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Ubuntu 21.10

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Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#61

Post by V-2 »

capableweb wrote: post #40
rlpb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why Ubuntu/Canonical can never get their upgrade game to work properly. Ubuntu developer here. Sounds like you have a really hacked up system there, and that it's your existing system that has issues. Under these circumstances, I don't think it's reasonable to expect an upgrade to be able to work smoothly. Scripts that handle upgrade paths necessarily need to make assumptions that what they are upgrading f…

I wouldn't expect nothing less than being blamed by Ubuntu developers for a hacked up system, even though I barely described anything. Thanks for giving me another reason to leave the Ubuntu ecosystem behind me. The condescending tone that your message has seems to be relatively popular in the Ubuntu/Canonical community as well, at least compared to NixOS.

Isn't the freedom of "hacking" your system one of the main reasons for using Linux to begin with?

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#62

Post by techrat »

mercurialmaven wrote: post #26
aborsy wrote: post #12

Over a decade of Ubuntu use, could not be happier! I remember in 2000s, I had to edit /etc/ text files to set up internet etc. Nowadays everything works out of box. All sorts of peripherals and hardware is recognized automatically. High quality free open source software is available for most stuff I need. The freedom to choose software and customize Linux, if required, is amazing! Am I missing anything ignoring close…

In my experience, Ubuntu, or Linux in general, works great on desktops but very poorly on laptops due to lack of hardware and driver support. Not a hardware engineer myself, I think this is because desktop hardware is more standardized while laptop hardware is more proprietary, advanced, and custom-made to different makes and models. My previous job was the first job I had wear a company-supported Linux laptop was ev…

> One specific Linux issue I ran into repeatedly is that Chrome and Chromium by default refuse to trust Linux graphics drivers and instead do software rendering.

https://i.imgur.com/u1sKBiu.png

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#63

Post by rlpb »

outworlder wrote: post #32
rlpb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why Ubuntu/Canonical can never get their upgrade game to work properly. Ubuntu developer here. Sounds like you have a really hacked up system there, and that it's your existing system that has issues. Under these circumstances, I don't think it's reasonable to expect an upgrade to be able to work smoothly. Scripts that handle upgrade paths necessarily need to make assumptions that what they are upgrading f…

> Sounds like you have a really hacked up system there Some people would call this 'a system that's actually being used to do something'. Don't blame users unless it's clear they are doing something egregious with the system. Installing a different Python version shouldn't break installers, but here we are. Ubuntu should have taken a page from CoreOS, NixOS and even Arch. CoreOS with their immutable system partitions…

> Ubuntu should have taken a page from CoreOS, NixOS and even Arch. CoreOS with their immutable system partitions (and two of them so it can revert to a good one if the current can't boot). NixOS with the immutable packages (and the split between user and system packages). And even Arch with its release model.

Actually Ubuntu Core is an edition of Ubuntu that has exactly these properties. It runs read-only, with packages that can be added and removed cleanly.

This does involve moving away from apt/deb, which is fundamentally incapable of this. I don't know of any plans to do this for the main Ubuntu distro itself, but consider the resistance if this were on the roadmap.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#64

Post by forgotmypw17 »

TekMol wrote: post #17

The one thing that I don't like about Ubuntu is that you don't have a taskbar. It is such a productivity boost to see a list of all windows and their titles. And it let's me organize my work much better when I can organize this list by changing the order of the buttons. Is anybody here using Ubuntu with a taskbar?

I recommend you try LXDE or Xfce with Ubuntu or any other distro. They are the closest I've used to "just clone Windows 95 with a few enhancements and leave it alone", which I like.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#65

Post by hjek »

JonathanBeuys wrote: post #59
airstrike wrote: post #47

I loved Ubuntu around 2007-2009 or so. Nowdays it feels like there are plenty of alternative distros that "just work" without so many of the idiosyncratic stuff canonical keeps dumping into what used to be "debian for the masses" > As Linux evangelist Mark Pilgrim once quipped, Ubuntu "is an ancient African word meaning 'can't install Debian'". https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/16/debian_lenny_review/

Debian has a strange approach to security these days. There are over 100 unpatched vurnurabilities in their version of Chromium for example: https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/status/release/s... Because of this, I don't see debian as an option for the Desktop anymore. I hope they still fix the server software in their repos.

Looks like all the CVEs are fixed in Debian Sid at least.

Edit: Not all, apparently. The whole bottom of that Chromium CVE list is still unfixed in Bookworm/Sid.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#66

Post by seiferteric »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #56

After using Ubuntu for a couple years, I switched to Arch and never even think about going back. Ubuntu is great for people new to Linux, but it is like buying a new PC. Some people know very little about computers, so they just get an HP or Dell. Then once you start learning about graphics cards, SSDs, cooling, processors, etc... You either build your own or buy one with the components you actually want. That is why…

What is so great about Arch? Is it just gentoo for the younger generation? I used to use gentoo and build all my own stuff, but I just don't care about that anymore and want it to just work. That's why I use Ubuntu after using Linux for 20 years :)

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#67

Post by rlpb »

V-2 wrote: post #61
capableweb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't expect nothing less than being blamed by Ubuntu developers for a hacked up system, even though I barely described anything. Thanks for giving me another reason to leave the Ubuntu ecosystem behind me. The condescending tone that your message has seems to be relatively popular in the Ubuntu/Canonical community as well, at least compared to NixOS.

Isn't the freedom of "hacking" your system one of the main reasons for using Linux to begin with?

I'm not sure it's a main reason, but it is indeed a key property of having full control over your own system that you are welcome to do this. But this level of control also comes with a curse: if you break your system, then you get to keep the pieces. I find it quite upsetting to be blamed instead.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#68

Post by _xy8h »

beefjerkins wrote: post #28
aborsy wrote: post #12

Over a decade of Ubuntu use, could not be happier! I remember in 2000s, I had to edit /etc/ text files to set up internet etc. Nowadays everything works out of box. All sorts of peripherals and hardware is recognized automatically. High quality free open source software is available for most stuff I need. The freedom to choose software and customize Linux, if required, is amazing! Am I missing anything ignoring close…

Out of interest, have you tried other distributions? Perhaps Debian based like Linux Mint / Pop OS, or others like Manjaro? What keeps you using Ubuntu after all these years?

Mint and Pop are still Ubuntu based, not to ignore the Debian underpinnings of Ubuntu.

I've stuck with xUbuntu because it seems to be the most sane of the bunch when it comes to defaults and preinstalled software. Once installed, it does a good job of staying out of my way UI wise.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#69

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

rlpb wrote: post #15
capableweb wrote: post #3

Funny, I run Ubuntu on my laptop and tried just today to upgrade it (since I'm on 18.04 and have been for a while). But no matter how I try, `do-release-upgrade` won't do the upgrade, complaining about third party repositories (removed all of them as a result), mismatched python versions, and a load of other issues. When I fix one, another one appears. Tried for 5 hours today and eventually gave up. On the other hand…

> I wonder why Ubuntu/Canonical can never get their upgrade game to work properly. Ubuntu developer here. Sounds like you have a really hacked up system there, and that it's your existing system that has issues. Under these circumstances, I don't think it's reasonable to expect an upgrade to be able to work smoothly. Scripts that handle upgrade paths necessarily need to make assumptions that what they are upgrading f…

See, this is why Linux distributions piss me off. You have an upgrade path that breaks, and when it does the response is "oh, you used your Linux distribution in a way we said you could in our docs? why would you think the upgrade would work after that?!"

Distros just don't care about the user experience. They care about making it look fancy, or shifting around designs, or introducing brand new components that break old functionality. But they don't care if people actually have problems using it.

Every bug is the user's fault, and every reinvention-of-the-wheel (that actually works worse than the previous wheel) is a praiseworthy accomplishment. Regressions are nonexistent, hardware compatibility/stability is a guessing game, solving common problems is left to the user to Google, all the interfaces and apps are inconsistent, there are no interactive guides to design changes, and just getting some basic hardware like a Bluetooth adapter to work is a multi-day adventure. (And I'm a 20+ year Linux veteran.)

I still use Linux because I know that my hardware will mostly work, and that once I get past a month of fixing bugs on a new install, I can basically make it do what I want. But it's so frustrating to use compared to Windows. The only reason I don't use Windows instead is performance and troubleshooting is worse there (for the most part) and security is scarier. But I want to throw both Linux and Windows in the trash. And I won't buy a Mac because the price and incompatibility is absurd.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10

#70

Post by Enginerrrd »

rlpb wrote: post #15
capableweb wrote: post #3

Funny, I run Ubuntu on my laptop and tried just today to upgrade it (since I'm on 18.04 and have been for a while). But no matter how I try, `do-release-upgrade` won't do the upgrade, complaining about third party repositories (removed all of them as a result), mismatched python versions, and a load of other issues. When I fix one, another one appears. Tried for 5 hours today and eventually gave up. On the other hand…

> I wonder why Ubuntu/Canonical can never get their upgrade game to work properly. Ubuntu developer here. Sounds like you have a really hacked up system there, and that it's your existing system that has issues. Under these circumstances, I don't think it's reasonable to expect an upgrade to be able to work smoothly. Scripts that handle upgrade paths necessarily need to make assumptions that what they are upgrading f…

Just as another data point, to be honest, I've had nothing but similar issues with Ubuntu. It always found new, weird, sometimes downright bizarre ways to break, often in ways I never could figure out how to fix. Mind you, that was back when I didn't even do anything unusual and didn't know how to really dig into the nuts and bolts of linux... I just installed fairly normal apps from the repository with no custom configuration. ...That was all pre-snap.

Ironically, I tried again post-snap thinking that would make things harder to break. The first app I tried to install failed in some bizarre way. I fixed it eventually, but it left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. I've had upgrades pre 20.0x that basically nuked my whole server. I just can't in good faith recommend ubuntu to beginners anymore. Mind you, that's for desktop... The 20.04 server is actually pretty nice for a headless linux box, though usually I just run it in a container from a debian system via lxc.

Conversely, I've never broken my Arch or debian systems beyond repair despite really hacking the ever-loving shit out of them. I think I had one package I had to fix the version on and no other significant issues.

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