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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

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Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#31
post #2

Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux.…

> The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages.

I don't get why they're doing that. Snaps have mostly created problems for me, like they don't scale when other apps do, or the styling is off, or they don't show up properly in the software manager. The snap daemon on one of my laptops always blocks the shutdown by 30 seconds. Generally a rather confusing experience.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#32
For a long time I've been using Lubuntu on my laptop. However, a couple of years ago they changed focus and

From wikipedia:

Lubuntu was originally touted as being "lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient", but now aims to be "a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer"

I stopped updating my OS since (I'm on 14).

Does anyone care to suggest an ubuntu-like distribution for someone like me who wants their OS light?

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#34
post #4
post #2

Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux.…

"It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal." There's another way?

Even as a Windows guy, I was wondering: Why would you use anything else than the terminal? When you understand deb packages then you only want the terminal. Everyone else, will want to use a UI and will have no idea what a deb file is.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#35
post #2

Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux.…

So far, I'm very impressed with 20.04 on my personal laptop (a Thinkpad L390). HiDPI works better out-of-the-box (I didn't actually need to enable scaling manually, but did have to add a Chrome and Teams .desktop file with --force-device-scale-factor=1.2). Power management is much better out-of-the-box too (I've gone from 2-3h battery to 4-8h depending on workload, rivalling what I see under Windows).

But you're right about Snaps. I love the concept (easier distribution, fewer dependency issues especially if you're a few years into the lifecycle of an LTS release) but they're not, in my opinion, production-ready yet so it's frustrating to see them pushed by Ubuntu. The main issues we have are the slow startups compared to non-snap apps (which is felt more acutely on old hardware with spinning disks) and the fact that they don't work if /home lives on an NFS server. That rules out their use for many academic and enterprise deployments.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#36
post #22

Looking through the features Gnome 3.36 - X11 fractional scaling. I got all excited, because this means that now finally Ubuntu will be usable on my Lenovo X1E with High-DPI display. But then further down below: Fractional scaling does not work with the NVIDIA proprietary driver (bug 1870736, bug 1873403). OK, nevermind, back to Windows with WSL...

Throw your nVidia card in the bin and be free. After many years with nVidia I removed the card and I've been happily using Intel hardware for a year now.

Lenovo X1E is a laptop... So removing the GPU will be a bit of a challenge ;)

I thought of turning the GPU off under Linux, but external displays (through the thunderbolt port) can only be used with the nVidia GPU. I need external displays for my work, so disabling the nVidia GPU is not an option for me.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#37
post #22

Looking through the features Gnome 3.36 - X11 fractional scaling. I got all excited, because this means that now finally Ubuntu will be usable on my Lenovo X1E with High-DPI display. But then further down below: Fractional scaling does not work with the NVIDIA proprietary driver (bug 1870736, bug 1873403). OK, nevermind, back to Windows with WSL...

Throw your nVidia card in the bin and be free. After many years with nVidia I removed the card and I've been happily using Intel hardware for a year now.

Desolder the NVIDIA card on a laptop?

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#38
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw your nVidia card in the bin and be free. After many years with nVidia I removed the card and I've been happily using Intel hardware for a year now.

Lenovo X1E is a laptop... So removing the GPU will be a bit of a challenge ;) I thought of turning the GPU off under Linux, but external displays (through the thunderbolt port) can only be used with the nVidia GPU. I need external displays for my work, so disabling the nVidia GPU is not an option for me.

You may be able to either:

- Use Nouveau instead of the proprietary driver

- Use a nested X/wayland server, which should then presumably support fractional scaling

- Use non-fractional scaling and adjust font sizes

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#39
post #2

Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux.…

The only thing that holds back my Employer to switch to Linux for 6500+ Desktops is Microsoft Office and full MS Exchange compatibility. The Collegues who need Adobe Products just have to work with Apple Machines anyway.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#40
post #2

Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux.…

>The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages.

The graphical "gnome software" software installer was replaced in the default install by a snap-only fork named "Snap Store" with no support for Flatpak (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/snap-store/+bug/1871944). Were there some technical reasons for this move or was it a business decision to kneecap the other package format?

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