it’s the “Reddit hivemind” when a large group shares their opinion that your OS of choice has many flaws, but a large group of people defending their poor choices in OS is…not “hivemind” mentality?
it’s amazing honestly, the amount of mental gymnastics we go through to protect our fragile egos because we honestly believe a corporate product will somehow enrich our lives to the point that they will suck less.
if only we could get past this and objectively look at the tools as tools and be able to have an open discussion about why they suck.
but no…let’s keep denigrating each other so that our side will come out victorious.
in another post I triggered the whole community so much that a mod had to step in, the irony of my commentary completely lost on everyone. it would be amusing if it weren’t so sad that there’s so much useless emotion wrapped up in this argument.
Bro responded to a joke with a thesis paper.
sick burn bro. idk how my ego will ever recover.
I honestly don’t even know what your point is.
Op is saying they dgaf and will use what they want. It’s a boring, uninteresting post with minimal value, but I definitely don’t understand your issue with it.
so the generalization of everyone who says “Ubuntu sucks” up into a “Reddit hivemind” is a complement now?
who knew!
Oh that’s what you’re butthurt about? Lol
Yeah, I don’t get the hate and intentional division being sowed there.
I’m not a fan of Ubuntu since they went all Thanos Snap (the final straw was replacing
deb
packages inapt
with snap stubs), but I can applaud that they’re using Linux.Just seems like low effort, pointless gatekeeping to me.
Yeah I never understood the hate but today I did read a comment saying Canonical (the company that develops Ubuntu) had injected some amazon telemetry into one of the search functionalities, that and using Snap is what makes some people shit on it. I didn’t verify the telemetry thing FYI.
I can definitely understand people being upset at telemetry injections.
The above is to say I don’t think it’s exclusively people gate keeping, dome people have legitimate issues with it.I haven’t seen people shit on mint a lot and it’s an easy distro. Honestly most people are super supportive of mint. That being said there is definitely some amount of gatekeeping.
That was the point where I stopped using it.
They included a global search function which in a default installation sent your search terms to Amazon and returned search results from them.
It also sent them to a web search (with real time results while you typed, including image previews). So it was possible to get shown NSFW images accidentally inside your OS, without opening a browser.
It was just really bad design, and a heavy-handed attempt of monetizing their OS.Of course that could all be removed with a bash one-liner, but it showed where Canonical was headed,
Canonical is even putting advertisements into
apt
ffs. They are insufferable:
How can it suck the least if it has snap?
Snaps can be annoying, but are no deal breaker. A deal breaker would be having to put a lot of work in over and over, like manually resolving dependencies or compile/install errors, breaking system, etc.
I like user respecting operating systems, that is the deal breaker.
If you insert snap into apt package management, so that you can go behind the user’s back, re-enable snap and install a snap anyway if a user tries to
apt install firefox
, you don’t respect the user’s choice. It’s the kind of thing we give Microsoft shit for.And yes I know it can be worked around and disabled and whatnot by jumping through various hoops, but that’s beside the point. As a matter of principle, I will just use something that doesn’t do this. KDE on Debian works just as well as Kubuntu anyway.
i started with Ubuntu. i think it’s fair to respect the distro that works towards getting any rando started
Stock Ubuntu is not the only and possibly not the most sane choice for newbies. An uncomfortably different UI with relatively complicated customization, a lot of catches, myriad of package sources, and little progress in general usability make it only preferable in terms of binaries selection and amount of accumulated knowledge specifically on Ubuntu.
Linux Mint is the most sane pick for an average newbie, though mileage will vary and other distros can be better entry points for some. For example, what clicked with me against all warnings was Manjaro, and if not for that, I could still be sitting on Windows today.
Nowadays, I use Fedora KDE Spin, though if a sane Arch-based alternative arises (think Manjaro done right), I would consider going back.
though if a sane Arch-based alternative arises (think Manjaro done right)
If ever you get the Arch itch, check out EndeavourOS. It’s basically vanilla Arch but with a GUI installer and basic defaults/programs preconfigured. They use the main Arch repos, so no weirdness with AUR stuff like in Manjaro.
I tried Endeavour and Garuda, and they’re bad for me exactly the way Arch is - it’s a bit too bleeding-edge to run exactly as stable as I imagine my perfect system to be, and it’s also too easy to shoot yourself in the foot. It sure is possible to run it smoothly, but that requires a lot of user attention and consideration with updates and tools.
The premise of Manjaro is good - like, let the packets go through some testing before being delivered to a wide audience, this is pretty much common sense. Should they implement something like Chaotic-AUR, but with the delay for dependencies to catch up, AUR could actually work for most of its purposes. Combine that with more careful considerations here and there, and you might get your perfect Arch.
That said, I strongly prefer distros based on Debian (except Ubuntu and its derivatives) or Arch, as they are the only major community-driven options that are not exotic and obscure. Debian is too slow, Arch is too fast, and there’s little in between, which is my personal frustration. For now, the Arch edge was closer to my spirit, but the only sane premise on that front, Manjaro, is essentially even less stable than plain Arch in the long run. So…neither works, and I reluctantly go Fedora.
Your entire comment is screaming for OpenSUSE Slowroll.
Slowroll is certainly on my radar, but as things stand, there are two things that are stopping me:
- It’s still experimental and it does break, which ruins the premise of stability
- It is not community-driven, which, while not being a total dealbreaker, is considered by me to be negative
Thanks for the suggestion, though!
Q: what does
apt install firefox
do? Surely it uses apt to install Firefox, right??? A: The command gets highjacked by snap, which promptly crashed and hangs.Ran into this just a few hours ago, made the mistake of suggesting Ubuntu as a sane default (instead of debian or something else), never making that mistake again hopefully.
What does
apt install firefox
do in Debian Stable?package »firefox« has no installation candidate
Firefox isn’t in Debian’s repository, cause it moves too fast for Debian’s release cycle and is too complicated for their security team.
Debian instead offersfirefox-esr
Ubuntu instead offersfirefox
snapMint fixes that. Based on Ubuntu, it intentionally disables Snap, and all apt commands actually use apt.
Or yes, just straight up use Debian if you don’t mind older apps outside Flatpaks.
You can also install Linux Mint Debian Edition which isn’t based on Ubuntu at all.
Note that on the negative side it inherits most of the issues of Debian, including extremely old packages.
Also, Debian 12 finally got very user-friendly enough to the point I would recommend it over LMDE.
That’s true, but if you want you can change to testing repos. I still prefer it over vanilla Debian due to polish. I find even using Cinnamon DE in Debian it’s just rougher around the edges than Mint.
Fair enough - if you’re a fan of Cinnamon, LMDE will always be a bit more polished. I can see your use case :)
Happy cake day!
Except I just uninstalled Mint’s default Firefox because whatever additional theming they did to my boy fucked up the right click context menu. FF is now flatpak.
I’m pretty sure Mozilla encourages use of the flatpak. Flatpak FF is definitely the way to go.
Firefox isn’t in the repos of Debian, so any derivative (derivative (derivative)) distro must deal with that in some way.
This is the way. Debian net install. Or even better, boot over iPXE, ephemeral kernel in RAM with only backups and static binaries written to disk. Snapshotting handled by BTRFS
Use debian testing if you want up-to-date software. The name implies it’s unstable, but it’s really not. Debian stable absurdly stable, and debian testing is regular stable.
LMDE, Linux Mint Debian Edition was my goto for a long time.
I’m interested in what made you choose LMDE over stock Debian
Is it because you found the UI more convenient and organized? Or was it before Debian 12 and you wanted to avoid technical difficulties with nonfree software?
Yeah, this was around the time they first released it. Back then I had issues with downloading and installing Debian, regardless of drivers. I was inexperienced, and was using Mint (ubuntu-based) already, so the UI (gtk2, mate) was a huge plus for my restricted specs (a netbook)
Here’s a thought: Before installing packages you don’t understand, go to the Firefox site and follow their instructions which work fine on Ubuntu and doesn’t install snap.
I’m not a fan of snap either, but with all software, people need to RTFM. Not do the dumb thing and then cry on the Internet seeking hive mind rage when the dumb thing happens.
I’ve followed those directions, only to find snap firefox was reinstalled a few months later.
Switched to Debian, much happier.
Usually I hate when people ditch an entire distro because they don’t understand or refuse to understand its quirks, but…
Switched to Debian
At least there was a happy ending.
Where was I refusing to understand its quirks? After several years of using snap-based Firefox, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like the snap based installation of firefox. So, I followed the directions to go back to a deb-based Firefox installation. But Kubuntu “helpfully” reverted it a few months later, and that cycle repeated a few times.
I specifically requested the deb-based installation and it ignored my wishes. I know what operating system that reminds me of, and it isn’t Linux.
I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong for wanting a .deb-based Firefox and that snaps are better anyway. Even if that’s true (I don’t care to argue), I chose a path and Kubuntu overrode my choice. Silently, too.
I’ll also note that I started using Kubuntu back in 2008 or so, and stopped last year. I used it on both my desktop and laptop machines. So, it wasn’t like I just tried it for a few hours and got upset; I was a long time user that was quite familiar with how it worked. For most of that time, I was really happy with Kubuntu, but having it override my explicit configuration was extremely frustrating.
Others can continue to use it, that’s fine with me. This isn’t a personal attack on anyone’s choices.
I think expecting people running Ubuntu to RTFM is a longshot. The people installing it want an experience where they don’t want to put any effort into learning how things work. If they did they probably would run something else.
So would you prefer they just remove the
firefox
package from new releases without offering an upgrade path?
lol just ignore the karens
“Don’t feed the trolls” has ended up with the trolls running the place. I’d rather Lemmy not become yet another “lol ubuntu sux” echo chamber.
Why would it? It’s already an echo chamber for Linux as a whole, so I really, really doubt that’s going to happen
I don’t use Ubuntu personally, but it was great to automate for deployment in a corporate setting.
Yes, Debian has some agnostic unattended install, but writing basically cloud-init is just so much better.it’s also pretty easy to get an Ubuntu machine logged into an Active Directory managed domain these days.
Cloud-init is way underappreciated IMO. One of the reasons I like using Ubuntu on the gazillion little development boards I have is that they have cloud-init on all their preinstalled images, so I can drop in a file that correctly configures the network (some of my raspis are on wifi due to location), sets up my user (including importing my SSH ID from GitHub so I can keep SSH only key based), adds the relevant packages and even repositories that I want, etc.
I wish more distros would include cloud-init in more than just their cloud images.
You either use the distro for its specific use case and suffer as you overreach into other areas of expertise or get comfy switching gears if you need hybrid tasks on minimal hardware
for me it’s snaps and the release model that suck. Also, apparently, arch-based distros are more noob-friendly, thanks to ArchWiki
I use snaps on multiple non-Ubuntu systems because they solve problems for me in a cleaner way than anything else has done so far.
I also find arch-based distros to often be quite obnoxious to manage, but that’s just me.
what are the usecases for snaps and flatpaks in the home desktop environment anyway? What are their benefits? Isolation?
They let you run a rock solid stable base OS with updated user applications.
Flatpak makes Debian actually great and removes its biggest drawback.sounds like an unnecessary overcomplication tbh
In both cases, you get isolation of the applications, yes. In the case of snaps, you can also isolate your system services from each other, limiting the effectiveness of attack chaining since an issue in cups (for example) won’t leave an attacker able to (for example) access your GPU.
They also decouple the application releases from your distro if you don’t use a rolling release distribution.
arch-based distros are more noob-friendly
I’ll take some of whatever you are smoking. And I am typing this on an Arch Linux system.
Sure, I love that I have a high degree of control; but, if I were planning to ask a new user to install Linux, I would not be handing them Arch. The Install Page may look nice; but, it’s a minefield of “oh go chose something” and you come back three hours later having read way too much detail about bootloaders.Arch is fantastic for choice, but the KISS principal is not available via pacman. It may be available in AUR. So, go learn what AUR is, spend way too long picking an AUR package manager only to learn it’s not available their either and you need to build it from source.
Joking aside, I do need to try the SteamOS install. That might actually be a noob-friendly Arch distro.
That’s why i said “arch-based” not “arch”. I don’t know about manjaro actually, lots of people on the internet complained how broken it is (or rather was broken, idk), so i decided not to try it. But i’ve tried and am currently running EndeavourOS. The installation process is as easy as the one of Ubuntu, while OS remains stable, despite me using AURs and manually compiled packages. AURs are far more friendly compared to PPAs. Not to mention the fact that i wasn’t always able to find the package i needed among PPAs, and manual compilation often did not work due to Ubuntu’s update model.
I don’t quite understand, what do you mean by “KISS is not available via pacman”, so please, elaborate. To me pacman is as simple to use as apt.
Also, didn’t know SteamOS is already available for public, good to know. Gonna try it some day.
I don’t quite understand, what do you mean by “KISS is not available via pacman”
I was making a joke about Arch not being simple and pacman not having packages one would expect, often having to turn to AUR to find such packages. Seems the joke failed to land and now we’re in “explaining a joke is similar to dissecting a frog” territory.
guess, you sould’ve kept your joke a bit simpler, stupider even :D
Why would you need 5 distros?
Different use cases! One each for: my desktop, my laptop, my home theater PC, my tablet, and my gaming handheld.
I’m using Ubuntu (well Kubuntu everywhere that I have graphical displays) on most devices, but I have:
- SteamOS on my Steam Deck
- Arch on my PinePhone
- Debian on some development boards
- Fedora and OpenSUSE in VMs because I’m interested in their development
You clearly didn’t try <insert favorite distro> then!
Lol, Reddit has nothing to do with ubuntu just being crap.
But as snap lover… I see all hope is lost in you.
(This is a meme community, please don’t take me too serious)
I don’t care what some distro snob thinks… I use ubuntu and have few problems. I replace the snaps and move on. I’ve been using Linux longer than most of them have been alive. They can pretend that makes me behind the times but somehow I always seem to be ahead of them. Having made my stance clear.
I don’t care what distro they use. Why would I?
Ironic - one of the reasons I like Ubuntu based distros is the easy access to snaps.
I’ll use one if it is something more obscure. I do however replace things like firefox and vlc with the source repo.
Switching Firefox from the apt repo to the snap is one of the things I did when using KDE Neon on my laptop (on my desktop with Nvidia I did the opposite on Kubuntu).
I don’t know what you mean about VLC though - while it’s available as an official snap published by VideoLAN, it’s also in the apt repos on all Ubuntu versions.
Its probably fixed now but for years vlc suffered from several bugs on ubuntu the worst being it launching multiple windows despite having that disabled in settings. I started using the PPA and now I just skip ubuntu maintained versions.
Ahh, well that’s a different thing. The snap though is maintained by the VideoLAN folks and part of their official repo.
Fascinating. I was just wondering if anyone could actually like snap and I personally knew no one until now.
FWIW I’m a long time Kubuntu user and I like it very much. But the snap experience has me on the brink of switching to a different distro.
idk, I’ve been using xubuntu for more than 10 years now, I’m not happy with absolutely everything, but the trouble I do have is definitely less effort to fix than learning a new, more elaborate distro.
So, it’s a pretty good, common denominator, and as long as it keeps working it doesn’t really need to be anything else?
I’m sure there are differences and niches that other distros fulfill better, but until there is a killer feature I’m interested in that only works on a specific distro or works extremely well on a different distro, I don’t see the “push” factor that would make me leave?
(btw, that there is no “report bugs here” button that’s just built into the window manager (besides the -,+,x buttons) and takes me to project home pages or bug trackes is wild to me, on any distro as far as I know. Like they don’t want to interact with users? I don’t get it.)
there’s just no reason to start using it when mint exists
Configuring Kubuntu for my liking is way easier than configuring mint for my liking, and some of that mint configuration is going out of the way to undo things the mint maintainers did intentionally.
Then you chose right! Regarding Ubuntu I have been using it for work VMs and it’s adequate, my current annoyance is that you can’t easily change the UI colours to distinguish different projects, because it’s not the “Ubuntu way”, maybe I’ll find a hack.
Mint not officially shipping with KDE is a source of my personal frustration. Would have checked it out more thoroughly otherwise.
Wayland
true
what do you actually need Wayland for though? waydroid is the only one i can think of
I have 2 monitors at different refresh rates
same and never had an issue with x11. two monitors at different resolutions and different refresh rates.
You haven’t noticed the issue then. X11 tends to run everything at the lowest common denominator, and doesn’t allow per-monitor scaling.
(I didn’t downvote you, just fyi, don’t know why someone would)
I personally have no issues with x11 if i’m using just one monitor, but if I use two or more I have nothing but issues. I am a tired sysadmin and don’t want to fight my personal equipment at home.