Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Ubuntu Linux

'I'm Done With Ubuntu' (ounapuu.ee) 106

Posted by msmash from the enough-is-enough dept.
Software developer and prolific blogger Herman Ounapuu, writing in a blog post: I liked Ubuntu. For a very long time, it was the sensible default option. Around 2016, I used the Ubuntu GNOME flavor, and after they ditched the Unity desktop environment, GNOME became the default option.

I was really happy with it, both for work and personal computing needs. Estonian ID card software was also officially supported on Ubuntu, which made Ubuntu a good choice for family members.

But then something changed. Ounapuu recounts how Ubuntu's bi-annual long-term support releases consistently broke functionality, from minor interface glitches to catastrophic system failures that left computers unresponsive. His breaking point came after multiple problematic upgrades affecting family members' computers, including one that rendered a laptop completely unusable during an upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. Another incident left a relative's system with broken Firefox shortcuts and duplicate status bar icons after updating Lubuntu 18.04.

Canonical's aggressive push of Snap packages has drawn particular criticism. The forced migration of system components from traditional Debian packages to Snaps resulted in compatibility issues, broken desktop shortcuts, and government ID card authentication failures. In one instance, he writes, a Snap-related bug in the GNOME desktop environment severely disrupted workplace productivity, requiring multiple system restarts to resolve. The author has since switched to Fedora, praising its implementation of Flatpak as a superior alternative to Snaps.

'I'm Done With Ubuntu' More | Reply

'I'm Done With Ubuntu'

Comments Filter:

  • Looking forward to the Slack community growing with more Ubuntu and RH refugees both those ecosystems seem to be in full on self destruction mode.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )
      Come to where the flavor is, come to BSD country. Now with 100% less SUCK than Linux. We'll welcome you, won't whine to you about a Code of Conduct, break your baseline, or force System===D down your throat.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dvice ( 6309704 )

      If you have many users, you will have many unhappy users also.

      It looks like I originally installed Ubuntu 12.10 ( cat /var/log/installer/media-info ). So it is not like it is impossible to just keep upgrading.

      That reminds me that this future where we now live is pretty awesome. I have not upgraded my computer for over a decade and I can still run the popular new games like Minecraft and Team Fortress 2. Amazing that the mother board still holds. CPU fan died years ago as did some of the case fans. If you wo

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by wed128 ( 722152 )
        Minecraft came out in 2011, TF2 came out in 2007. Theyre both popular, but by no means are they new

    • Debian is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It's the same environment except no f---ing Snaps.

      And it's Snaps that's really broken everything with Ubuntu. It's buggy to the point that I've repeatedly lost data because of it, from Firefox bookmarks/passwords/history to entire LXD images.

      My only issue with it is the installer isn't anything like as "Just works" as Ubuntu's efforts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        I'm still using a initv debian system.

        It still works. Switch and leave it.

        https://ianlecorbeau.github.io/blog/debian-bookworm-sysvinit.html

      • And it's Snaps that's really broken everything with Ubuntu. It's buggy to the point that I've repeatedly lost data because of it, from Firefox bookmarks/passwords/history to entire LXD images.

        I've been on a FreeBSD desktop since starting at 4.11. Can you please tell me how a package manager can be allowed to f**k up user data on a machine? Real question. Shouldn't it just be applications that are getting borked? Is there no logical separation in Linux these days? All the mainstream "free" OSes are getting too complicated for their own good (except perhaps for OpenBSD), and apps do step on each others' toes once in a while, but what you describe is nonsense. Get out.

      • >"Debian is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It's the same environment except no f---ing Snaps."

        Actually Linux Mint is the obvious home for Ubuntu refugees. It is as close as you can get to Ubuntu with far less suck (which I have explained why many times elsewhere). The next step down the chain would be Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), which discards the Ubuntu base, but is still friendlier than Debian. Then, finally, Debian. So you have several rungs down the latter and don't have to jump off

  • Started with Ubuntu in 2006 and moved to Mint years ago right after the Unity thing.

    • Started with Ubuntu in 2006 and moved to Mint years ago right after the Unity thing.

      I was running Ubuntu 18 (MATE) for a while, then switched to Mint 21 (MATE) when Canonical started pushing Snaps as the default (and only w/o using PPA) for some packages, like Firefox and Emacs, then recently switched to Mint 22 (Cinnamon). Thought about using straight Debian but wanted more up-to-date packages w/o having to muck around with Testing and/or PPAs. Mint seems to be a good solution for those wanting the benefits of Debian and Ubuntu w/o the delays (to be fair, in the name of stability) of t

  • If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

    When a system dies and needs to be rebuilt, it gets whatever is the latest. But until then, I upgrade nothing unless it stops working.

    • For me it's usually just that one new application that I want to have. Surely just upgrading a package here or there couldn't be that bad?

      4 hours later, fdisk.

    • I came to Ubuntu a long time ago after abandoning SUSE and before that Fedora. I was happy with it until I tried updating from 22.04 to 24,01. It was a shit show and all I ran into was denial. I went back to 22.04 from scratch but these days am thinking Mint if I ever need to change.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      You would probably be better off with Debian then.

      Debian is a stable, reliable and conservative distro, often lagging behind in terms of updates, but if you are the kind who doesn't like to change things that work, then it may be your best option.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Or perhaps even "oldstable", or at least keeping stable when it changes to oldstable.

        FWIW, these days I use Debian stable. In past times testing would usually break seriously once during the development cycle...seriously enough that I'd need to do a re-install. So I always kept my user partition separate from the system partition, so that wouldn't be a big hassle. But its possible to start our running testing, not switch when testing changes to stable, and then not switch when stable changes to oldstable

  • "scopes," Amazon adware (ubuntu-lens-shopping), early adopter of systemd, Snaps, unattended-updates, "Unity," automatic telemetry, etc. Ubuntu leads the way in anti-features.

  • I don't know who looked at package management in Linux and decided what we really needed was another package manager. Well, okay, actually I do know: It was Canonical.

  • I wish it was just Firefox shortcuts that broke.

    My Samba setup broke every single time time from 18.04 to 24.04 . It wasn't too hard to fix, but annoying.

    VNC in a separate xfce4 display also broke each time. That has been a major pain in the ass. I couldn't figure out how to fix it with 24.04, and had to revert to 22.04 .

    Snaps have been a disaster. A lot of stuff like Firefox doesn't work in VNC.

    I have been mainly using Ubuntu because of the built in support for ZFS. I think it's time to move on, though. No

    • I think it's time to move on, though. Not sure what to try next.

      I moved from Ubuntu to Mint around the time of Unity, and I've been very happy. Given that its upstream is Ubuntu, I liken it to having the advantages of Ubuntu without the suckiness. I think it's probably the easiest, and possibly the best, place to start for anyone leaving Ubuntu.

      I use some Ubuntu repositories, have installed a few programs from Debian packages, and have a few Snaps, Flatpaks, and Appimages that I run for convenience. So far I've found zero reason to look for an alternative distro.

    • VNC in a separate xfce4 display also broke each time

      I haven't got TigerVNC working on my Gentoo setup because apparently TigerVNC now needs Gnome3. The current TigerVNC isn't compatible with MATE.

  • Don't use Firefox Snap (Score:5, Informative)

    by gabrieltss ( 64078 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:23PM (#65144799)
    I upgraded with not problems from xUbuntu 20.04 to 22.04.

    It's easy to get rid of the Firefox Snap and use something else. I'm doing it just fine.

    Uninstall firefox Snap:
    sudo snap disable firefox
    sudo snap remove --purge firefox
    Or:
    sudo umount /var/snap/firefox/common/host-hunspell
    sudo snap remove firefox


    Create a directory to store APT repository keys if it doesn't exist:
    sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings

    Import the Mozilla APT repository signing key:
    wget -q https://packages.mozilla.org/a... [mozilla.org] -O- | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc > /dev/null

    If you do not have wget installed, you can install it with: sudo apt-get install wget
    The fingerprint should be 35BAA0B33E9EB396F59CA838C0BA5CE6DC6315A3. You may check it with the following command:
    gpg -n -q --import --import-options import-show /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc | awk '/pub/{getline; gsub(/^ +| +$/,""); if($0 == "35BAA0B33E9EB396F59CA838C0BA5CE6DC6315A3") print "\nThe key fingerprint matches ("$0").\n"; else print "\nVerification failed: the fingerprint ("$0") does not match the expected one.\n"}'

    Next, add the Mozilla APT repository to your sources list:
    echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc] https://packages.mozilla.org/a... [mozilla.org] mozilla main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null

    Configure APT to prioritize packages from the Mozilla repository:
    echo ' Package: * Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org Pin-Priority: 1000 ' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla
    Update your package list and install the Firefox .deb package:
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox

    • Re:Don't use Firefox Snap (Score:4, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:01PM (#65144953)

      It's easy to get rid of the Firefox Snap and use something else. I'm doing it just fine.

      ... many lines of instructions ...

      Even easier to just install Linux Mint.
      All the benefits of Debian and Ubuntu with Snaps disabled by default.

    • sudo snap disable firefox
      sudo snap remove --purge firefox

      This is absolutely not enough because if you try to then install Firefox from the Mozilla PPA Ubuntu will, using an automated process (some say "unattended upgrades" but even Canonical doesn't appear to know and there's debate in the Launchpad bug reports on this) uninstall the Mozilla version, and reinstall the fucking snap.

      Plenty of online "advice" on how to prevent this from happening, but the only one that worked for me was switching to Debian.

      Bas

      • >"Ubuntu will [...] uninstall the Mozilla version, and reinstall the fucking snap. Plenty of online "advice" on how to prevent this from happening, but the only one that worked for me was switching to Debian."

        Perfectly valid. Or switch to Mint, which also would work because they supply, support, and update a "real" Firefox package (along with other native ones where Ubuntu is trying to force SNAPS).

        And with Mint you can choose from the well-known/used, traditional Mint or the LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edi

      • xUbuntu has never noticed or done anything about me not using a Snap of Firefox. So far....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      If this wall of text to uninstall and reinstall a program is actually what goes for 'easy' on Linux I dread to ask about something difficult like connecting a printer.

  • Solution (Score:5, Informative)

    by firecode ( 119868 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:26PM (#65144805)
    Use Debian.
    • Do one better . Use Devuan .

      • Use Devuan

        Indeed. Went from Ubuntu to Debian when Ubuntu defaulted to Gnome 3 (I hate dumbed down interfaces), then went from Debian to Devuan as soon as it became stable (because of systemd troubles).

        Fun thing is, I could migrate both times by replacing the apt source url and only a little tinkering while performing apt udate/upgrade like uninstalling a package and reinstalling it later.

  • I have found a lot more stability with Fedora, though I question the weird WM dev team decision to do OS upgrades on reboot (thus making every OS update a double reboot affair).

  • ALL sandbox style app/package managers suck ass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rtkluttz ( 244325 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:28PM (#65144817) Homepage

    I do not want 57 different copies of the same library on my machine. I don't want all inclusive apps that that have to be unpacked to run or make it difficult or impossible to share data between apps. I don't like that style of package management even on phones, much less full fledged PC's. Those are the dislikes just general to the technology, but then I really get pissed when there are specific implementation bullshit like snaps updating when they want to rather than when i tell them to. Snap, flatpak, appimage all can suck it. Give me a real package manager that keeps my system lean and mean and keeps ME, the owner of the device, in control of my updates and the data shared between those apps.

    • Non-native package managers are good for the following purposes:

      1. Installing packages not distributed by your native package manager

      There, that's the list.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        There's another scenario. If you add a bunch of third party repos, there's a very very high risk that they will mess with each other.

        If you stick with the 'big ones', you are fine, but go off on adding the various little copr/ppa repos and... it can go pretty badly.

    • Amen to that! Containerization is great for servers, but keep it the hell off of my desktop. For IoT, there may be some advantages via immutable OSes with containerized apps, but they're an outlier.

    • >"I do not want 57 different copies of the same library on my machine. I don't want..."

      Exactly. I think containerization has a place, but not on my machines. I don't want to be forced into it. And if I did want to use it for some reason, it would be Flatpak, NOT SNAP.

      That is why I use Linux Mint. And if something upstream goes insane (which it hasn't and it has been several years), there is Mint LXDE (rebased on Debian). And then, of course, there is Debian. I really don't understand why anyone wou

    • Flatpaks definitely suffer from the problems you have identified. Default behaviour is to be far too secure for most Linux users. That being said, it is really easy to remove these limitations using something like Flatseal.

  • Snap is valid complaint (Score:3)

    by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:31PM (#65144827)

    I can agree with the complaint about Snaps. The old package system worked so well but these self contained snaps are just frustrating. I totally get using snaps for large packages like Chrome or Libreoffice or the like, but I don't want to install a snap for a random command line utility.

    I'm using the Ubuntu based Linux Mint for now, but if they keep pushing it I'll be migrating to Debian (or Debian based Mint) eventually.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Even for things like a web browser, the snap can break extensions. For example integrating with KeepassXC isn't really compatible with using a snap (or flatpak) packaged web browser.

  • How can somebody in their right mind drop the most reliable, consistent and fool-proof Loonix package manager in favour of something like SNAP? I just don't get it. Compared with with apt, Snap feels like a step back to the days of tar.gz packages which means "user memory based" package management or simpjy no package management at all.

    • Re:SLAP vs .deb (Score:5, Informative)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:44PM (#65144875)

      Easy, Ubuntu made an 'Ubuntu Store' based on the snap concept. The concept is that they made a "distribution neutral" distribution channel, where users of any distribution could opt to install their runtime and partake of the Ubuntu app store. So obviously, application developers will flock to the Ubuntu app store, in the same way they flock to Apple and Google app stores and Canonical finally would have their revenue stream... This is why while they got snapd available for multiple non-Ubuntu systems, they all point exclusively to the Ubuntu app store as their source of packaging, compared to Flatpak where the design is extensible for anyone to provide a flatpak source in a very natural way.

      Oh what would be in it for the users? Nothing but headaches, but this is about Canonical's search for some revenue stream. Just like how they tried to be an OS of choice for Smart TVs, how they tried to sell ad space on their Unity launcher.

    • Did they actually drop APT? I don't think so. They only used some hack involving apt using snap to install chrome but it resulted in lots of criticism.

      • Re:SLAP vs .deb (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @04:55PM (#65145123)

        They removed a lot of the important packages from their apt repository, to force people over to snap land. IIRC there were third party repositories to 're-deb' some of the big ones, but I jumped ship because I didn't think it was worth the work to try to make Ubuntu something it didn't want to be when I could go to distributions that are designed the way I actually like.

        • Yeah, this whole Docker, Snap, Flatpak, AppImage and all the other sandboxing and application virtualization solutions and screwed up and all are trying to fix the Dll-Hell/Lib SO, NPM Hell, Peel module, Python Pip Py module hell, etc. that developers have created with every single iteration of a hot new language. Go and Rust he'll anyone?

          It's a fundamental design weakness and fragility problem that every few years someone wants to solve with another language, dependency manager, module library and repo, s

  • I've been running Xubuntu LTS on my server for about 5 years and I've never had any of these issues after upgrading.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      ISTM that whether there are problems or not depends on your use case. OTOH, I've just avoided the experiment, so don't take that answer too seriously.

  • I have been using Linux for almost 20 years. I tried many different distros during that time. Right now, I have Ubuntu on a couple of computers and have no problems with updates breaking them. Yea, there are features I hated over the years but the OS continues to be dependable, When there are problems, it is usually because of something I did. I am sticking with it at this time,

  • Canonical is focused on Server and Branded Desktop (Score:3)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:55PM (#65144925)

    What do you expect. Ubuntu's money comes from Servers and Desktops from the likes of Dell and Lenovo.

    Peasants like us installing the free download (or worse, a remix) on a second hand desktop/laptop brings nothing to the table for them, so we are 3rd or 4th class citizens of the Ubuntu ecosystem.

    You want a seamless ubuntu desktop experience, with all the bells and whistles like support, buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed from Dell or Lenovo. Otherwise, you mean nothing for Ubuntu and canonical.

    Is this nice? No. Can I undestand why they do it? Yes.

    PS: I will still install mint in machines that need linux intended for Windows refugees

  • Linux on the desktop sounds like it is still a nightmare

    • >Linux on the desktop sounds like it is still a nightmare"

      Not if you choose Mint.

      That isn't saying nothing can go wrong. But I bet if you try actually installing MS-Windows on different machines and compare it to Mint, you will find a Mint is orders of magnitude faster to do and also easier. And you end up with no spyware, licensing, artificial hardware "requirements", bloated crapware installed, forced "cloud" logins, etc. For the vast majority of home computer users, a Linux desktop with something l

      • I agree with this.

        You have to learn how to use any new os you install (Mint vs. Windows), but it's no harder to learn Mint than it is switching to a Chromebook and learning that.

  • I used to keep a log of any technical issues I had with my Linux desktop. I'd have a directory with a file for each incident, and the file would contain notes on how I eventually solved the problem (or didn't). The idea was that I could refer back to this information if the same problem happened again.

    I find myself writing and reading these logs *much* less frequently these days. Linux (I currently use Ubuntu) has become so much more easy to install and maintain, and much more problem-resistant.

    Sure - I thi

  • I agree. Ubuntu has gone full shit over the years. But it's the only flavour of desktop Linux allowed by most of the corporate world. Linux is a very diverse environment by design. The differences between different distros and versions of those distros are enormous. The corporate world, however, needs a homogeneous environment they can certify in order to pass compliance and security audits. If Ubuntu goes even more shit than it already is, the corporate world will walk away and we'll be doomed, left no oth

  • Been using Ubuntu since 6.06. I'm growing tired of it. Snap is annoying me no end.

    It might be time to give SuSE a spin again. Left SuSE for Ubuntu back in the day. Or maybe go back to Debian, although I'm still sore about the deprecation of security updates for 2.0 (slink) a very, very short time after potato came out.

  • The experience reminds me of why I seldom upgrade the software on my computer (or mobile devices for that matter) unless absolutely necessary. I had a lot of custom or 3rd-party software on my PC, and any major update to the core OS or libraries would threaten to break compatibility requiring an audit and possible rebuild of all those programs. After spending some time with Fedora I switched to a Red Hat Enterprise subscription specifically for its long-term support model; at least until RHEL 6.3, they wo

  • Every time I've ever switched to something that wasn't based on Ubuntu, I ended up coming back. That's not to say that everything else is unusable, but no alternative ever fits my needs as well as Ubuntu. I've had numerous times where I thought I had found my new distro, but there were always significant issues that developed as time went on. It's easy to love something new because you haven't found its warts. With that said, I hope things are different in your case.

  • No more need for aspirin.

    Ubuntu is a bleeding edge clusterfuck with no one seeming to know what the other developer is doing. Either use Debian or walk away.

    IBM>Redhat>Fedora is a proprietary wanna-be with an ulterior motive.

    OpenSUSE has everything you need and meshes together better usually.

    Slax is often overlooked for some reason yet it rocks on ancient hardware or when you just want a lightweight VM for specific tasks.

  • I remember early Ubuntu, it was spectacular! I was running SuSE Linux, and ran into something really dumb issue with Yast, (the control centre), and decided to give this Ubuntu thing a try, at that point I think version 4.10. From that point, for 15 years, I ran Ubuntu, dedicated. Then it started coming apart, random packages would break, the performance was getting more inline with Windows, and it was more of a chore to use. I switched to Fedora, and ran Fedora until June 2024, when I started running i

  • User error (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @06:15PM (#65145371)

    Typically when a large upgrade from one distribution to another screws up it is almost universally the result of the user trying to be smarter than the distribution maintainers. We've all been there, but it's absurd to think that this is somehow an Ubuntu problem. Ubuntu's LTS release at the core is for servers and datacentres. They control the upgrade process quite tightly to ensure nothing breaks. When it does break it's usually the result of someone messing with some core configuration, or force installing packages from outside the official distribution repository (the same people who want LTS stable releases also seem to want the latest shiny software and they fuck up their system in the process of achieving that).

    Snaps are a legit issue, but the rest of this post is some opinion from an old man shouting at clouds. We get enough of that int he comments section here we don't need a whole story about it.

  • I like Mint with Cinnamon, but Apt never needed replacing.
  • Linux has always always been this way. maybe ubuntu is worse or better, I don't know. It typically doesn't matter. You just reinstall, keep configs for important programs and data on a separate partition. Sometimes your favorite distro doesn't like your unique hardware, so you switch to another. FWIW, my experience has been the opposite. Long time fedora user, I had to switch to ubuntu around the same time period due to hardware not working with the driver set up fedora had. Didn't have time to mess with it

  • I've been running Ubuntu on my media center servers since Ubuntu 9.04 all the way back since 2009 and earlier also probably since 08.

    If used to tell the stories to my coworkers about staying up all night to fix my computers after doing minor out major upgrades a dozen of times in the past when Ubuntu upgrades should break critical functionality about once a year. Everything from:

    * network drivers and network manager changes from ifupdown to NetworkManager to netplan.io knocking the servers off the network

    *

  • I get very annoyed when they force you to submit an email to get security updates. There is 0 reason for this! Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled: vlc-plugin-qt libvlc5 vlc-data libvlccore9 vlc vlc-bin vlc-l10n libcjson1 libavdevice60 libpostproc57 vlc-plugin-samba libavcodec60 libavcodec60 vlc-plugin-notify libavutil58 libavutil58 libswscale7 vlc-plugin-access-extra vlc-plugin-skins2 vlc-plugin-video-splitter libswresample4 libswresample4 vlc-plugin-video-outpu
  • “antiX is a Linux distribution [wikipedia.org], originally based on MEPIS, which itself is based on the Debian stable distribution”

  • After 20 years of using the distro, I'm mostly happy with 24.04 being my daily driver. It's not perfect, and the main pain points do seem to stem from some ridiculous - at times, borderline asinine - decisions made by the greater Linux community in general, rather than from direct influence by Canonical.

    22.04 was probably the worst release I've seen in that time, with 12.04 being another memorable disaster. I remember trying several times to make 22.04 my primary, just to end up going back to 20.04 later

Slashdot Top Deals

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Close