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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

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Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#331

Post by olyjohn »

oaiey wrote: post #34
gerdesj wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

My dad runs Ubuntu at home. He's completely computer-illiterate. When I need to help him install something over the phone, it's really nice to be able to have him download a .deb, double-click on it, and it just works. I've done this numerous times over the phone with him... it would take me an hour just to get him to type apt install properly.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#332

Post by foresto »

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.…

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

I am disappointed that snap still forcibly clutters everyone's $HOME with an extra directory[1] that cannot be moved or renamed. It was reported four years ago, and nearly a thousand people have joined the bug report. The glacial pace at which they're addressing this problem makes me hesitant to embrace snap.

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#333

Post by mixmastamyk »

jamieweb wrote: post #159
viraptor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Snaps have mostly created problems for me I think this is the wrong way to look at it. You still have access to the same packages as before without snap. If you're using snap, that means you either explicitly chose it, or the package is not available in the repo. The choice here isn't between a package or a snap most of the time. It's between: not using the app, packaging it on your own, or using a snap which is no…

But certain packages are migrating to Snap-only, e.g. Chromium. I understand why they're doing this (primarily to save on build times), but the way they've gone about it (using a transitional Apt package that just installs the Snap) is messy and inconsistent. If I type `apt install` then I want an Apt package. Under no circumstances should this install a Snap.

Yep, and the chromium migration broke my webex meetings.

First I had to research and find out how to give it microphone permissions. That worked, but the mic works for about one minute then stops.

So frustrating, I had to move meetings to Firefox which is where I do most of my work. I like to have two browsers to split the work to that which is most appropriate.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#334

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

jedieaston wrote: post #305
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just switch to LibreOffice. The dependency on .docx/.xlsx is an overblown propaganda. I personally had a business in 2007..2011 that replaced windows for Linux. All that time I heard that same old song again: "But but MS Office is so essential!". Turned out, not so much, on over 5000 PCs in several dozen companies. Update: business eventually failed, for one simple reason - Ubuntu Linux is too freaking stable. The id…

Nothing, not LibreOffice, not Google Sheets, not Excel for Mac can replace Excel for me. It's wonderful, they keep adding features and I know all the quirks like the back of my hand. If I ever swap to Linux on the desktop, I'll keep a VM around just for Excel. Word is nice too, although that I could probably change that rather quickly (word processing is not hard to get right).

This speaks only that you are so used to MSOffice that you don't want to study different app, not that it is really better.

When I switched to OpenOffice.org in 2006 it took me some time to switch, and you know what? I have found that OOo was way more stable, predictable and logical in how things are done. It was also really free as in freedom, and I could run it on any OS of my choice. Now, I know LibreOffice like the back of my hand and it's wonderful.

People who used MS Office all their life usually do this: launch LibreOffice,see different interface, and like "nah... I don't want any changes, I'd rather keep myself and the world vendorlocked into proprietary software".

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#335

Post by amaccuish »

davb wrote: post #35
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.…

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 righ…

I've noticed the battery life too! And I've always been running mainline kernels ahead of what the ubuntu repos provide.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#336

Post by foresto »

kd913 wrote: post #290
jamieweb wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. My main concern with Snap is security. Using the default Ubuntu Apt repositories, I can `apt install` pretty much anything I want and it's almost guaranteed to not be malicious/dangerous, as only trusted/well-established developers can get their package into the Apt repos. However, with Snap, everybody in…

The amount of cases for malicious snaps was about 1 with the cryptominer that was addressed within 3 days. Those snaps that are published go through static analysis and unless manually vetted will not have access to the rest of your system. You install it, at worst it will cryptomine that is it. Oh and you can remove it completely with all traces unlike deb equivalents. Snaps come with a tick against verified snaps c…

> You install it, at worst it will cryptomine that is it.

Last time I looked, snaps still had access to the X server. They were therefore perfectly capable of logging and inserting keystrokes, capturing whatever sensitive information is on screen, etc. Has this changed?

I don't think Wayland would solve this, because even if Ubuntu switches to Wayland, variants like Xubuntu (which inherit snap from the base distribution) still use Xorg.

This sort of thing is often overlooked when we talk about linux sandboxing technologies. People see the word "sandbox" and assume safety, but the fact is that most of these sandboxes are leaky in one way or another. Does it protect X11 abuse? DBus abuse? Shared memory? Microphone access? Device node access? The list is long, and the leaks are different in each of the sandboxes.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#337

Post by amaccuish »

innocenat wrote: post #70
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just switch to LibreOffice. The dependency on .docx/.xlsx is an overblown propaganda. I personally had a business in 2007..2011 that replaced windows for Linux. All that time I heard that same old song again: "But but MS Office is so essential!". Turned out, not so much, on over 5000 PCs in several dozen companies. Update: business eventually failed, for one simple reason - Ubuntu Linux is too freaking stable. The id…

In addition to sibling comments about UI, if you work with Asian/Complex Script Language, Libre/OpenOffice is terrible choice. I use WPS Office (not open source) on Ubuntu mainly because it supports Asian/Complex script much, much better (as in, almost identical to MS Office).

I don't do Asian scripts, just latin and cyrillic, but I still use WPS office, since a lot of the options are in exactly the same place as they would be in MS Office, it's so nice not to have to go searching for things.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#338

Post by mixmastamyk »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #140
coinerone wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to open an Excel Sheet from 2002, that one that is existencially important for the whole success of the company :), with makros as big as the Windows Codebase itself, in Libre Office? I can tell MS Office will not leave the field.

Don't you even get me started on xls from 2002. That pathetic standard was poorly supported even my MS itself, files were opening with great difficulties and differences even on same version of Excel on different PCs, and sometimes newer versions could not open them properly at all. Once I have discovered that one .XLS file could internally have different types of encoding within one same document. Anyway. It is clea…

> if you want to get out of the pit, you should stop digging.

Great quote, I'll try to remember that.

Also, folks forget how times change. Ten years ago most were still trapped on Windows. Today a lot fewer are.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#339

Post by mixmastamyk »

coinerone wrote: post #198
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you even get me started on xls from 2002. That pathetic standard was poorly supported even my MS itself, files were opening with great difficulties and differences even on same version of Excel on different PCs, and sometimes newer versions could not open them properly at all. Once I have discovered that one .XLS file could internally have different types of encoding within one same document. Anyway. It is clea…

Yes! Im with you on that. But it is not the tech or IT "Poeple" that we are talking about here. This Discussion is going on for many years now and there will be another 10 Years of "simple" solutions. I will be honest here. As a Programmer and Application Supporter (for 17 Years now) i earn Money with that kind of Problems. I dont like MS and it would be a joy to switch to GNU/Linux. But i think i will see someone st…

Just have to move to an adjacent/another field. I have not seen Office in ten years, and haven't used it in twenty.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#340

Post by foresto »

zeppelin101 wrote: post #11

"Fractional scaling does not work with the NVIDIA proprietary driver (bug 1870736, bug 1873403)." That's kind of a big deal for any desktop users with a high resolution display.

To any Nvidia desktop users out there who don't know yet: the AMD drivers are getting quite good lately. I switched this year, and have been very happy about it. Just be careful if you're buying a new model of GPU, as the drivers are a few months behind in new hardware support.
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