Is Ubuntu deserving the hate?

Long story short, I have a desktop with Fedora, lovely, fast, sleek and surprisingly reliable for a near rolling distro (it failed me only once back around Fedora 34 or something where it nuked Grub). Tried to install on a 2012 i7 MacBook Air… what a slog!!! Surprisingly Ubuntu runs very smooth on it. I have been bothering all my friends for years about moving to Fedora (back then it was because I hated Unity) but now… I mean, I know that we are suppose to hate it for Snaps and what not but… Christ, it does run well! In fairness all my VMs are running DietPi (a slimmed version of Ubuntu) and coming back to the APT world feels like coming back home.

On the other end forcing myself to be on Fedora allows me to stay on the DNF world that is compatible with Amazon Linux etc (which I use for work), it has updated packages, it is nice and clean…. Argh, don’t know how to decide!

Thoughts?

I am not in the mood for Debian. I like the Mint approach but I am not a fan of slow rolling releases and also would like to keep myself as close as upstream as possible, the Debian version is the only one that seems reliable enough but, again, it is Debian, the packages are “old”. Pop Os and similar are two hops away from upstream and so I’d rather not.

Is Snap really that bad?

Edit: thank you all for sharing your experience !

EmilyIsTrans,
@EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’m pretty happy using Ubuntu. Its got a decent UI and works well enough with little fuss. As much as I enjoy tinkering, I use my Ubuntu machines for work and I really only need something simple that works out of the box.

EmilyIsTrans,
@EmilyIsTrans@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Also, while the applications I use can be installed on other platforms, they’re only supported on Ubuntu.

juli,

What if you just use distrobox in the future? You can use debian/ubuntu with it on whatever system you use. On my fedora silverblue installation almost everything is seperated from the OS. I barely touch the OS. It doesn’t really matter if I’m on silverblue, microos or vanillaos. I want to switch to microos because it comes with firefox as a flatpak ootb and other minor things. It’s jist not worth it anymore to switch the distro

Vinegar,
@Vinegar@kbin.social avatar

I avoid Ubuntu because Canonical has a history of going their own way alone rather than collaborating on universal standards. For instance, when the X devs decided the successor to X11 needed to be a complete redesign from scratch companies like RedHat, Collabora, Intel, Google, Samsung, and more collaborated to build Wayland. However, Canonical announced Mir, and they went their own way alone.

When Gnome3 came out it was very controversial and this spawned alternatives such as Cinnamin, MATE, and Ubuntu's Unity desktop. Unity was the only Linux desktop, before or since, to include sponsored bloatware apps installed by default, and it also sold user search history to advertisers.

Then, there's snap. While Flatpak matured and becoame the defacto standard distro-agnostic package system, Canonical once again went their own way alone by creating snap.

I'm not an expert on Ubuntu or the Linux community, I've just been around long enough to see Canonical stir up controversy over and over by going left when everyone else goes right, failing after a few years, and wasting thousands of worker hours in the process.

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Pretty much this, they don’t deserve hate but i won’t recommend them either

actionjbone,

You’re not wrong, but there’s also value in exploring different ways to do similar things. That’s what’s great about Linux.

Some of Canonical’s efforts may lead to failure, but that doesn’t mean they are a waste.

nossaquesapao, (edited )

One thing is to explore different ways to do things, like many projects do, but ubuntu goes further and FORCES people to use their experiments, as if they’re some sort of testing ground, not as if they’re the most used family of linux distros and the one a lot of people rely on.

Edit: Sorry if my tone was excessive, I think I’m getting grumpy with age.

actionjbone,

Haha, I get it. No offense taken.

I don’t disagree. But for better or worse, most people don’t think that much about their software.

Folks like us who do? We can make informed decisions.

Folks who don’t? Canonical’s experiments are probably still better than dealing with Windows 11 or macOS.

Auli,

Like snaps. They are different then flatpaks. You can use them for cli apps don’t think flatpaks can be.

kenopsik,

Flatpaks can also be used to run CLI programs, but it requires using flatpak run <package.name> instead of using the apps standard CLI command. But you can create an alias and should work mostly the same way.

For example, I have neovim on my Debian laptop via flatpak. So in order to run it, you have to do


<span style="color:#323232;">flatpak run io.neovim.nvim
</span>

You can create an alias for that command


<span style="color:#323232;">alias nvim='flatpak run io.neovim.nvim'
</span>

And then you can use the nvim command as normal

skullgiver,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

To give credit where it’s due: Mir was pretty neat, actually. It had features that modern Wayland still lacks or has only recently gained. Ubuntu got an X replacement up and running in record time, but the rest of the ecosystem stuck with Wayland, so they cancelled their solution.

And you know what? Snap does solve some issues in interesting ways that Flatpak doesn’t. Unfortunately, the experience using Snap is rather inferior (and that goddamn lowercase snap folder in my home directory isn’t helping), but on a technical level I’m inclined to give this one to Snap.

Developing and maintaining Ubuntu costs money and unlike Red Hat, Canonical isn’t selling many support contracts. Their stupid Amazon scope and the focus on Snap are part of that, they just want to give businesses a reason to pay Canonical.

They’re trying very hard, but it just doesn’t seem to take off. Their latest move, pushing Ubuntu Pro to everyone, seems like a rather desperate move. I think Ubuntu is collapsing and I think Canonical doesn’t know how to stop it. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never paid for an Ubuntu license and I don’t know anyone who does, either.

MiddledAgedGuy,

Ubuntu is a tough one. I don’t like it. I don’t like snaps, but more than that I don’t like their direction in general.

But I have some respect for them too. I think they played a pretty significant role in Linux being as popular (relatively speaking) as it is, and I don’t feel like they have any ill intent.

So I don’t personally care for it but I’m glad it’s around I guess is my point?

electric_nan,

I’m quite happy with Linux Mint Debian Edition. I think it is the future of Mint. It’s on a very recent kernel, and more and more software I use nowadays is in Flatpaks anyways. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much new stuff, but maybe I’m just not aware.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

How different is it from regular Debian? Like if I’m very experienced with Debian, does that equate to being able to easily use Mint Debian Edition too?

electric_nan,

I found normal Debian to be a little unpolished for my liking. Even using the Cinnamon DE, it was lacking some niceties that Mint brings. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble using Mint.

the_q,

As an operating system Ubuntu is great. It’s user friendly, has great hardware support and is up to date enough for most users. Canonical though… That’s where the real sore spot lies for a lot of die-hards.

ethd,

I’ve run Ubuntu Server frequently on VMs for work, but I could kinda go either way on it. The majority of people who have issues with Ubuntu have philosophical differences. I’m inclined to agree for my personal stuff (in principle I’d rather not get my packages from a single source that works on their own whims, in practice I never use anything but Flathub unless I need a package with deeper permissions) primarily because I believe that Linux should be as open as possible. That said, I already mentioned that my principles there only apply to machines I own, so I guess I’m a bit of a hypocrite 😅

polographer,

I recently got a workstation class desktop for my home server and I had so many issues with Debian that I have to search an alternative, Ubuntu supported the hardware natively and I even got a firmware update. I think the hate is really unfounded. Of course there is corporate decisions, but so far it has never get in my way. I have it with a lot of docker containers and a lot hardware integrations. Even the secure boot with nvdia card is easy. I only installed virt-manager via snap, the other things were directly with apt. I did enable the live patch and that’s a nice addition to don’t need to restart a lot.

I think you should give it a try, so far it has worked for me.

GustavoM,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

In a nutshell, Ubluntu is trying to take user control off its users. And the users are mad because of it.

And yes, I’m talking about snap.

BarrierWithAshes,
@BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social avatar

It's because Ubuntu is a company-backed distro consistently wants to go their own way. Not just snap but they've done it before with Unity and Mir (and probably others idk).

Course Fedora does literally the same thing and doesn't get any hate for it so idk. It's just a meme.

Personally I don't like Ubuntu because they didnt go far enough into their own ways but thats just me.

Montagge,
@Montagge@kbin.social avatar

Snap isn't that bad
Ubuntu is fine
People are not

ipsirc,
@ipsirc@lemmy.ml avatar

*buntu doesn’t even deserve threads like this.

clb92,

Most of the problems I’ve experienced with Ubuntu recently were caused by Snap. I really hate that they insist shipping that buggy mess.

vikingtons,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

They’ve embraced Wayland, pipewire, gnome and what not, but snap is really questionable, particularly in the Linux ecosystem.

I gather it can be somewhat annoying to contend with (I.e. some apps on Ubuntu may only be available as snaps?)

Numpty, (edited )

Snap is a steaming pile of excrement. So much of the crap on the Snap Store is obsolete and out of date. Anyone and their monkey can post a snap on snapcraft, and… they do. Canonical is just as bad. They took it upon themselves to package up a lot of commercial-level open-source software 3 or 4 years ago… and then have done fuck all with it ever since. Zero updates to the original snaps they put there in the initial population of the Snap store (yes they do maintain a select few things, but only a small percentage of the flood of obsolete software in the Snap store). The result is people looking to install apps who poke the Snap store, go “oh hey, the application I want is there”, install it, and then get all pissy with the vendor… who looks about in surprise wondering how a potential customer managed to find such an old version (happened with at least 2 of my employers, and I’ve come across many more). Go search Reddit (or Google) for obsolete snap discussions. There’s no shortage people pointing at the same issue.

vikingtons,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

I wasn’t aware of this situation, that’s really good to know.

I’m not keen on the snaps being centralised behind a proprietary server. I don’t really get why anyone would put up with that in light of Flatpak.

nakal,
@nakal@kbin.social avatar

This doesn't seem to be a problem with snap. Canonical probably tried to show vendors a way how to distribute software commercially. But vendors are on the level of cavemen and don't know shit about Linux even after serving a solution. Or they simply don't care about building up a market opportunity.

I don't want to defend Ubuntu. I don't like Ubuntu especially, but it might be a simple explanation.

Numpty,

It’s a problem with Canonical. They stepped up and created the snaps and then abandoned them instead of maintaining them. They still maintain the core that they include with the distro… it’s all the extras they created to pad out the store… and then abandoned. “Look the snap store has so many packages”… yeah… no… it doesn’t.

Why would a company who makes a commercial level open source package want to add snaps to their already broad Linux offering? They typically already build RPM (covering RHEL, Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, etc.) and DEB (covering Debian, Ubuntu, all Ubuntu derivatives, etc.)… and have a tar.gz to cover anything they missed. Why should they add the special snowflake snap just to cover Ubuntu which is already well covered by the DEB hey already make?

Sure, show vendors what’s possible, but if Canonical stepped up to make the snaps, then they should still be maintaining them. It’s not a business opportunity… its more bullshit from Canonical that no one wants.

sabreW4K3,
@sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf avatar

I loved Unity. Also, I would argue that both Snap and Flatpak are bad. That said, be happy with whatever works for you. Ubuntu always gives me problems, whereas Fedora runs smooth. That said Ubuntu can read my old Passports, Fedora can’t. They each have the benefits.

iopq,

Flatpak is good because I don’t need to check whether the program is available for my distro.

Before: click Linux icon. They offer a .deb and maybe .rpm

Now: click Linux icon, they tell you how to get it on flathub

And it’s probably available on my distro too, but why bother? Didn’t even search it

sabreW4K3,
@sabreW4K3@lemmy.tf avatar

The beauty of Linux, at least for me, is that there’s inter-dependability and so you can run apps using less space than you would on Windows. Linux is like a metaphor for society, if your neighbour has something you need, they should share and vice versa. But alas, some twats with a Windows fetish decided to introduce the likes of Flatpak and Snap 🤮

iopq,

Then you don’t use it, THAT is the beauty of Linux

Loucypher,

Yeah I guess it really comes down to that.

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