Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#81

Post by cies » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

thdrdt wrote: 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.…

I hate snap.

It makes my system less predictable, increases load times, makes UI stuff look ugly, obfuscates process monitoring, hogs memory, cannot deal with files in /tmp (and I happen to use /tmp a lot), makes if hard to do audio (like connecting a mic to Chromium)... I can go on.

But in 2019 versions of buntu it could still be removed:

https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap

I found a way to use Debian packages reliably on buntus with a trick that is shown here for Chromium:

https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chrome

If this snap thing continues to invade the *buntus I will move away from them. For now I still like the combination of stable + up-to-date + familiar (Debian based), but --as others have said-- the snap thing goes against why I choose to use open source.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#82

Post by mehrdadn » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:25 AM UTC

Just tried upgrading on WSL and I got an endless loop of

  sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument

Ctrl+C and then I get

  $ sudo apt --fix-broken install
  ...
  Setting up libc6:amd64 (2.31-0ubuntu9) ...
  Checking for services that may need to be restarted...
  Checking init scripts...
  Nothing to restart.
  sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument
  dpkg: error processing package libc6:amd64 (--configure):
   installed libc6:amd64 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1

and I have no clue how to fix this. (Edit: Found a fix. [1]) For the life of me I don't get how people always say upgrades are so easy on Ubuntu. I practically never have a pain-free Ubuntu upgrade experience... never. And while this particular issue appears WSL-related, I'm not just talking about WSL. There's always some random things breaking in the middle.

Update: After fixing that and upgrading everything, now I get this nonsense:

  The following packages have been kept back:
    libpython3.8 libpython3.8-dev libpython3.8-minimal python3.8 python3.8-minimal

  $ sudo apt-get install --upgrade python3.8
  ...
  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
   python3.8 : Depends: python3.8-minimal (= 3.8.2-1+bionic1) but 3.8.2-1ubuntu1 is to be installed
               Depends: libpython3.8-stdlib (= 3.8.2-1+bionic1) but 3.8.2-1ubuntu1 is to be installed
  E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

  $ sudo apt-get install libpython3.8-stdlib
  ...
  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
   libpython3.8-stdlib : Depends: libffi6 (>= 3.0.4) but it is not installable
                         Depends: libreadline7 (>= 7.0~beta) but it is not installable

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4898#issuecomment-61...

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#83

Post by Tenoke » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

LeonM wrote: 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...

I'm afraid to update and check the different displays scaling.. It's going to be absurdly hard to setup in a non-terrible way again, I guess.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#84

Post by speedgoose » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #27

LeonM wrote: 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.

I guess you don't play videogames on your computer.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#85

Post by pedrocr » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

pantalaimon wrote: post #72

pedrocr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just set font scaling to 1.3x or whatever it is you need and everything works great. I've been doing that for many years for 1440p in a laptop. Ubuntu actually regressed there since switching back to GNOME from Unity. In Unity font scaling was neatly exposed in the same slider as integer scaling and all apps used that setting. Now I have to set one thing for GNOME and another for Firefox to get the same effect. "Prop…

Unity still exists, it got renamed to Lomiri - you should still be able to install that. So maybe that feature still works.

I've switched to sway now and have that done manually like many other things to make them "just right". I just meant that the default Ubuntu desktop regressed on that from the Unity to GNOME switch. It was one of the things that I thought Unity had done particularly well within the constraints of what the software could do but very few people seem to know about it. I've explained how to get font scaling to dozens of people online to fix their issues. For most people it's just a much better solution than the much awaited fractional scaling.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#86

Post by doublesCs » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:27 AM UTC

Zhyl wrote: post #47

doublesCs wrote: post #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 sugg…

If you're just looking for a DE/WM that's light on resources, I can definitely recommend tiling window managers like i3 [1]. I'm not sure what other changes would be in your sightlines given that you were happy with Ubuntu, but I usually go to the Arch wiki in those times to see what fat I can trim off of my setup. [1] https://i3wm.org/

I enjoyed reading i3's landing page, thanks for linking.

So could you clarify for me, what's the relation between being a "tiling windows manager" and being light? Is it that for some technical reason one would expect tiling windows managers in general to be lighter than non-tiling? Or is it that orthogonally to the tiling aspect, i3 specifically aims to be light?

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#87

Post by ipsum2 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #27

LeonM wrote: 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.

How's ML training on Intel integrated graphics? :)

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#88

Post by readwind » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #44

safgasCVS wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I’m not adding anything to the conversation here, but have they removed that strange ‘swipe-up to login’ gesture at the start screen?

I don't know if they've removed the ability to do it. I don't think you've ever had to do it. You can just hit space, or just start typing your password from the lock screen.

Yeah you can just start typing your password, last time I tried Ubuntu, at least. Or press any key, and the prompt should appear. Even pressing ctrl could work. But any character-key should be the key, in my experience.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#89

Post by pantalaimon » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #85

pantalaimon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unity still exists, it got renamed to Lomiri - you should still be able to install that. So maybe that feature still works.

I've switched to sway now and have that done manually like many other things to make them "just right". I just meant that the default Ubuntu desktop regressed on that from the Unity to GNOME switch. It was one of the things that I thought Unity had done particularly well within the constraints of what the software could do but very few people seem to know about it. I've explained how to get font scaling to dozens of…

> I just meant that the default Ubuntu desktop regressed on that from the Unity to GNOME switch.

I already felt like that with the switch from Gnome 2 to Unity. I switched to Mate as a result.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#90

Post by Tenoke » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #57

LeonM wrote: 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...

Just set font scaling to 1.3x or whatever it is you need and everything works great. I've been doing that for many years for 1440p in a laptop. Ubuntu actually regressed there since switching back to GNOME from Unity. In Unity font scaling was neatly exposed in the same slider as integer scaling and all apps used that setting. Now I have to set one thing for GNOME and another for Firefox to get the same effect. "Prop…

As someone who uses Ubuntu on multiple machines, does this and uses a high DPI laptop display AND an external display, this only sort of works and the outcome is much worse than what Windows or MacOS do out of the box.

Honestly, I don't get how the Ubuntu ecosystem is so much worse at handling something so basic, when other OSes have had almost no issues with it for over a decade..