Hello everyone! I would like to know why there seems to be some dislike toward Ubuntu within the Linux community. I would like you to share your reasons for why you like Ubuntu or, on the contrary, why you don’t. Thanks 🙇

  • Pyrin@kbin.melroy.org
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    4 days ago

    Ubuntu has gotten fairly pretentious in it’s nature. I remembered it being like one of the best distros to use. I’ve fallen off from Ubuntu since 11.10 though.

  • Viri4thus@feddit.org
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    6 days ago

    Snaps, they are against one of the main tenants of FOSS. Obscure content validation and reduction in free access.

    • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      I just hate snaps because they’re dogshit and don’t fucking work.

      I made the unfortunate mistake of doing sudo apt install docker dotnet -y on a dev machine, thinking that I was going to get correctly packaged deb installations of those two tools.

      After about two hours of having neither fucking tool work, I found that Canonical highjacked the deb installation with their shitty snap packages, which didn’t fucking work thanks to the shit sandboxing that snap tries to do.

      Don’t fucking waste your time with Ubuntu. It’s an actual liability.

    • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      And also, their singular promise (security and trust) keeps getting undermined by third parties using it to ship malware.
      So we’re asked to give up control but we’re not any safer for it.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    7 days ago

    For me, Snaps are the thing. Ubuntu has chosen to use Snaps even for things readily available on other distros / in many repos without the need for Snap.

    Linux is about choice, and making that kind of decision eliminates some choice. And given that Ubuntu is commonly recommended for new users – partly because it is often one of the few distros with official support for stuff – it’s extra annoying.

    Edit: in practice, there are many Ubuntu-like distros that are probably just as good for new users and don’t need the Snaps (e.g. Mint). But new users won’t know this. If Ubuntu were not the behemoth it is in terms of name recognition, many people would care less.

  • N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 days ago

    Canonical, the owners of Ubuntu, love to steal open source projects. They’ll help a project with development power, then force the contributors to sign a CLA (for an example see the fork of LXD called Incus). Canonical also uses and forces proprietary systems onto the user’s, e.g. Snap uses the proprietary and hardcoded Canonical repository, which Ubuntu now defaults to using Snap for installing packages.

    Side note, if it wasnt for Snap using a proprietary backend and also depending on AppArmor (generally regarded as a weaker MAC than SELinux), I would prefer Snap over Flatpak. It creates a better sandbox (aka the actually Security of the software), avoids sandbox escapes, blacklists against broad permissions (e.g. $HOME access), and Snap packages generally have stricter permissions (which determines the real-world security of Snap). Sandboxing is very important for Desktop (and server) security. Android is does the best job of this, but it would be nice if projects like Sydbox, Crablock, or Bubblejail were adopted and built-in to the package manager.

    But even without any of the previously mentioned problems, I just think Fedora is a better OS. Fedora comes preconfigured with SELinux policies to confine system services they are quicker to adopt new technologies. Fedora is also a semi-rolling distro, meaning packages are quicker to get updated than on Ubuntu. Fedora stays FOSS, where as Ubuntu becomes more locked down. Also, the package Brace made by the developer of DivestOS is great for quickly hardening a Fedora system.

  • cevn@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Snaps and how they tried to ram it down my throat with firefox lol. Pure shit

    • TDCN@feddit.dk
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      7 days ago

      This is the worst. Firefox being snap by default has caused so many issues for me making it unusable in multiple ways and if you are not a Linux expert it is impossible to debug and no way you would believe that the default installation snap would be the core issue.

  • fool@programming.dev
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    7 days ago

    I’ll give some anecdotes.

    1. A friend long ago was setting up VSCode and Java. He wasn’t the most familiar with Ubuntu, or Linux at all – imagine his struggle when his JDK couldn’t be found. Why? Non-obvious to him, it was sandboxed as a snap.
    2. When I was a noob, I was looking for a package for some app, but when I found a PPA, it was an enormous command to set up. And hunting online for software… how Windowsy.
    3. When I was a noob, I was theming my system with a mildly rare theme. But Firefox was a snap. And since the theme didn’t have a snap, I had to try to integrate it myself or de-snap Firefox… shiver

    Maybe it’s changed now. But (1) pushed me to Mint, (2) pushed me further to distros with simpler text-based package management, and (3) is hopefully easier nowadays.

    Bottom line (as many agree): Snaps are uncomfortable for a lot of levels of Linux.

  • Eskuero@lemmy.fromshado.ws
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    7 days ago

    Ubuntu is like all other Linux distributions, they add to fragmentation.

    Everyone should run Arch Linux

    I use arch linux btw

  • _edge@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 days ago

    I use Ubuntu every day. I’m part of the Linux community. And i believe that Ubuntu helped to make the Linux desktop easy and available and sort-of cool.

    There’s no hate, but i could live without snap, unity and oversimplification. Actually that’s my biggest issue. Give me settings, give me choice. Hibernate works fine on my machine, don’t hide it.

    Apt/deb is a fine package manager, flatpak and docker can supplement it when you want something not packaged as deb. The way Ubuntu updates browser over snap is a small improvement, but it’s not worth deviating from the rest of the Linux world.

    I don’t hate Ubuntu. I think they are wasting their time on stuff no one needs. Missing the chance to improve Linux for everyone.

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.org
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      7 days ago

      Actually that’s my biggest issue. Give me settings, give me choice

      That’s an GNOME issue mostly I think. It has this least possible settings and oversimplification approach, because GNOME thinks people can’t handle it. Ubuntu modified the configuration of GNOME that it looks and behave somewhat similar to previous Unity versions.

    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Seems you might be a more sophisticated user than the ones targeted by Ubuntu. That is: Windows normies who find the whole concept of Linux deeply foreboding, but bravely take the leap anyway. As usual, most people in this discussion are neglecting this crucial fact.

      Ubuntu is trying to make things easy and secure. I don’t much like Snaps either, but the security paradigm is better than APT, and they are nothing if not easy.

  • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.com
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    7 days ago

    There’s nothing bad about Ubuntu, but Canonical rips a fat line and says, “I’m going to make my own display server, with black jack, and hookers!” Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, innovation is good and all, but they release a steaming pile of crap that doesn’t really integrate well into the rest of the Linux ecosystem. They spend years telling everyone that their display server is the best thing ever and no they won’t offer any alternatives or integrate it into any of your systems thank you very much.

    Then 10 years later they unceremoniously dump it in favor for whatever everyone else has been using.

    I just wish they would funnel all that innovation upstream instead so everyone benefitted instead of just Canonicals bottom line.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      The .deb format has serious impairments toward validating content.

      Security people shake their heads when “how do we know” fails, and build/rel people can’t answer the question “is that what’s expected” for all files.

      It’s a major difference between enterprise Linux and debuntus, and I’ve been in groups where this breakage has eliminated that branch of Linux distros from opportunities.

      • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        I don’t really have any experience with enterprise Ubuntu (we use RHEL at work and I’m not a sysadmin anyway) but its kind of hard to blame that all on Canonical since they inherited it from debian.

        I mean, I’m sure you could change the package format that your nascent distro uses, but at that point you might as well make a completely new, unforked distro since you’re basically rewriting the entire system.

          • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.com
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            6 days ago

            There’s lots of examples. Mir, Unity, Snap, PPAs, and more.

            I think Ubuntu Core is a bad example. Immutable distros is where the industry is headed for a lot of good reasons, and it makes sense for Canonical to jump on that train. Snaps are bad (although honestly I do like that they can package server apps unlike flatpak, that’s cool), but the concept for the distro is not.

              • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.com
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                5 days ago

                The selling point is that it is immutable, not that it uses snaps (which it does). Fedora does the same thing with Silverblue and IoT. You don’t install rpms, you install flatpaks. You can install rpms, but you’re not really meant to.

                Since Canonical refuses to get onboard with flatpak (for now) they use snaps instead of debs, but snaps aren’t the direct appeal.

                The whole idea is that you have a core system in a known configuration. Updating the system just means using a different image. If an update fails, then you just roll back to the last good configuration. Bazzite uses this to nice effect too.

                There are a lot of advantages to end users and enterprise admins with systems in this configuration.

  • franpoli@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Ubuntu initially positioned itself as a staunch advocate for free software, reflecting its roots in the principles of open-source freedom and collaboration. This ethos is captured in early mission statements and community declarations that emphasized the “freedom to use, share, study, and improve” software.

    Today, Ubuntu still mentions its commitment to free software, as noted on the Ubuntu Community Mission page, which emphasizes building tools accessible to all and maintaining an ethos of openness and collaboration. However, its approach has evolved to include a pragmatic balance between free software and proprietary solutions.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    Snaps are the worst, but there are relatively easy ways to rip that shit out

    Having said that, for the rest I like Ubuntu reasonably okay. Going to try KDE neon which should be a bit newer

    • 🜏 Jyan 잔 🜏@4bear.com
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      7 days ago

      @phoenixz @liop7k , I hated snaps on the desktop, but I find myself loving them for my server. On desktop, yeah the orchestra of protocols and desktop intercommunication suffered a lot when I used snaps. But on a server, seems to allow me to be the laziest administrator I have ever been, only needing to update my ultra minimal Ubuntu OS.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Apt lays allowed me to be lazy, never had an issue with -by now- thousands of servers over 20 years