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Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

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Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#1

Post by voakbasda »

I have been running Ubuntu on servers and desktops for around twenty years, but ongoing changes to their platform have shaken my faith in its future. The first serious breach of trust was forcing their users to use their untrustable snaps (e.g. Firefox on 22.04), but the last straw for me has been breaking apt upgrades on 20.04 LTS in order to push their Pro agenda.

I am looking to replace Ubuntu with something that will be stable and supported for the next twenty years, without being ruined by corporate interests. What are my best options?

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#3

Post by bradwood »

Personal machines (workstations or servers) are very different to those you'd use in industry. I'll only comment on personal machines.

For home workstations, as an ex Ubuntu user, I like Manjaro (and the whole Arch ecosystem) A LOT. Fedora is pretty nice as a dev workstation also.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#5

Post by simfree »

LinuxBender wrote: post #2

If you are comfortable with Ubuntu then perhaps Debian [1], the OS that Ubuntu was forked from would feel natural? [1] - https://www.debian.org/

After switching from Ubuntu to Debian, it feels like Ubuntu is just a frankenDebian where packages of different versions are mixed haphazardly resulting in many minor but annoying issues.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#6

Post by tapoxi »

For a desktop, I've had a wonderful experience with Fedora Workstation. They're up-to-date while remaining stable, have a policy of working with upstream, and don't do any real customization to KDE/GNOME.

I am mildly peeved at the whole CentOS debacle but wouldn't mind running Fedora on a personal server.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#7

Post by ssnistfajen »

After a major Ubuntu version upgrade completely broke virtualization, I switched to OpenSUSE. It has a very professional feel and YaST is a great tool for (re)configuring the system without having to look up commandline specifics for every one-off action I wanted to perform. I use Leap for my work laptop and Tumbleweed for my home PC. Both are very stable.

I also use Manjaro on the side but for a rolling release it lags slightly behind OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. AUR provides a good supplement of software but more are providing alternatives via Flatpak nowadays. Fedora is a good choice too. I recommend trying all of these before making a decision.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#8

Post by cmdlinecowboy »

Red Hat for enterprise use, Fedora for personal desktop use. One of the largest communities you’ll find. If you want Debian based maybe just straight Debian.

The centos debacle was poorly handled but I think what red hat was /trying/ to do made sense. The community just wasn’t there to sustain it. Red Hat was paying to give away free RHEL basically lol. CentOS Stream should have just been called RHEL Stream. It’s basically RHEL minus minor bugs that would only effect small pools of people.

I’m glad Rocky and Alma sprung up and have budding communities though.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#10

Post by cmdlinecowboy »

tapoxi wrote: post #6

For a desktop, I've had a wonderful experience with Fedora Workstation. They're up-to-date while remaining stable, have a policy of working with upstream, and don't do any real customization to KDE/GNOME. I am mildly peeved at the whole CentOS debacle but wouldn't mind running Fedora on a personal server.

Just use Rocky Linux or Alma Linux it’s basically what Cent was. Unless you’re running anything super insanely mission critical CentOS stream would still be fine for your uses, and if you need something THAT highly available support might be worth while anyways in an enterprise environment.
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