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Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

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Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#81
post #80
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My complaints (not looked real recently though): Snaps are Ubuntu specific and the server side/repo is closed source. Snaps pollute the df/mount points with per snap lines. They rolled out in a LTS release with minimal testing. Caused quite a few problems like not being able to boot as multiple snaps drained /dev/random (instead of /dev/urandom) and waited on more entropy, which was god awful slow since the boot hadn…

> Snaps pollute the df/mount points with per snap lines. My biggest complaint

Indeed, seems silly to list gimp, firefox, vlc, vscode, spotify, etc. Not to mention it's easy to end up with more than one of each.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#82
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will sooner give up computers forever than be either locked into a linux VM on Windows, or locked into expensive hardware with the other one

When was the last time you used WSL? Also, what's your dev tool chain?

Not the OP but fwiw I feel the same. Last I used WSL was probably 3 or 4 months ago, so very recently but before I had a chance to try graphical WSL. But tbh that hardly matters to me because I don't use many GUI applications.

The problem for me is that to use WSL, I still have to use Windows, which is odious to me for reasons that WSL can't ameliorate. Additionally every time you get set up on Windows you still have to deal with its deficiencies in getting to your desired WSL setup, namely deficient package management and terminal emulation solutions. (Windows Terminal is pretty good, and it's what I always go with for now.)

WSL will never help Windows with being slow or huge (20+ GB for an install, even without any applications? what the absolute fuck) or rude or unpredictable or opaque.

As for my toolchain: for people like me who use distros a bit off the beaten path, the fact that WSL is more or less incompatible with a real init system gets in the way, too. Nix support has also been spotty, coming and going and being blocked and unblocked at various times since WSL1.

Idk, dude. I actually like Linux on the desktop, Windows does a ton of things I don't like, and setting up a Windows machine seriously sucks. I don't think WSL is or wants to be for me.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#83
post #52

Canonical has been doing some great work with Ubuntu. Though now I wonder if the desktop Linux is dead. With WSL rapidly improving with each release, how many devs really want to deal with the configuration of a Linux system?

Obviously, if a developer sees it as "deal with the configuration" then no, go with macOS, Windows or any other zero-config operating systems. But many see that part as a feature, not something to "deal with", and for those Linux is rescue in a sea of the infantilization Apple and Microsoft engage with.

> macOS, Windows or any other zero-config operating systems

??? Windows and Mac are way more work to set up than Linux because they fundamentally lack systems for managing software comparable to a decent package manager. Everything is a manual, pointy-clicky nightmare, sometimes lightly papered over with hacky hodgepodges like Chocolatey or supplemented with third party tools that are a bit better on macOS but still have to fight against an indifferent base system that cyclically breaks them (Nix, Homebrew), but ultimately still a mess.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#84
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have skipped quite a few downsides. Anyway, the biggest one is that what was previously an app is now a separate environment that is sometimes hard to control. If I wanted to run an app in a sandbox, I would have run it in a sandbox. People have run into all possible problems with snaps in the past, it has been discussed on HN ad naueseam [0] [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24383341 [1] https://news…

> Anyway, the biggest one is that what was previously an app is now a separate environment that is sometimes hard to control. If I wanted to run an app in a sandbox, I would have run it in a sandbox. I see sandboxing as a major upside. Users expect sandboxing by default nowadays. Some game they downloaded shouldn't be able to intercept your online banking browser session. Yet, in the traditional Linux desktop model,…

In theory, if snap was mature software and had no other issues, this could work well. In practice, many people have problems.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#85
post #77
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the linux marketshare among devs is still increasing, even with WSL available. WSL is in fact one of Microsoft's attempts to lure back developers to their OS, or never make them switch. For some folks, like you, this might actually work. But they've lost me as a user since more than a decade and I doubt I'll come back out of my own volition. Even with WSL, Windows is full of bloat, slowness, and I am fully ex…

Maybe, I'm a minority on HN, but I want my OS to be as transparent as possible while I do my work. Each time I login, I don't want to be greeted with Audio doesn't work, or your email client broke because Outlook Server changed something. My hunch is low code or no code users are also similar, if someone uses Python for some data wrangling tasks, they don't want to deal with a full fledged Linux installation. My deve…

Whenever I'm on Windows I get a stream of non-urgent notifications about updates etc. which is far from staying out of my way.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#86

I've been fighting to keep Unity as long as I could, but it's now breaking too often so I accepted my gnome shell fate. It requires 10 plugins, one app, and manually crafted .desktop files to be usable, but ok, it's free software, I'll adapt. I understand the rational to also push for wayland first now, but it breaks my workflow for things like autokey. We do need to move from X11, but once again, something I will ha…

Perhaps Ubuntu Mate with Mutiny?

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#87

I've been fighting to keep Unity as long as I could, but it's now breaking too often so I accepted my gnome shell fate. It requires 10 plugins, one app, and manually crafted .desktop files to be usable, but ok, it's free software, I'll adapt. I understand the rational to also push for wayland first now, but it breaks my workflow for things like autokey. We do need to move from X11, but once again, something I will ha…

Perhaps Ubuntu Mate with Mutiny?

Is that still maintained ? It was an experiment in 16.04 right?

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#89
post #8
post #6

And Firefox is a snap package now; the .deb will go away next release. Canonical finally managed to make me switch back to Debian.

Is there an alternative source for non-snap Firefox? snapd is the first thing I nuke on fresh installs. I would like to stay with Ubuntu, if possible.

You can migrate to Debian if possible. Ubuntu was a derivative from it.

Re: Ubuntu 21.10 (Impish Indri)

#90
post #8
post #6

And Firefox is a snap package now; the .deb will go away next release. Canonical finally managed to make me switch back to Debian.

Is there an alternative source for non-snap Firefox? snapd is the first thing I nuke on fresh installs. I would like to stay with Ubuntu, if possible.

You can try Debian, from which Ubuntu was derived. No snap.
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