Ubuntu Linux 18.10 'Cosmic Cuttlefish' Arrives (zdnet.com) 99
Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish, the latest version of Ubuntu, is now available to download. From a report: Under the hood, the Cosmic Cuttlefish boasts the 4.18 Linux Kernel. This updates comes with better support for for AMD and Nvidia GPU, USB Type-C and Thunderbolt, a way for unprivileged users to mount Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) can be mounted by, and CPUfreq performance improvements. On top of this, you'll find the freshest version of GNOME 3.30. You can, of course, use other desktops, but GNOME, since Ubuntu 17.10, is Ubuntu's default desktop. You'll be glad to know that GNOME is faster than it has been for a while. That's because some nasty memory leaks have been patched. Canonical has also added some performance tweaks that didn't make it into the GNOME 3.30 upstream. Ubuntu 18.10 also comes with a new desktop theme, the Yaru Community theme installed by default, for your visual enjoyment. Further reading: Ubuntu 18.10: What's New? [Video]; Ubuntu 18.10 Review; and Ubuntu 18.10 Flavors Released, Ready to Download.
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Re: wow (Score:1)
Ubuntu is the official distro of the GNAA.
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slow memory leaks? (Score:4, Insightful)
from the ./ summary:
"You'll be glad to know that GNOME is faster than it has been for a while. That's because some nasty memory leaks have been patched."
That's not what memory leaks do. Unless you leak so much memory that the system starts paging out RAM contents to the swap partition on the drive. Was it really that bad?
Re:slow memory leaks? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah. It was pretty freaking bad. [omgubuntu.co.uk]
Re:slow memory leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't get why anybody puts up with Gnome when KDE is available. I really don't get why Ubuntu ships with Gnome standard. A whole lot more Windows users would make the switch if Linux presented with a normal desktop by default instead of whatever Gnome is trying to be, which seems to change every year and never seems to have a lot to do with what users need.
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I bet that most Gnome users that tried KDE a decade ago said wtf, then went back to Gnome 2. Maybe KDE is finally good by now - it has a similar problem to Gnome 3 : "This time it's good, we promise!". But you have to learn not only the GUI, but all new applications. It's almost, or it is easier to go between Gnome 3 / Unity / Mate / XFCE / LXDE / Cinnamon / ... than from one of these to KDE, because KDE is the one with the different GUI toolkit that looks nothing else (so nothing looks the same : fonts, bu
Re:slow memory leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where to begin, there's a bunch of misinformation in your post. KDE was nearly always great except for the premature release of 4.0, which was only alpha quality but distros somehow didn't get the memo. You don't need to learn any new applications in KDE, the ones you already use work perfectly fine, including Nautilus, gnome-terminal, browsers, whatever. Look and feel exactly the same except window decorations will be whatever you set up in KDE, which can be almost anything you want.
BTW, the reverse is also true: KDE applications like Kate (great editor) work just fine under Gnome. This is thanks to the cross-DE APIs developed by freedekstop.org, thanks much for that.
Re: slow memory leaks? (Score:2)
I tried KDE several times over the years and it was garbage every time. Stuck with Gnome 2 for a long time, eventually went to Gnome 3. I abandoned Gnome during my upgrade to Ubuntu 18.4 this spring; I'm using MATE now and love it. Gnome and KDE are both too bloated and problematic, and offer zero advantages over MATE as far as I can see.
Re: slow memory leaks? (Score:1)
As a very long time Linux user (continuously from 1998) I've primarily used gnome from pretty early alphas and betas. Diverted a few times to kde and bolt ons like enlightenment. However, i e stuck with gnome for quite some time now, even whilst Ubuntu has tried its own unique desktop path. Whilst i did like gnome 2 for its familiarity, i get what gnome 3 is all about. KDE is fine in my opinion. It's feature rich and very flexible. It is somewhat in-you-face though. The point of gnome 3 is that it's enough
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[Gnome is] just a slim desktop built from a rock solid toolkit.
I don't know what makes you think that. GTK is and always has been, a big squishy mess that is awkward and err-prone to develop with.
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Re: slow memory leaks? (Score:1)
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The one big issue no-one has managed to solve yet with desktops is starting apps. Apparently it's a really hard problem.
In the early days you just had to navigate the file manager to the place on your hard drive where the app was installed and open it. On some systems that was actually pretty good because you could easily move apps around to organize them (e.g. RISC OS). Unfortunately on many systems it breaks the app if it isn't installed under the expected path, and it's also something of a security issue
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I don't necessarily agree with this. I think you are correct that Gnome 3 and Unity were both horrible. Horrible in the aspect of trying to force everyone to touch style interfaces. Horrible if you used the system for real work. Horrible if you used multiple screens, especially in a over/under format. Gnome 2 was much better at matching Windows than both KDE or Gnome 3 but even it fell short. But Cinnamon on top of Gnome 3 is absolutely fantastic. In my opinion it is better than all the other competitors. I
Re:slow memory leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mod parent up ...
I used KDE for about 12 years, then the move to 16.04 ruined a few things in it. Basically in two categories: a) things are no longer customizable, e.g. persistent notifications, and b) they removed some add ons, e.g. a working weather widget.
So, almost 1.5 years ago, I switched to XFCE and never looked back. It is not as rich or customizable, but more than adequate for full time desktop use.
Try Xubuntu 18.04 LTS. You will not regret it.
Re:slow memory leaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't get why anybody puts up with Gnome when KDE is available.
Heck, even when twm is available. Anything available in that field is better than Gnome3. It's the epitome of what "UX designers" stand for. There are two valid directions for an UI to go for: ease for new users, and ergonomy for advanced ones. Gnome3 blows both to a ridiculous degree, at the same time trashing efficiency, portability (works on x86 only), and so on.
I really don't get why Ubuntu ships with Gnome standard.
Nor do I. It's the systemd of window managers.
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A whole lot more Windows users would make the switch if Linux presented with a normal desktop by default instead of whatever Gnome is trying to be
That's why I tell people to try Mint+Cinnamon, it's the most approachable interface if you're used to Windows 7.
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I still don't get why anybody puts up with Gnome when KDE is available
I don't either, but Gnome is the default desktop on three of the big distros (Ubuntu, Redhat and Debian) so there must be a good reason.
I have given up trying to figure out what that reason is though, and just use KDE. Budgie seems like a nice option too.
Isn't it nice to have choices?
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Isn't it nice to have choices?
Yes, choices are great. Nice defaults would also be great.
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I still don't get why anybody puts up with Gnome when KDE is available
Maybe because there is Kubuntu?
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KDE is slow as hell on ANY hardware.
Rubbish, KDE runs just fine even on tiny embedded computers. Now crawl back under your rock.
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I think often because people just say KDE as if it provides the answer. Better to say https://kubuntu.org/ [kubuntu.org]. I personally go with Kubuntu, although I do swap around with Gnome and have both accessible with just a configuration change at bootup.
So the answer is not so much go with KBE as go with Kubuntu. One leads to more questions and the other leads to a direct simple answer, even if you already use https://www.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com] or http://edubuntu.org/ [edubuntu.org] or https://lubuntu.net/ [lubuntu.net]. After all those links it would be m
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I don't understand how Gnome is even supposed to work. What is the workflow supposed to be?
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"You'll be glad to know that GNOME is faster than it has been for a while. That's because some nasty memory leaks have been patched."
I really hope 18.04 LTS will be patched as well and not be neglected as usual when a new version is coming, while LTS stands for Long Time Support
Re:A Good Linux that Works? (Score:4, Informative)
What should I run if I just want a headless server with docker?
Debian Buster or Stretch are good. I run Buster on a headless NUC with typically infinite uptime, just reboot every 6 months or so for a kernel upgrade. I removed Network Manager and just use old school Debian networking, more solid for a server. That was easy, basically just apt remove network-manager and set up /etc/network/interfaces in the usual way.
I used to run Ubuntu on a server and there's nothing really wrong with it. But there's no advantage vs Debian either, and with a server, less is usually more. When it comes to security patches, Debian is about the best in the business.
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There is ubuntu server edition, the advantage to debian server is if you like to use the ubuntu server specific tools.
Went back to Debian (Score:5, Interesting)
For something like 8 years, nearly everything on Ubuntu: desktops, laptops, severs. Because it was easy, with frequent updates. BTW, with KDE, not funky Gnome. But Debian progressed a lot in terms of not randomly breaking Sid like it used to, and "testing" stays a lot more current, so gradually started switching devices over, and everything new gets Debian instead of Ubuntu. Now just one laptop and one mostly unused desktop still on Ubuntu, probably will make the switch on those eventually, just for consistency. Netinst on a USB stick makes this super easy. There isn't really anything wrong with Ubuntu, they do a lot of good development that advances the whole community, and it's way better than Red Hat. But Debian, it's the real thing.
Generally the difference between Ubuntu and Debian is completely invisible except when it comes to upgrading. Upgrading across major versions is no big deal in Debian but it can be a real crap shoot in Ubuntu.
Re: Went back to Debian (Score:1, Funny)
That mirrors my experience. One in place version upgrade of Ubuntu generally works ok but upgrading a second time is complete crapshoot. I've found Debian to be way more stable across upgrafes.
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I still use Ubuntu (Mate LTS) for most of my 'user' machines because there *has* been work put into getting the basics working out of the box. I used to use Debian/FreeBSD and while everything would work, it didn't do it out of the box. FreeBSD and Debian both required a lot of configuration.
Sometimes because of Debian's ideology on free. Shimming in drivers on install felt like Windows at times.
Second, because of Debian's transient nature a lot of companies are releasing for LTS (Nvidia CUDA repos), which
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I'm not dumping on Ubuntu, it makes perfect sense as a factory preinstall or a no-fuss install for first-time Linux users. And it is perfectly fine for professional and power users. But pretty much anything you can do on Ubuntu you can also do on Debian, and usually in exactly the same way, so I prefer the one without the training wheels.
Debian drivers isn't a big deal, you do need to add nonfree to sources.list and you might need to apt install some firmware. Without this your first boot can be pretty funk
Re: Went back to Debian (Score:2)
I havenâ(TM)t had issues with the debian zfs dkms recently and I have done many automated installs of production machines using it. But having it built in Ubuntu _is_ nice.
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Ubuntu snaps are fully supported on Debian also. These are not necessarily a bad thing. While I much prefer to install via apt, snaps allow users to install programs from their own use without needing root privilege. Given that users are going to do that one way or another anyway, this is more secure than needing root and much better organized than installing by hand locally. I guess, a lot of people are using snaps.
Ubuntu custom kernel patches would be evaluated by Debian kernel maintainers, who also have
Mint here too... but planning to move to Devuan (Score:2)
I switched from Kubuntu years ago to Xubuntu, then to Mint XFCE, and have generally been very happy with it. XFCE is just right.
I set my system up to re-install instead of upgrade, which used to be the preferred method. Then they started supporting in-place upgrades, and they went well.
I am still on 18.3, and the current upgrade process seems to be getting more complicated. And since they adopted systemd as the init system, I have been facing some rather annoying issues.
I have looked into a LOT of distro
A question (Score:1, Insightful)
Is native support for installing on nvme raid still limited to "You don't want to do that because reasons"?
Unprivileged users (Score:2)
Only 9 months of support for 18.10. (Score:1)
Chose your production OS carefully.
Only 9 months of support for 18.10.
Most people shouldn't install it except on play machines or if their hardware is so bleeding edge that 18.04 can't handle it.
I'm still on 16.04 because 18.04.1 has lots and lots of issues still. Perhaps by next June, 18.04 will be stable enough for production use, but I won't be holding my breath.
If you install 18.10, you **MUST** move to 19.04, then 19.10. There is no choice from a support perspective. 20.04 is the next LTS after 18.04
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