or Debian based Mint) eventually.
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Re:
Score:
by
Junta
( 36770 )
writes:
Even for things like a web browser, the snap can break extensions. For example integrating with KeepassXC isn't really compatible with using a snap (or flatpak) packaged web browser.
What?
Score:
by
DaFallus
( 805248 )
writes:
I've been running Xubuntu LTS on my server for about 5 years and I've never had any of these issues after upgrading.
Re:
Score:
by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
ISTM that whether there are problems or not depends on your use case. OTOH, I've just avoided the experiment, so don't take that answer too seriously.
no issues to speak of here
Score:
by
renegade600
( 204461 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:53PM (
#65144913
I have been using Linux for almost 20 years. I tried many different distros during that time. Right now, I have Ubuntu on a couple of computers and have no problems with updates breaking them. Yea, there are features I hated over the years but the OS continues to be dependable, When there are problems, it is usually because of something I did. I am sticking with it at this time,
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Canonical is focused on Server and Branded Desktop
Score:
by
williamyf
( 227051 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:55PM (
#65144925
What do you expect. Ubuntu's money comes from Servers and Desktops from the likes of Dell and Lenovo.
Peasants like us installing the free download (or worse, a remix) on a second hand desktop/laptop brings nothing to the table for them, so we are 3rd or 4th class citizens of the Ubuntu ecosystem.
You want a seamless ubuntu desktop experience, with all the bells and whistles like support, buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed from Dell or Lenovo. Otherwise, you mean nothing for Ubuntu and canonical.
Is this nice? No. Can I undestand why they do it? Yes.
PS: I will still install mint in machines that need linux intended for Windows refugees
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I find Ubuntu great
Score:
by
hadleyburg
( 823868 )
writes:
I used to keep a log of any technical issues I had with my Linux desktop. I'd have a directory with a file for each incident, and the file would contain notes on how I eventually solved the problem (or didn't). The idea was that I could refer back to this information if the same problem happened again.
I find myself writing and reading these logs *much* less frequently these days. Linux (I currently use Ubuntu) has become so much more easy to install and maintain, and much more problem-resistant.
Sure - I thi
Corporate Compliance
Score:
by
devslash0
( 4203435 )
writes:
I agree. Ubuntu has gone full shit over the years. But it's the only flavour of desktop Linux allowed by most of the corporate world. Linux is a very diverse environment by design. The differences between different distros and versions of those distros are enormous. The corporate world, however, needs a homogeneous environment they can certify in order to pass compliance and security audits. If Ubuntu goes even more shit than it already is, the corporate world will walk away and we'll be doomed, left no oth
Have to admit that I'm getting fed up too..
Score:
by
arcade
( 16638 )
writes:
Been using Ubuntu since 6.06. I'm growing tired of it. Snap is annoying me no end.
It might be time to give SuSE a spin again. Left SuSE for Ubuntu back in the day. Or maybe go back to Debian, although I'm still sore about the deprecation of security updates for 2.0 (slink) a very, very short time after potato came out.
The Grass Is Always Greener...
Score:
by
organgtool
( 966989 )
writes:
Every time I've ever switched to something that wasn't based on Ubuntu, I ended up coming back. That's not to say that everything else is unusable, but no alternative ever fits my needs as well as Ubuntu. I've had numerous times where I thought I had found my new distro, but there were always significant issues that developed as time went on. It's easy to love something new because you haven't found its warts. With that said, I hope things are different in your case.
OpenSUSE For Newer Hardware & Slax For Old
Score:
, Interesting)
by
zenlessyank
( 748553 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @06:17PM (
#65145205
No more need for aspirin.
Ubuntu is a bleeding edge clusterfuck with no one seeming to know what the other developer is doing. Either use Debian or walk away.
IBM>Redhat>Fedora is a proprietary wanna-be with an ulterior motive.
OpenSUSE has everything you need and meshes together better usually.
Slax is often overlooked for some reason yet it rocks on ancient hardware or when you just want a lightweight VM for specific tasks.
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Ubuntu could have been the new Windows!
Score:
by
Murdoch5
( 1563847 )
writes:
I remember early Ubuntu, it was spectacular! I was running SuSE Linux, and ran into something really dumb issue with Yast, (the control centre), and decided to give this Ubuntu thing a try, at that point I think version 4.10. From that point, for 15 years, I ran Ubuntu, dedicated. Then it started coming apart, random packages would break, the performance was getting more inline with Windows, and it was more of a chore to use. I switched to Fedora, and ran Fedora until June 2024, when I started running i
User error
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @07:15PM (
#65145371
Typically when a large upgrade from one distribution to another screws up it is almost universally the result of the user trying to be smarter than the distribution maintainers. We've all been there, but it's absurd to think that this is somehow an Ubuntu problem. Ubuntu's LTS release at the core is for servers and datacentres. They control the upgrade process quite tightly to ensure nothing breaks. When it does break it's usually the result of someone messing with some core configuration, or force installing packages from outside the official distribution repository (the same people who want LTS stable releases also seem to want the latest shiny software and they fuck up their system in the process of achieving that).
Snaps are a legit issue, but the rest of this post is some opinion from an old man shouting at clouds. We get enough of that int he comments section here we don't need a whole story about it.
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Mint is better, but Apt was not broken
Score:
by
BrendaEM
( 871664 )
writes:
I like Mint with Cinnamon, but Apt never needed replacing.
And....
Score:
by
Bill, Shooter of Bul
( 629286 )
writes:
Linux has always always been this way. maybe ubuntu is worse or better, I don't know. It typically doesn't matter. You just reinstall, keep configs for important programs and data on a separate partition. Sometimes your favorite distro doesn't like your unique hardware, so you switch to another. FWIW, my experience has been the opposite. Long time fedora user, I had to switch to ubuntu around the same time period due to hardware not working with the driver set up fedora had. Didn't have time to mess with it
Ubuntu 9.04 - 18.04 and 20.04 - 24.04 for HTPC
Score:
by
JakFrost
( 139885 )
writes:
I've been running Ubuntu on my media center servers since Ubuntu 9.04 all the way back since 2009 and earlier also probably since 08.
If used to tell the stories to my coworkers about staying up all night to fix my computers after doing minor out major upgrades a dozen of times in the past when Ubuntu upgrades should break critical functionality about once a year. Everything from:
* network drivers and network manager changes from ifupdown to NetworkManager to netplan.io knocking the servers off the network
antiX is a Linux distribution ..
Score:
by
Mirnotoriety
( 10462951 )
writes:
antiX is a Linux distribution
[wikipedia.org], originally based on MEPIS, which itself is based on the Debian stable distribution”
22.04 Was That Bad. And Snaps Are Useless.
Score:
by
jrnvk
( 4197967 )
writes:
After 20 years of using the distro, I'm mostly happy with 24.04 being my daily driver. It's not perfect, and the main pain points do seem to stem from some ridiculous - at times, borderline asinine - decisions made by the greater Linux community in general, rather than from direct influence by Canonical.
22.04 was probably the worst release I've seen in that time, with 12.04 being another memorable disaster. I remember trying several times to make 22.04 my primary, just to end up going back to 20.04 later
Fedora and Flatpak is no better, really
Score:
by
Old Man Kensey
( 5209 )
writes:
I have a Fedora install on my main personal laptop and recently I ran into an issue where VS Code complained it couldn't run a Kubernetes plugin because `kubectl` was not in the user's PATH. But I knew it *was* in my path because I use `kubectl` in the shell myself, quite often. Turns out VS Code was installed from a Flatpak; removing the Flatpak install and switching over to installing from the "deprecated" RPMs (from RPMFusion, I think) resolved the issue completely.
Quite likely I could have resolved
Give it another chance
Score:
by
hcs_$reboot
( 1536101 )
writes:
on Thursday February 06, 2025 @03:17AM (
#65146091
Switch to KDE.
Share
It's amazing how mileage varies.
Score:
, Insightful)
by
Brain-Fu
( 1274756 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:15PM (
#65144767
Homepage
Journal
My personal experience has been almost the exact opposite. I started out with Fedora for home use and suffered through repeated breakages and compatibility issues even with minor upgrades. Any upgrade at all wound up breaking something. Major updates always bricked my machine, every single time. My standard practice became keeping all my important data on external storage so I could just wipe and reinstall whenever I wanted, and I needed to do so for every major upgrade.
When I switched to Ubuntu, that completely stopped. Minor updates happen on a daily basis, and they never break anything. It has been solid as a rock, and I have been using it for years now. I guess my use cases must be significantly different than those of the author of this article.
The only caveat is that I still keep all my important data backed up to external storage (some of it only ever lives on external storage), and I don't bother attempting major upgrades. I don't know if they would work or not with Ubuntu, because I have never tried. I have just wiped and installed the major upgrade from scratch, as that is the lesson I so painfully learned from Fedora.
If Ubuntu really has shot themselves in the foot in some way that, by coincidence, doesn't impact me, I would imagine their business will flop. I don't think they have the kind of death-grip that a company like Microsoft does, that allows them to stay in business no matter ho much they outright abuse their customers. I guess we will see.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
, Interesting)
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
I'm with TFA. Use Ubuntu at work and home, and it breaks all the time. The LTS releases are often broken out of the box.
I'm looking at switching to something else. Maybe Arch since it seems to have a good wiki. Might try Mint. But they all have issues with stuff not supporting them easily, so I'm not convinced they will be better.
And unfortunately Raspberry Pi OS is Debian based and has many of the same issues.
Re:
Score:
by
4wdloop
( 1031398 )
writes:
On Mint for years. No noticed breakage. It's more conservative with tracking the latest so maybe that's it. Also eyeing Endevour OS (Arch based) seems nice!
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
This is something else I hear a lot about every distro. It seems that the kind if stuff in doing is a bit out of the norm, a bit off the beaten path.
Then again Firefox was broken in Ubuntu 24 LTS so a lot of it is standard, basic apps too.
Re:
Score:
by
N7DR
( 536428 )
writes:
I'm with TFA.
Similar breakage happened here several years earlier. I used to use Ubuntu on all my machines. In particular, it was very good on my rarely-used but important-for-travel laptop. After several more-or-less trouble-free years, suddenly one of the biannual upgrades caused the laptop to throw a kernel panic when booting. I figured that such a show-stopping bug would quickly be fixed, so kept running with the old version of the kernel and waited six months, when I fully expected the problem to be fixed (filing
Re:
Score:
by
organgtool
( 966989 )
writes:
Breakage is why I left Arch-based systems. Even minor updates often broke my system. The solution is to wait for an update that fixes the problem (and hope it doesn't break something else), compile the latest commit from the official project source repo (and hope it doesn't break something else), or use Timeshift so that you can go back to a time when your system worked. It's a shame because the AUR is nice and their wiki is the best Linux documentation I've encountered (luckily, much of its contents wor
Re: It's amazing how mileage varies.
Score:
by
PoopMelon
( 10494390 )
writes:
I'm on manjaro and have been lucky to not have any major breaking updates at all
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>"Regarding Mint, the last time I tried it, it didn't support release upgrades. That was quite a while ago, so the situation may be different."
Must have been a while ago, so Mint has supported [major] release in-place upgrades since *at least* 20. I have in-place upgraded many machines from 20 to 21 and now 22 (and that includes all the many point release upgrades and many thousands of updates). None have failed.
Re:
Score:
by
KGIII
( 973947 )
writes:
I wouldn't trust this dude's skill level.
See, it is CLEARLY stated to not upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 to newer versions. It was too big a change, including dropping 32 bit support in the next LTS.
It was stated many times and in many places that upgrading to a newer version is incorrect. It required a clean install. (You could, of course, preserve ~/ and keep application data and other settings, though there would be redundant config files if you did that.)
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>"I'm looking at switching to something else. Might try Mint. But they all have issues with stuff not supporting them easily"
Mint will be 100% or nearly 100% supported by anything that is done on or targeted for Ubuntu.
Nothing is completely without issues. Life is complicated, so are computers.
Re: It's amazing how mileage varies.
Score:
by
jddj
( 1085169 )
writes:
Only use Mint a little (it's on my machine in the workshop), but the experience is refined, easy, nice. (trying hard not to say that Mint is Refreshing"...oop!).
I like the experience a lot, and would make it one of the first choices for a new machine.
Snaps are a bane, but Flatpak is no better. A pox on both their houses...Though Debian et al could make the process of getting your software into the repo a bunch easier.
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
I will give Mint another go.
IIRC FlatPak is what broke Firefox on Ubuntu.
Re:
Score:
by
Samare
( 2779329 )
writes:
You may want to try OpenSUSE Slowroll. You get the benefit of automated testing and delayed updates (based on user testing) compared to Tumbleweed.
I'm currently on Manjaro, which is kind of the same thing without the automated testing and I think with less reliability (even though both are German). I'm considering to switch to Slowroll.
Tumbleweed is too bleeding edge for me (comparable with Arch), I'd rather wait a little and go directly from 1.4 to 2.4 instead of updating to 2.0, 2.1 etc.
Re:It's amazing how mileage varies.
Score:
, Interesting)
by
thecombatwombat
( 571826 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:52PM (
#65144907
The years matter a lot, no major distro is a straight line.
For a lot of years Fedora was pretty shameless about being unstable like that, run RHEL if you want stability was always the line.
In the last I don't know, maybe 3-5 years they've really focused more on being a workable desktop. Two big factors were lining up the release windows with GNOME, and shortening the time to the first point release of each major GNOME release, so it would be out when the newest Fedora went GA.
The hardware matters a lot too. As Fedora is much more aggressive about only including Free Software by default, running stuff that works with its default install is way more important than Ubuntu, and that will probably never change.
It does sound to me like with this guy, Ubuntu didn't change, he did. He elected himself tech support for all his families computers, rookie mistake. Just a terrible way to live a life.
Parent
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Re:
Score:
by
quantaman
( 517394 )
writes:
The years matter a lot, no major distro is a straight line.
For a lot of years Fedora was pretty shameless about being unstable like that, run RHEL if you want stability was always the line.
In the last I don't know, maybe 3-5 years they've really focused more on being a workable desktop. Two big factors were lining up the release windows with GNOME, and shortening the time to the first point release of each major GNOME release, so it would be out when the newest Fedora went GA.
The hardware matters a lot too. As Fedora is much more aggressive about only including Free Software by default, running stuff that works with its default install is way more important than Ubuntu, and that will probably never change.
It does sound to me like with this guy, Ubuntu didn't change, he did. He elected himself tech support for all his families computers, rookie mistake. Just a terrible way to live a life.
I was on Red Hat / Fedora since 2000 but switched to Ubuntu a few years ago. Fedora upgrades worked well, nothing I couldn't fix easily, but the lifespan of a release was only 13 months.
So new release comes out, wait a couple months for the big bugs to get caught, upgrade, and then 6 months later the next release is out. So you wait a couple months for that to stabilize... well now you're at month 10 of the release cycle and in 3 months it's EOL with no more updates!
For computer I use to do work that's just
Re:
Score:
by
johnsnails
( 1715452 )
writes:
Kubuntu FTW
My laptop had some sound issues on Kubuntu 24.04, but my main desktop on Kubuntu 22.04 is rock solid.
Re:One word...
Score:
, Insightful)
by
karmawarrior
( 311177 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:37PM (
#65144845
Journal
I am convinced it's politics that's pushing Wayland at this point. There's nothing about it that makes sense, it breaks backward compatibility, it creates issues for forward compatibility, the "Don't use it directly, use pipewire for everything" thing goes directly against the "X11 is inefficient" reasoning (which was never great reasoning anyway) and it's still missing features.
It took them 15 years and they came up with a glorified device driver that requires the entire GNU/Linux community rewrite everything. The only noticeable difference to end users is that some things still don't work with Wayland. And this is despite the fact that for the last 15 years there's been a feature freeze on Xorg's X11. If the latter's development had been allowed to continue, who knows how much more advanced it'd be than it is now and how even further behind Wayland would be?
So why do it?
Well, because RedHat, now IBM, spent 15 years on Wayland and trashed X11 and it has to justify that they have nothing better to show for it. So it's using its power and money to push the other projects it funds such as GNOME to be Wayland-only. It MUST be good if GTK+ is switching to it, right?
This sucks. Forced and unnecessary obsolescence of software because a few die hards wouldn't believe that X11 isn't capable of *checks notes* running games at the same speed as Windows, even though, well, it does.
Parent
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Re:One word...
Score:
, Informative)
by
nullgreen
( 870280 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @05:24PM (
#65145033
It's not politics. It's the fact that every single developer of the Xorg server has switched over to Wayland. They're not willing to continue developing Xorg any more.
Parent
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Re: One word...
Score:
by
AcidFnTonic
( 791034 )
writes:
Big deal, I remember this happening to my
XFree86 server. This fancy new xorg thing came out and it was a somewhat painless switchover.
I recall âoeZAxisMapping 4 5â days wellâ¦.
Re:One word...
Score:
, Informative)
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @07:10PM (
#65145357
There's nothing about it that makes sense, it breaks backward compatibility, it creates issues for forward compatibility, the "Don't use it directly, use pipewire for everything" thing goes directly against the "X11 is inefficient" reasoning (which was never great reasoning anyway) and it's still missing features.
I think you're trying to run your car by feeding it hay. By that I mean you equate X11 == Wayland. It doesn't. X11 is far larger. Wayland is focused only on a specific subset of what X11 does (remember the do one thing and do it properly rule?). When you realise that difference it all makes perfect sense:
- Breaking backwards compatibility was the singular starting point: Leave behind the cruft of the past and start clean.
- Not sure what you mean with forwards compatibility. Wayland as a protocol has been quite stable for a long time now with no major breaking issues between versions.
- X11 was inefficient for how it did things, not just how it was used. Don't take my word for it, this comes from X11 developers.
The only noticeable difference to end users is that some things still don't work with Wayland.
I'm in the opposite camp. Too many things didn't work in X11 that seem to work seamlessly in Wayland and yet I haven't come across something that doesn't work in Wayland. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, I'm just giving you a perspective from "a user".
Honestly my view is that for most people at some point they used a distro which may have switched a default from Xorg to Wayland and they didn't even notice. Yeah it required effort to support for a lot of software, but that's kind of the point with starting something new.
If you wanted a singular inefficient system that does everything and the kitchen sink all at once, poorly, with rubbish security, that is a complete monoculture of problems that no distribution can get away from because it's so complicated, we already have that, it's called Windows, and we don't need to support that on Linux too. I do like seeing the mental gymnastics of some people though, the same justifications for hating systemd should mean mass promotion of adopting wayland, but somehow they give X11 a free pass. Maybe
... just maybe... people don't like change.
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Re:
Score:
by
Zekolas
( 1029166 )
writes:
The x org people are the ones making wayland because keeping or developing X is too hard because its 40 years of hacks , extensions and spaghetti code .
If you want to develop for it, go right ahead
Re:
Score:
by
nicubunu
( 242346 )
writes:
So why do it?
My guess: Red Hat wants to control the whole stack. Every part of the OS not under their control was FUDed to death.
Re:
Score:
by
locofungus
( 179280 )
writes:
I am convinced it's politics that's pushing Wayland at this point. There's nothing about it that makes sense, it breaks backward compatibility
I'm sure there's politics involved but I don't think that's the full story.
One of the problems is that much software is now being coded for "single user, single display, desktop". For example, if you're logged into the same server via two remote X session (XDMCP) then it appears to be impossible to get the major browsers to have two instances. They allow multiple prof
Re:SLAP vs .deb
Score:
, Informative)
by
Junta
( 36770 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:44PM (
#65144875
Easy, Ubuntu made an 'Ubuntu Store' based on the snap concept. The concept is that they made a "distribution neutral" distribution channel, where users of any distribution could opt to install their runtime and partake of the Ubuntu app store. So obviously, application developers will flock to the Ubuntu app store, in the same way they flock to Apple and Google app stores and Canonical finally would have their revenue stream... This is why while they got snapd available for multiple non-Ubuntu systems, they all point exclusively to the Ubuntu app store as their source of packaging, compared to Flatpak where the design is extensible for anyone to provide a flatpak source in a very natural way.
Oh what would be in it for the users? Nothing but headaches, but this is about Canonical's search for some revenue stream. Just like how they tried to be an OS of choice for Smart TVs, how they tried to sell ad space on their Unity launcher.
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Re:
Score:
by
loonycyborg
( 1262242 )
writes:
Did they actually drop APT? I don't think so. They only used some hack involving apt using snap to install chrome but it resulted in lots of criticism.
Re:SLAP vs .deb
Score:
, Interesting)
by
Junta
( 36770 )
writes:
on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @05:55PM (
#65145123
They removed a lot of the important packages from their apt repository, to force people over to snap land. IIRC there were third party repositories to 're-deb' some of the big ones, but I jumped ship because I didn't think it was worth the work to try to make Ubuntu something it didn't want to be when I could go to distributions that are designed the way I actually like.
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Re: SNAP vs .deb
Score:
by
JakFrost
( 139885 )
writes:
Yeah, this whole Docker, Snap, Flatpak, AppImage and all the other sandboxing and application virtualization solutions and screwed up and all are trying to fix the Dll-Hell/Lib SO, NPM Hell, Peel module, Python Pip Py module hell, etc. that developers have created with every single iteration of a hot new language. Go and Rust he'll anyone?
It's a fundamental design weakness and fragility problem that every few years someone wants to solve with another language, dependency manager, module library and repo, s
Re:
Score:
by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
Started with Ubuntu in 2006 and moved to Mint years ago right after the Unity thing.
I was running Ubuntu 18 (MATE) for a while, then switched to Mint 21 (MATE) when Canonical started pushing Snaps as the default (and only w/o using PPA) for some packages, like Firefox and Emacs, then recently switched to Mint 22 (Cinnamon). Thought about using straight Debian but wanted more up-to-date packages w/o having to muck around with Testing and/or PPAs. Mint seems to be a good solution for those wanting the benefits of Debian and Ubuntu w/o the delays (to be fair, in the name of stability) of t
Re:
Score:
by
markdavis
( 642305 )
writes:
>Linux on the desktop sounds like it is still a nightmare"
Not if you choose Mint.
That isn't saying nothing can go wrong. But I bet if you try actually installing MS-Windows on different machines and compare it to Mint, you will find a Mint is orders of magnitude faster to do and also easier. And you end up with no spyware, licensing, artificial hardware "requirements", bloated crapware installed, forced "cloud" logins, etc. For the vast majority of home computer users, a Linux desktop with something l
Re: Linux on the desktop
Score:
by
jddj
( 1085169 )
writes:
I agree with this.
You have to learn how to use any new os you install (Mint vs. Windows), but it's no harder to learn Mint than it is switching to a Chromebook and learning that.
Re:
Score:
by
Dracos
( 107777 )
writes:
The only reason I run Kubuntu is because Mint dropped their KDE flavor after Mint 18.
Something is deeply wrong within Mint if the entire team lacks the skill set to support KDE. If KDE isn't major now, it will become so as Gnome continues to be contrarian about how everything in Wayland should work.
Re:
Score:
by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
I'm sure that there are use cases where Gnome is a good choice. That they aren't mine doesn't mean they don't exist.
Re: Is there anyone who actually likes snap?
Score:
by
reanjr
( 588767 )
writes:
Canonical.
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