I bought a new computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. My instinct is to wipe that and install Fedora which is mostly due to having heard a couple of years ago that they sent search terms to amazon which for me is a major privacy concern. I believe they stopped doing that and I have wanted to try out a recent Debian based distro so I was wondering if anyone has any opinions about Ubuntu's usability and privacy features.
Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
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Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#2I found Ubuntu and Fedora equally usable (KDE variants). The only reason I switched from either of those was because I wanted a distro with rolling releases.
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#3I think the Amazon thing is gone, but I haven't used Ubuntu on a desktop for a while. It's ok on servers, despite the packages are not always current in this distro, but hey, who needs OpenSSL or OpenSSH versions which are not more than a year old.
It's sufficient for a rookie webdeveloper, but everything else is a pain in the ass. Oh, you need libsasl to compile this project from sources, it would be a shame if we rename it to sasllib (yeah, this shit is still happening!).
Long story short, get Debian. Or install Fedora if you are comfortable with.
In my case, I learned to work with Linux with Debian on my main PC and Slackware on my "project box". A lot of trouble, but now I can say I know what I'm doing (or why something got wrong). After that I tried a lot of different distros and I found my match, I'm happy. So try something crazy, like Gentoo/Arch/NixOs/random-distro-listed-on-distrowatch.
BTW. Rolling releases are awesome
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#4TL,Dr: if you want to concentrate on your work and don't deal with the OS, go with Ubuntu.
I turned to Ubuntu for daily work since ~4yrs, having used Gentoo 6yrs before.
Ubuntu is definetly a well-maintained Distro, and with Launchpad/add-apt-repository, the package list is easily extendable. On all laptops tried so far, it runs great out of the box.
However, if you are familiar with Fedora, don't even think about Ubuntu. I like it because I know how it works and Im not that familiar with Fedora (tried it half a year but rolled back).
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#5I think the Amazon thing is gone, but I haven't used Ubuntu on a desktop for a while. It's ok on servers, despite the packages are not always current in this distro, but hey, who needs OpenSSL or OpenSSH versions which are not more than a year old. It's sufficient for a rookie webdeveloper, but everything else is a pain in the ass. Oh, you need libsasl to compile this project from sources, it would be a shame if we r…
Thank you for the response. I do typically try out some of the more obscure distros just to see what they are like, but it is a different story to actually switch my main OS for a while. I really like Fedora and have used it for years. I think I will take your suggestion and install Debian proper or maybe even Kali Linux.
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#6TL,Dr: if you want to concentrate on your work and don't deal with the OS, go with Ubuntu. I turned to Ubuntu for daily work since ~4yrs, having used Gentoo 6yrs before. Ubuntu is definetly a well-maintained Distro, and with Launchpad/add-apt-repository, the package list is easily extendable. On all laptops tried so far, it runs great out of the box. However, if you are familiar with Fedora, don't even think about Ub…
Thank you for your response. I am very familiar with Fedora as well as CentOS/RHEL and that is where most of my experience lies, but I would like to see what it feels like to use a Debian distro as a daily driver. I've been using Ubuntu all day today and am disappointed about a few things.
Because I want to see what it feels like to use a Debian based distro I think I will actually go with Kali Linux at least for now.
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#7I've used Ubuntu daily for over a decade now. My two boys use it too. Right now I'm using the MATE variant. It just works.
No issues with privacy for me because I simply uninstall the relevant packages when the time comes, if it comes.
Highly recommended!
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#8I've been running Ubuntu on a second hand ThinkPad for about four years, it just works.
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#9I started with Slackware 4 as my first. Moved to Red Hate 5.1 from there. Tried Gentoo. Tried Debian and Ubuntu many times. I still can't get used to Ubuntu/Debian to this day. Fedora is my go to next to Slackware and Gentoo now.
Side, my best friend from university installed Gentoo on his server back around I think it was 2002 or so. He is still running that exact same install to this day.
Re: Ask HN: How is Ubuntu as a daily driver?
#10You can try Manjaro. Simplicity like Ubuntu and power of Arch Linux. On one laptop i have Manjaro and Linux Lite on other one.