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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

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Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone care to suggest an ubuntu-like distribution for someone like me who wants their OS light? What about Debian? You staying on 14.04 for so long surely means that the slightly slower moving Debian stable is not an issue for you. It supports lots of window managers. I'm using i3 with a simple xinitrc here, but also XFCE or LXDE are available. You can install it very very lightweight and as Ubuntu bases of D…

If you don't mind me asking a follow up: How behind Ubuntu is Debian, and where can I read this information myself (i.e. is there an official list by either the Debian or the Ubuntu people that says "here's all the stuff that the latest stable Debian is missing from the latest stable Ubuntu"?)

It is not behind all the time: it just follows a different (and more flexible) schedule. [1]

For instance, the current debian stable release entered freeze on 2019-01-12 and was finally released on 2019-07-06. [2]. This means that most software in stable is currently at the latest versions as of the end of 2018. Hence, up until the release announced today, debian stable had more recent (by around 1 year) software than Ubuntu LTS (18.04).

Now and until the next debian stable release (which should happen around summer next year) Ubuntu LTS (20.04) will have newer software than debian stable.

There are a few software packages that do have newer versions in Ubuntu because they are developed by canonical themselves. I can only remember LXC/LXD as examples of these.

I personally run Debian on my personal Desktop, and have no complaints about it at all.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases

[2] https://release.debian.org/buster/freeze_policy.html

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#362
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone care to suggest an ubuntu-like distribution for someone like me who wants their OS light? What about Debian? You staying on 14.04 for so long surely means that the slightly slower moving Debian stable is not an issue for you. It supports lots of window managers. I'm using i3 with a simple xinitrc here, but also XFCE or LXDE are available. You can install it very very lightweight and as Ubuntu bases of D…

how well do ppa's work on Debian? I don't like my system constantly updating (and occasionally breaking) - esp secretly behind my back like snap/flatpak but occasionally I do need the latest version of some package and i don't want to manage manually installations tucked away in some folder with random bashrc tweaks

In my experience, most software offering PPAs also offers debian repositories that get setup in your /etc/sources.d/ (usually the install instructions are just to run "curl https://somesoftware/installer.sh | bash", which you should doble-check of course). Thereafter your regular apt-get update && apt-get upgrade updates that software too.

It is really not an issue in my experience. I currently have the following software installed (and updated) this way: docker, virtualbox, nodejs, yarn, skype, vscode, teamviewer and sublime text.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't tried it but some people say 'OnlyOffice' is a better branch than libreoffice, it seems to support MS-Office standards better, but, as I said I've never tried it. Only trouble these people had was with certain fonts, but I guess the remedy would be to choose embed all fonts upon saving and sharing, if that helps, then perhaps OnlyOffice, desktop version, is an option, for some. I plan to try it, although I…

I love OnlyOffice along with WPS Office, but they're not "branches" of libreoffice at all, completely different products. You might be confusing LibreOffice branching from Sun OpenOffice.org/Star Office.

It's most likely that I am totally wrong, they just told me it was some "Latvian" branch, Lituanian, so I don't know. I might be confused overall but it's good someone knows. Thank you.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#364
post #359

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> Why are you downloading random crap from teh snap store to begin with? I'm not, but the fact that there's the potential for junk to exist on the store in the first place is the problem, especially when there isn't adequate protection against typosquatting like I mentioned originally. As long as I only use the default repositories, I can `apt install` a package I've never even heard of and it's pretty much guarantee…

>I'm not, but the fact that there's the potential for junk to exist on the store in the first place is the problem, especially when there isn't adequate protection against typosquatting like I mentioned originally. If you are that concerned about typing the wrong thing then use a software center. I have never even seen one and I have been using snaps since their inception. I am using 38 snaps and I have never once in…

I'm not talking about gaining persistence via a legitimately-installed system service. Instead I'm talking from a malware point of view.

If a malicious Snap has read/write access to non-hidden files within someone's home directory, you can almost certainly gain a level of persistence, e.g.:

* Edit a desktop shortcut file so that it points to your malware

* Edit a script or program so that when the user runs it, it runs your malware

* Edit a non-hidden configuration file in a malicious way

I am talking very theoretically here, and I agree that this is taking security concerns to the extreme, but these are important considerations that aren't really present with Apt (when using default repositories).

At the end of the day, despite my security concerns, I do like Snap and the technology it uses.

However, at the moment at least, I will always prefer Apt with default repositories as it provides that extra level of safety/guarantee of authenticity.

Finally, I use a script to install the Chromium Snap to remove the risk of typosquatting, which sufficiently mitigates this risk for me.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#366
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of, and only really starting in the last year or so, and still limited from the real version, but the market for adobe products among anyone who wants to use Linux is pretty much zero.

(I'm talking about Google Docs.)

Oh, well.

Google Docs is simply not capable of business level work. Sorry.

I thought you were talking about Office 365, which is significantly better, but still not up to par with the native applications.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#367
post #220

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I don't understand how for some people it "never works", while for me it's literally never once failed, all the way from 6.10 up until now, my latest desktop install lasting through 12 updates, plus motherboard and GPU change (between Intel and AMD CPU, and Nvidia and AMD proprietary driver and then AMD open source driver no less) and four different desktop environments (Unity, Gnome, Mate, and finally KDE). The clos…

Do you run mysql / MariaDB? That's the one that bites me, 100% of the time. There are other packages that often require "adjustments" but the db makes dist-upgrade a total fail for me. Not fun with servers, unfortunately.

No, I don't. I use Linux strictly on the desktop.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll enlighten you. About twenty years ago people used IIS for web-servers, encumbered in costly licenses, for everything, and progress goes on. That's the point man. Time goes on, and things gets better. Hope you see now. That was the point, anyways. I really hope it helps. Progress goes on is just the general point. Nothing else intended. Should be clear enough.

Lots of people still use IIS for web servers

parent is joking around but I got curious and wanted some data on this and found rather surprisingly that IIS isn’t doing so well these days and seemed to have dropped even more in the last year:

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2020/04/08/april-2020-web...

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2019/04/22/april-2019-web...

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#369
post #217
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This almost never actually worked in my experience. It was more of an annoyance than not even pretending to work, because I'd take time trying to get things to install in the UI and they wouldn't work before I eventually needed to revert to CLI.

My experience mirrors yours. Could never get double-click on .deb to work, same symptoms, and Software Center was always buggy/frustrating. dpkg -i all the way, but that's definitely a ux hit for broader adoption of Ubuntu.

Ah... I want to like Linux. I really do. But I regularly install software across MacOS, Windows, Debian, and CentOS, and the only time I have trouble installing is for .deb/.rpm/.snap.

Installing on Windows is run the installer and click through the guided wizard. Annoying, but it works and it’s foolproof so whatever.

Installing on MacOS is unzip and click and the application is already running. Drag over to ~/Applications if I want to. Easy as fuck.

Installing on Linux is trying to remember what apt-get/snap/dpkg/etc. I need, then on top of that what --dangerous or --classic or I don’t even know what all else I need, and cross my fingers and hope it works. It’s honestly aggravating.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

#370
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu had the calculator as a snap! What's the idea with that? It suddenly took 2 secs to load and uses load of memory... I dont care packaging got easier. I care for a smooth working system I can understand and instrument, and that does not hog resources.

Oh! Is _that_ why the calculator is nigh unusable now? Sheesh, this just shot snap's credibility right out the window. It's faster for me to boot up the node executable and do my calculations there.

The minimal fix for the sluggish calculator on Ubuntu 18.04 to 19.10:

  sudo snap remove gnome-calculator
  sudo apt install gnome-calculator
The more complete solution is entirely removing snap. I did that long ago, but my process was a little painful. From my logs, it went something like this:

  snap list
  snap remove 
  sudo service snapd restart # core is tricky to get rid of
  sudo snap remove core
  snap list # check it's empty
  sudo apt install gnome-calculator gnome-characters gnome-logs gnome-system-monitor
  sudo apt purge snapd squashfs-tools gnome-software-plugin-snap
  rm -r ~/snap
See also: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2409173&p=13826670...
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