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in reply to vettnerk

You're going to get a lot of comments about Ubuntu and snaps. Definitely one of the reasons I switched away from it.
in reply to BitSound

For the uninitiated, as someone who's looking to move from Windows to Linux and Ubuntu is probably my first choice, can you share what's not to like about this?

Edit - insightful answers. Thank you

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to PorkSoda

Snaps are technically foss but the server thst hosts them are proprietary to Ubuntu, when flatpak is perfectly reasonable. It’s a bit of a pattern of things they do, finding solutions to things they weren’t really problems (cough netplan cough)
in reply to Freeman

Also they put ads in search long before Windows did and as much as I hate Microsoft we should never forget that.
in reply to DryTomatoes

Not to defend them, but it was trivial to remove the adverts and they stopped after the "feedback". Unlike Windows.
in reply to frazorth

That's fair and Microsoft fired their entire update testing team and then pushed multiple updates that bricked Windows installs. And that was just Windows 10.

WldFyre doesn't like this.

in reply to Freeman

You know that snaps existed before Flatpaks right?
in reply to brenno

So it would have been that much easier for Ubuntu to be first to market and open source the snap server software…

But they didn’t. And alternative solutions had to be created.

in reply to Freeman

I'm not defending canonical decisions, but definably when they started working on this there was no other alternative available for them to collaborate at the time
in reply to PorkSoda

One word: snapd

If you like the idea of ubuntu, but wish to avoid ubuntu, you might want to check out Linux Mint.

in reply to s08nlql9

Also a great option. I like their tiling window manager and the other gnome extensions they've done. I'm also generally excited about the work they're doing with Cosmic as a new DE.
in reply to BitSound

Been chomping at the bit for cosmic since I learned of it.
in reply to s08nlql9

Isn't that the one where Linus broke the WM by installing Steam? Lol
in reply to vettnerk

Zorin is my fav.
in reply to vettnerk

Are we just going to pretend Debian doesn’t exist?
in reply to Elw

We know. I've just grown accustomed how Ubuntu is set up. Its defaults for many packages seem a little more configured "out of the box" compared to the same offerings like from Debian. I seem to recall installing LAMP stuff from both Debian and CentOS having a similar base config (basically just using the defaults from php, apache, mysql, etc), while the Ubuntu versions had some things already pre-configured that made it easier to get a multi-domain site up and running quicker.

A fresh Ubuntu install, followed by a snapd purge and rolling back of its networking is usually easier for me than going with something like CentOS or Debian and manually configuring each and ever package with it.

Then again, I've been using Ansible for a while, so my setups for CentOS and Debian have been getting easier and easier, so it's possible that I may eventually drop Ubuntu if they end up changing their OS so much that I can no longer purge their junk.

in reply to PorkSoda

For context:

Snaps are a way to build applications so that they can run on any platform with one build method. It makes it easier for developers to publish their apps across multiple different Linux distro without having to worry about dependency issues.

Snaps have been very poorly received by the community, one of the largest complaints is that a snap program with take 5-10 seconds to start, where as the same program without snap will start instantly.

Ubuntu devs have been working for years to optimize them, but it's a complex problem and while they've made some improvements, it's slow going. While this has been going on, Ubuntu is slowly doubling down more and more on snaps, such as replacing default apps with their snap counterparts.

On the other hand, other methods like flatpak exist, and are generally more liked by the community.

This has led to a lot of Ubuntu users feeling unheard as their feedback is ignored.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to PorkSoda

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to BitingChaos

Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand the dislike for snap.
in reply to NightOwl

in reply to BitingChaos

You basically have no control. It updates as many times as it wants, when it wants. You can try to adjust some timers to change the window when forced updates are rolled out, but can never tell it to NOT update something.


This is incorrect:

snap refresh --hold=forever

In general, I'd advise you to do a bit of research beforehand when giving advice...

Edit: Downvotes for factual information? Really?

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

don't like this

in reply to mustkana

The --hold feature was introduced with snapd v2.58 which was released as recently as Dec 1, so less than 9 months ago. So I would consider this a relatively new feature.

Furthermore, as best as I can tell from the documentation, there isn't even a way to configurably hold updates in general or for a specific package like can be done with apt-preferences; refresh.hold only allows 90 days out.

I think it is a perfectly valid criticism that the snap developers didn't implement this feature at all until well into the life of the product and then, even then, done begrudgingly at best evidenced by the minimal implementation.

Now, I feel like I did my research, but feel free to let me know if there's something I can do better or if you have any other general life advice for me.

in reply to PorkSoda

You get a lot of recommendations for Mint here, but I'd like to toss in a recommendation for Pop!_OS. Also based on Ubuntu without all the crap. I would say the biggest difference between pop and mint is the UI, as Mint comes standard with cinnamon and pop with Gnome (soon cosmic) as their DE's.

Just take a look at those two and choose one of them, they are both great distros, and absolutely the two I would recommend to just about anyone. Easy to use and very straightforward for new people trying out Linux.

in reply to BitSound

I’ve been using Ubuntu for a long time for its out-of-the-box zfs support, but the snap annoyances are getting harder to ignore.
in reply to AbouBenAdhem

Firefox is one of the worst snaps. It pops up an annoying notification everyday reminding you to restarted it. Then came the crashing. It got to a point where I couldn't keep my browser running more than a few minutes at a time.

I wanted to like snaps, and I'm not overall negative on Ubuntu, but keeping the web browser functional is minimum requirement. The Firefox PPA is much more reliable.

in reply to cloudy1999

Follow-up: The icing on the cake was a release or so ago when apt started queueing the snap package's installation instead. Very clever, but also a confusing user experience. It took a few iterations before I understood the snap was getting installed instead of the deb.
in reply to vettnerk

Garuda. It feels like being inside a gaming rig full of blinking RGB lights. Way over the top with the "gamer aesthetic".
in reply to Stillhart

Same reason but different vibe with Kali for me. I'm sure it's good for its intended purpose, but I get the feeling that there are many who install it in an attempt at being a kewl h4x0r. I used used Parrotsec for work for a while, and it's a lot less flamboyant about it.
in reply to Stillhart

My desktop "breathes" in RGB so it sounds perfect for me. Plug me into the Matrix.
in reply to Stillhart

Fwiw it does have a 'Lite' edition that doesn't include any theming.
in reply to vettnerk

ZorinOS, had lots of problems with it right out of the box that weren't present on any other mainstream distros I tried on the same hardware.

I didn′t like the look and feel either. For a distro that has a paid version, I would expect a very polished a premium feeling experience, but I didn't get that compared to all the mainstream free distros.

It was ultimately a dissapointing experience all around.

in reply to Lettuce eat lettuce

That's my daily driver. I used the lite version on my old computer and Core on my new desktop. I understand it may have problems on other hardware but for me it looks and feels as good as the promotional screenshots.
in reply to atlasraven31

Nothing wrong with that, I'm glad it worked well for you! I don't actively hate it, I just was dissapointed with my personal experience.
in reply to Lettuce eat lettuce

Huh, this is the opposite of my experience. I've used a handful of distros over the years (including fedora and ubuntu) but Zorin was the most stable and user friendly by far out of the box. I also think their Gnome theme is pretty sleek.
in reply to simple

Glad it works for you :) Fedora has been that for me on most of my hardware.
in reply to vettnerk

Arch, I want to get some work done not save 3 extra CPU cycles on boot.
in reply to forgotmylastusername

Binary speed is really the least reason to use Gentoo.

There are a lot of thorny issues in package distribution that source builds completely sidestep.

Install-it-yourself plus source updates are a lot to ask, but if you can get the hang of it the benefits are pretty sweet.

in reply to nik282000

Lol, how does booting quicker prevent you from doing work?
in reply to const_void

It doesn't. All the time you spent reading manuals and tweaking configs to get it to boot quicker does.
in reply to const_void

If booting quicker means to have less/older software or a bloated system once running...
in reply to nik282000

So what you're actually saying is: you don't like Arch because you don't want to take the time to learn how to use Arch.

(Which is fine)

in reply to circuitfarmer

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't want to use a kit/show car for commuting.
in reply to nik282000

Fair. Though I will say (more for others who may see this in the future), that Arch's new installer is great and definitely reduces the load on new users. That said, it's never going to be explicitly designed for people who have no Linux experience.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to circuitfarmer

Just use Arch in a Distrobox on Fedora or openSUSE. That's the best of both worlds.
in reply to nik282000

Honestly… I don’t get this. It’s a bit more work than other distros but I think that Linux users often get to a point in their Linux journey where customizing a system with defaults is more difficult than just starting from a blank slate.
in reply to Elw

Customizing all-in-one distros is a shitty uphill battle that isn't worth the trouble, so I get how Arch is worth the work there. But recommending a kit car when people are asking for a commuter just bugs me.
in reply to nik282000

And also, I have work to do... I don't like wasting my time tinkering with config files trying to get the optimum settings. I just want an OS that helps me do my work and gets out of the way.

All the edgelord kids boasting about using Arch are also a big turn off.

Unknown parent

demystify
Everything made sense but OpenSuse, what up with German made stuff?
in reply to vettnerk

I don't like anything Debian based. The package manager always sits at the core of the experience, and it's just a horrible experience. With a bit of manual intervention, you can upgrade an Arch install from 10 years ago. I've never managed to update any Debian based distribution from the previous release. That aside, a lot of what I do relies on newest packages, and having something that's 5 years out of date just isn't for me

don't like this

in reply to dinckel

Zorin OS (based off Ubuntu) recently released a wizard to upgrade the OS between major releases. I've not tried it yet.
in reply to dinckel

Fwiw, I’ve had great results with upgrading Debian derivatives. A machine in my closet has been upgraded from version 8 -> 12 without any major issue. Usually, upgrade problems come from custom or third party software in my experience.
in reply to dinckel

I have literally never had any upgrade issues on debian that wasn’t something mentioned in release notes(been using it since debian 7). I am guessing you did a lot of things they tell you specifically not to do on this page:

wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebia…

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to waitmarks

Honestly, given the ways shit broke, you'd think that. One of the cases was on a practically fresh install with a few flatpaks, and it was updated exactly as the distro specified it
in reply to dinckel

I've had the opposite experience. Updating my apt sources.list and running dist-upgrade always worked for me on Debian (though most of the time I just run unstable which is rolling) but on Arch it seems like if I don't upgrade regularly sometimes I'll get hit with signature key errors because the key database is outdated and then have to go run some other command to update the keys before a pacman -Syu will work. I love both distros, but there's no better way to make your users not give a shit about security than making said security interrupt their workflow. Most of the time I just disable the key check in pacman.conf so that the damn thing will upgrade successfully.
in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro, because because the team behind it fuck's up a bit to often for my tastes. And Ubuntu, because they force snap onto their users.
in reply to demystify

Some people don't like things that are well made and organized in a sensible manner?
Unknown parent

huskypenguin
What do you like?
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu. Package organization is annoying, versions are out of date, managing multiple versions isn't consistent, and distro upgrades always have unintended consequences. Often ones that aren't easy to figure out. Their reputation for being beginner friendly should have died around a decade ago.
in reply to vettnerk

Anything other than Debian or RedHat/CentOS/Fedora. Why? Every other distro bring nothing to the table. For a desktop Debian+flatpak will get you the latest apps and for servers Debian will be stable as a Linux can be. RedHat has its particular use cases.
in reply to TCB13

You can't install a proxy daemon as a flatpak, but you can install it through Nix
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu: broke my LTS 20 by upgrading to LTS 22, pushes snaps and other ridiculous things over the years while offering relatively little value these days
Unknown parent

sovietknuckles [they/them]
If I run apt install firefox, I expect a deb, not a snap
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu: it's not bad, I just don't like canonical

Manjaro: it starts as arch but more user friendly (by being preconfigured), until it inevitably breaks (being arch) and you end up with a regular arch that you don't know how is configured

Elementary os: it's too elementary os

All those con distros that are just a bunch of reskinned free stuff ask you money for that. Like zorin os

in reply to edinbruh

Having used both Manjaro and Arch, Manjaro breaking has nothing to do with Arch. Arch is far more stable.
in reply to vettnerk

I've had nothing but problems with Ubuntu. There's always some random crash that I don't know what it is but I get a pop up. Sometimes you think you're installing from apt but it secretly is running snap commands.

The OS should never hide things from me. I'm the user and I'm root.

If I wanted an operating system to be sneaky and do things behind my back I'll go to Windows.

in reply to vettnerk

A question that begs for a hot take. I love it! Manjaro has always made zero sense to me. The power of Arch is in its rolling release cycle and your ability to customize it from the ground up. Both of which you lose when you downloads someone mix of Arch. It always seemed like a flavor for people who want to run Arch but just don't have the ability to read the documentation to actually run it.
Unknown parent

ken27238

Or so the Germans would have us believe.

RIP norm Macdonald.

in reply to SinningStromgald

Was going to comment similar. it has all thinks thought about and tweaked so it runa great and functions like it should. Maybe they didn't enjoy system rollbacks and GUI admin?
in reply to vettnerk

EndeaverOS. On two systems it installed but lots of error popup windows right from desktop launch. just seemed Janky compared to plain Arch or any other popular distro.
in reply to BCsven

Perhaps look at what they are saying? I daily drive Endeavour and have no problems with it
in reply to NorthWestWind

Oh I did. Permissions, things it couldn't find, other errorS...From default install. No thanks, no time to fix stuff that other distros had clean installs with.
in reply to NorthWestWind

Same. Every problem I’ve had with it, I’ve caused…and have been able to fix from the live image. EndeavourOS is definitely my favorite at this time.
in reply to LeFantome

Yep, hardware can make a difference, so I recognize that (I have one machine that will not install any deb based distro, some notify of the bug. some ignore it and do an install but cannot boot due to hardware bug. RPM based distros acknowledge the issue amd work around it) But permission issues and missing files from default install are just not something I have time to deal with.
in reply to BCsven

Huh thats weird i've found endavour mich faster to setup wthout any issues. But fair enough if thats tour experience
in reply to sveske_juice

Yeah, it's like all the complaints of nVidia drivers, for me I've never had any issues. The linux user experience is fragmented
in reply to vettnerk

Red Hat for obvious reasons. Used to run and recommend CentOS before all the fuckery.
Unknown parent

cygnus
It's made by Germans, not lawyers.
Unknown parent

PorkSoda
Thanks for the suggestion, but this doesn't give me any info.
in reply to vettnerk

RebeccaBlackOS

Because I can only use it on Friday Friday!

in reply to vettnerk

Well look at that, no one seems to mention opensuse/Tumbleweed.

Great sign 👍🏻

Fedora also unscathed.

Two of my favorites, if not my absolute favorites.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to happyhippo

There are only two distros in the world. Those that people hate and those that no one uses
in reply to vettnerk

Anything even tangential to Red Hat.

RPM's are hot garbage when it comes to packaging formats.

Having said that, I use Fedora at work and Ubuntu at home.

in reply to deadbeef79000

Whyfore the hate for .rpms? I've never had an issue on Fedora in a decade.
in reply to SootySootySoot [any]

Issues with building RPM's. There's no specification for what an RPM is (unlike say deb).

Well the specification is "whatever rpmbuild version x.y.z does" and whatever other tangential packages happen to be installed on the build system.

Try building an RPM for CentOS 6 on a RockyLinux 8 system, or building for both of those on Fedora.

You can do it, but it's real ball ache, and you have to jump through a lot of hoops.

Compare to building a deb for any version of Debian/Ubuntu on Fedora/RHEL it's a doddle and predictable.

in reply to vettnerk

Anything that includes more software than necessary for the system I want. If I need Steam, I'm gonna install it myself.

That's why I don't run one of those many downstream distros that mainly change appearances or improve little things like GUI driver managers etc. For some people that's the reason to use those distros, I might just to look how they achieve the particular feature (e.g. skin, config).

But in general there aren't really distros I don't like, but many which I prefer. Debian, Fedora, Arch, NixOS are all great, especially the more community run distros.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to vettnerk

Using arch but honestly. I don't "like" any of them. Every distro I've ever used has required more setup and maintenance than I would have liked.

I really just want a system that doesn't bork itself on updates and let's me install whatever software I want. You would think that wouldn't be so impossible to find.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to DryTomatoes

I tried debian stable a week or two ago. Had about 4 different showstopper bugs in 3 or so days. It doesn't seem to help much from my limited experience.
in reply to shapis

Huh. Are you running any kind of exotic setup? What kind of bugs were they? Can you be sure they were Debian bugs and not hardware issues?
in reply to DryTomatoes

Yes. I had both actually. Hardware and debian specific bugs, on a clean install from the live iso with barely any packages installed from apt and like 10 flatpaks. I'm a bit exhausted rn to find all the links. But let me find at least the worst one for ya.

This was the most egregious one. essentially. On a fresh install updating was broken. Yeah. It was that bad.

In addition to that there was the amd ftpm stutter. Which isn't necessarily debians fault. But it's still bad.

And I was having screen flickers. Not sure why. I was tired enough of it bugging out that I just gave up on the stable dream and went back to arch.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to shapis

nixos solves this problem by allowing you to boot the last working system state prior to updates. and as a bonus you can manage all of your computers from a single config in a git repo. bit of a learning curve but it takes most of the annoyance out of linux for me.
in reply to silent_water [she/her]

nixos solves this problem by allowing you to boot the last working system state prior to updates


I kinda don't want that. I want a system that doesn't break in the first place...

My experience with nix was very short lived. It mostly consisted of me wondering how to install something and people telling me to package it myself for a day of two til I gave up.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to shapis

updates invariably break things, whatever we do. the safety net of being able to roll back makes taking updates a lot more palatable.

yeah, like I said it has a learning curve so it's not for everyone but it's been a lifesaver for me so I thought I'd point it out.

in reply to silent_water [she/her]

Indeed. Maybe I'll give it another try if/when arch botches itself again.

The idea of a reproducible system is honestly great.

in reply to vettnerk

OpenSUSE, mostly because they differ too much from other distros, often even without any (obvious) advantages.

For example a lot of file paths (config files and such) are different, and when being used to other distros (or just following a guide from the internet) it takes longer to find it (I know there is Yast but I'm not a huge fan of that tool either)

Also, Manjaro

in reply to vettnerk

The only one that really pissed me off was a distro called biglinux. It's arch based and very popular in Brazil. It's actually very stable. Everything works great. It's got some nice features.

Butttt, it uses latte dock or panel (kde). They have built in presets for how to arrange the panels and what not. It's nice, however, I was trying to move some panels around from the base options and broke kde. I wasn't doing anything more than changing GUI settings and the whole desktop broke. I seriously don't understand.

in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu. Snaps are a buggy mess. I know you can remove them but I like sane defaults. Snap drives me insane. Mint, PopOS, Debian are better choices for a stable distro.

edit: I also don't like Fedora and CentOS. The installers tend to be very buggy for me.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to hitagi

When I learned that snap has a hardcoded requirement for a snap directory polluting your home directory, and that the devs answer is basically to shrug their shoulders, that was enough to turn me into an anti-snap zealot.
in reply to SinningStromgald

Like sudo requiring you to use the root password?

Isn't one of the principal reasons sudo exists is so you DONT need to know or use the root password to perform root-level tasks?

It's an idiotic choice on OpenSUSE's part IMO.

in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro because it is a bait and switch trap. Seems really polished and user friendly. You will find out eventually it is a system destroying time-bomb and a poorly managed project.

Ubuntu because snaps.

The rest are all pros and cons that are different strokes for different folks.

in reply to LeFantome

Every time I have used manjaro on x86 it has been broken within a few months. Their Raspberry Pi 4 port is pretty stable though for some reason.
in reply to vettnerk

Redhat. Wouldn't touch it at this point. All of my servers are Debian.
in reply to vettnerk

I don't like Canonical and Red Hat, so I wouldn't use their distros out of principle. On top of that, I don't like Snaps, and Ubuntu's customizations done to GNOME.

From Fedora, I don't like Calamares. The rest is great.

Manjaro doesn't play nice with either upstream nor downstream and has GTK apps that don't follow GNOME's design guidelines, this last point also applies to Endeavor OS.

Vanilla OS is unusable for me, AB Root is hard, and I can't follow any online guides, tutorials or scripts. But their UX/UI is drool worthy. Blend OS has Waydroid out of the box but it's immutability is hard for me.

Debian is awesome but I don't like it for my work / gaming rig. Old kernel and packages. Best ever for servers.

All Ubuntu derivatives are old for me, so no. But I liked Zorin the best.

Deepin, I'm afraid of Chinese gov backdoors. Most probably paranoia.

I settled on Crystal Linux (arch based), has the nicest UI but they don't provide a GUI for package management, and they have handled their repos irresponsibly. It's more of a hobby distro, but a beautiful one.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu. I can't stand the way Canonical always decides they know better than everyone else so they reinvent the wheel, only to abandon it two years later. Diversity is good but the history of Ubuntu is littered with garbage that was forced on users and then abandoned.
in reply to ReK_

I really liked unity 😞
in reply to vettnerk

Well, Ubuntu. I've been skeptical of it from the beginning, but I did use it on and off in the 00's. Canonical has since gone out of their way to make sure I won't install their shit on my computers.

Recent developments have also somewhat soured me on Fedora.

in reply to vettnerk

I used Ubuntu for years, but the forcing of snap really killed it for me.

Ubuntu used to be synonymous with stability and compatibility. It was always a little bloated and slower than a bunch of others. But that was the price for stability....

It is probably still stable but compatibility has taken a back seat. This is what really annoyed me enough to switch.

I'm on Mint now, it is really nice. Flatpak is much better than Snap, my only real issue is the MASSIVE size of flatpak downloads.

in reply to RogerWilco

As far as I remember, sudo ask for the user password, not the root one.

It is "su -c [some_command]" that ask for the root password.

in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu.
It's violating many rules of freedom, and just isn't good. Their DE spins aren't good, snaps aren't good
in reply to somegeek

Hard disagree. Their GNOME implementation is great, the distro is stable and snaps are fine.
It's just not quite as libre as some people want.
in reply to somegeek

The first time I tried ubuntu I did not install it because it felt like half of the screen space was used up by the sidebar, top bar and window decoration so yeah.

That little detail put me off of installing linux for like a year or so because I did not knowthat you can easily change stuff like that

in reply to somegeek

I get why they do that, but I don't like the [letter]ubuntus because it gives users the wrong idea of what entails a distro. It leads to them confusing distros with DEs. To me, distos are more about the community and release cycle with some major technical differences like package managers. Yes, having different default settings and programs play a role in this as well, so you could be justified in saying MX Linux isn't the same as Debian Stable, but I don't think the [letter]ubuntus deviate that much from just installing the corresponding DE on Ubuntu.
Unknown parent

mrvictory1
I don’t like Mint because it’s just Ubuntu with even more stuff added.


Mint removes snaps and card games and replaces some GNOME utility apps like image viewer, video player, store etc. with its own apps. Mint also comes with additional apps like Hypnotix, Transmission, Hexchat, Timeshift but worst case they need additional disk space. Like 500 MiB maximum in a 10+ GiB install. I wouldn't consider these apps "bloat".

in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu, because of their shenanigans with ads in the OS, forcing snap and just generally demonstrating disdain for their userbase.

Manjaro for their office suite debacle, and general instability.

RHEL for their recent attempts to subvert GPL.

Debian because packages are never, ever, ever up to date.

Gentoo because any sane person would get sick of compiling.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

don't like this

in reply to mister_monster

I actually like Gentoo for the same reason you hate it. But I was a FreeBSD guy for around 10 years before migrating to linux, and I probably some long lasting damage still lingering from that era.
in reply to vettnerk

Damn I'm contemplating going to FreeBSD. What made you go the other way? What do you miss from FreeBSD?
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to pedro

I miss /usr/ports. I could spend days just exploring its contents.

I miss an /etc structure that wasn't a complete mess.

I miss UFS and its soft updates.

I miss the stability of fBSD 3 and 4.

I miss the ease of which you tweaked, compiled, and installed a new kernel.

And just because of the hilarious legacy that was obsolete 20 years beforw I started with it, I miss the concept of font-servers.

The main reason for my migration was the bigger userbase of linux where it was easier to find people who has resolved whatever issue I was having, plus nvidia drivers. Plus I've only needed to use fBSD once professionally.

in reply to vettnerk

From your experience I don't see red flags for me so I'll probably try for my next reinstall. Thanks for your honest opinion
in reply to pedro

Maybe check out Void Linux as well, the creator used to work on NetBSD before starting Void
in reply to vettnerk

Well, I like gentoo for it's top notch security and I see why you'd use it for extremely security sensitive applications, but people that use it as a desktop are nuts.
in reply to mister_monster

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for shying away from Gentoo, but using a comprehensive desktop environment, systemd, and gentoo-kernel gives a very non-fiddly experience.

Combine that with running updates overnight or honestly just running them in the background while you work, and it's not nearly as bad as its reputation.

Still very much a commitment vs other distros, but not as bonkers as it can seem.

Unknown parent

Reliant1087
Yast. I love zypper and opi but yast is super weird. Like if you want to do things that you can do with yast, you probably know how to do it on terminal.
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu. Pretty sure you already have an idea why. Lol.

OpenSUSE. I've always had issues trying to use it, from zypper to updates to bootloops. It's also sluggish compared to other distros (yes, same DEs usually) on my laptop. I've tried at least 3x trying to get why a lot of people love it. It's just not for me.

I've never tried Manjaro yet, but coming from Arch and EOS I don't think I ever will.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to CheshireSnake

Yeah, don't even touch Manjaro OR Ubuntu with a 100 foot pole.

openSUSE Tumbleweed is what I'd use if Arch stopped existing, TBH.

Unknown parent

uzay
You could look into endeavour OS. It's arch-based, but closer to plain arch than manjaro. It should let you choose which kernel version to use.
Another option might be garuda linux. It's a arch-based gaming-focused distro. So it should be flexible as well, but it did break frequently on my system back when I tried it out.
Otherwise Alma Linux (Red Hat based) might be running older kernel versions as well.
in reply to vettnerk

Fedora, mostly because of the decisions they make are mostly for corporate areas;

The kernel selection they make, packages and etc;

Sometimes need to deal with kernels they select that don't work well with my hardware

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

don't like this

in reply to Kristof12

I was thinking of switching from Ubuntu to Fedora because of the praise it got for being more up to date and having great default settings as a desktop distro.

What kind of problems did you run into? Can you give examples? I'd like to know before making the switch.

in reply to Cyborganism

Basically, on Fedora you are a guinea pig for whatever new tech Red Hat (now IBM) is considering rolling out. It is a well polished distro and I have set it up on several people's computers, but they will be among the first to just foist a whole new replacement subsystem on their users. Can be interesting if you like experimental shit (and what comes to Fedora tends to stick around [i.e. PulseAudio, systemd], unlike a lot of the shit Canonical has tried to introduce [i.e. Upstart, Mir]). Can be a major headache if you are trying to use something which requires iptables and they have jumped into nftables with both feet (for instance).
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Cyborganism

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

Scotty_Trees doesn't like this.

in reply to vettnerk

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to garam

I'm agree with this point of view.. CIQ narrative have too much conflict of interest. In my place, most corp are happy with CentOS Stream being able to be the upstream test before landed on RHEL. At least now they don't need to long to put on Fedora to be landed on 3 years cycle like old times...
in reply to vettnerk

I spent the last 10 mins reading all the comments and I think we managed to shit on all the distros available.
That's the Linux community I love, good job people ❤
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to pH3ra

No one gets left behind

Akuna Matata or some shit

in reply to pH3ra

Nobody shits on MX, it's a sign 😁
in reply to pH3ra

Haven't seen Santoku or Kali or several other special use-case distros (E: or Hannah Montana Linux hahahaha). But, yes, this is exactly the community I love and that extreme hate/love for specific distros is the reason I tried Linux in the first place (and the reason I stayed) hahaha
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to vettnerk

I thought Linux was about choice


islinuxaboutchoice.com/

[Edit] Sorry I've just picked up Sync and the UI has apparently confused me. I was trying to respond to this comment.

lemmy.world/comment/2287892

But I guess I messed up.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

don't like this

in reply to darcy

It's a static site with a single page, HTTPS does nothing because the domain name is still exposed.
in reply to MrPoopyButthole

Of course you can. My point is, it's a ridiculous decision on OpenSUSE's part to ship it this way in the first place.
Unknown parent

jack
No compatibility with Ubuntu is Ubuntu's fault, no?
Unknown parent

Oscar

I use debian 12 on my work laptop. I agree with your points but I still use it because I want the fundamental system to be stable, and then any software I want to be more up-to-date I build from source (tmux, alacritty, neovim) or download separately (vscode/slack/joplin).

I used to use ubuntu because it worked so well with my hardware ootb, but I got tired of snap.

in reply to vettnerk

arch, ubuntu, nix, manjaro, gentoo, debian, redhat, endevour, artix, mint, lfs, fedora, etc
in reply to vettnerk

base arch that isnt a distro from it
the forums are elitist tot he point you should never bother
the install instructions (before the installer they added only reluctantly) need a phd to understand
its running on the worst parts of the KISS principle, its not simple to use, or simple to get around, it simply refuses to add any bells and whistles to make it easier to use

use endeavouros, arco, archlabs, reborn or any number of arch based distros, that way you get the aur, the good part of it

Unknown parent

ursakhiin
Remember when they included a bunch of Amazon integration in Unity?
in reply to vettnerk

Every distribution offers different things. I like debian sid for the simplicity and general software availability, but APT is something i still consider a bit clunky. I like arch because of its barebones philosophy - arch wiki helped me a lot learn about linux.
I like gentoo - the wiki is awesome and portage is a great package manager. It was the first time I saw how the linux kernel gets compiled. It makes you appreciate all the work the devs do.
I now read the title and you ask for the opposite. But someone might find these bad, so i will post it as-is
in reply to jimakososx

Gentoo is the best distro when you want to get deeper understanding. If I had to give advice on the path of getting to know deeper the Linux environment I'd say: Debian or Fedora -> Arch -> Gentoo -> lfs

If I had time I'd try NixOS and FreeBSD as a main workstation.

in reply to pedro

to be honest, i agree with you. Although you can learn the same things through debian or ubuntu for example, their wikis are in no-way comparable to arch+gentoo. Having tried LFS, I think it is a great experience but definitely not something i could daily-drive.
FreeBSD is something I have not tried; nixOS as well. I have used OpenBSD but it feels a bit slow compared to linux - at least as a desktop OS.
in reply to vettnerk

Just the Oracle Red Hat clone, because, well, Oracle. Also those distros that disappear spontaneously because they were mainly maintained by one person only.
in reply to selokichtli

This. Leave it to Oracle to fork a perfectly core enterprise distro and make it suck.
in reply to vettnerk

CentOS. We were stuck on an old version at work. The OS is already designed to use old packages for security/stability, so imagine how outdated they are on an old version. It was a nightmare getting new software running on it. That coupled with the other news surrounding CentOS and RHEL, I'm not touching those anymore w a 10 foot pole. I wish it just crumbles and Debian takes over. I have had amazing success with like 20 years on Debian and it just gets better and better.
in reply to Pixel

Not sure you can really blame an OS that is out of support and that you should have upgraded to the new version years prior. I used CentOS in an enterprise environment for close to 10 years and really had no problems, except when we tried to shoehorn new software onto old versions it had no business being on instead of just upgrading.

I remember the upgrade from CentOS 6 to 7. It changed a bunch of stuff including making systemd the default init system. I'm assuming your company just wanted to avoid doing that work? But at the same time most other distros were switching to systemd so you would have had to do that work regardless.

in reply to vettnerk

I am growing to dislike Ubuntu.

Simply because its so old, that anytime I try to find a solution to a problem, I'm wading through 15 years of shit, 99% of which isnt relevant anymore due to age/depreciation.

in reply to Dubious_Fart

What makes this weirder is that while all older distros have this problem, none of them come anywhere close to being as bad. This is probably partly because of Ubuntu's start as a noob-friendlier distro, but I don't think that completely explains it.
in reply to s20

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Dubious_Fart

I feel you. I really do. User friendliness is what got me to try out Ubuntu in the first place. My Open Source OS journey has been long and weird, but we have that in common.

If you're looking for an OS with good documentation that's going to make your Steam gaming easier, I can suggest Nobara. It's easy to install, and while it's own documentation is a little sparse (it's less than a year or so old), you can use Fedora documentation 99% of the time. And as a bonus, steamtinkerlaunch is a one click install on Nobara. I think. I did my install for my gaming rig like 8 months ago, so don't quote me.

More importantly, though, is that Nobara has a friendly discord filled with helpful folks, including Glorious Eggroll himself - the guy who made Nobara, and a contributor to many Open Source projects and maintainer for Proton-GE which, if you use Steam on Linux, you might have heard of.

As a bonus, the Fedora community is helpful too, as evidenced by me 😀.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to s20

I was considering Linux mint, since its something new, but still on a familiar debian base and and familiarity with things like ppas which make getting software easier than compiling it.

but I'll read up more on Nobara. Just concerned that I'll be back to day 1 know nothing switching bases.

in reply to Dubious_Fart

I'm a long time Debian user, and I switched to Fedora when 38 was released because I wanted to try something new and shiny (well, Gnome 44 mostly).

It was kind of disappointing. With Debian, I had to work to get it perfectly functional on my laptop. Fedora just... worked happily out of the box. Almost nothing to tweak.

I don't know the nature of your problems and solutions, but be assured that the knowledge you gained will still be useful. Nowadays most distros are more similar than they are different. I successfully used Arch Wiki and Arch Forums on Debian issues, because even if they are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, their building blocks are basically the same.

in reply to Dubious_Fart

It's not that bad, really. Nobara is Fedora based, and has access to their large package base. Nobara's custom update tools are also excellent.

Fedora doesn't have PPAs, but it does have COPR, which is kinda like halfway between PPAs and Arch's AUR. Lots of packages. I hardly ever compile anything from source these days.

in reply to s20

Okay okay, stop twisting my arm! :p

I'll back up my files and switch to Nobara as soon as I beat the game I'm playing, since I dont want to risk having that get borked again

in reply to Dubious_Fart

I agree, I used Ubuntu for years, then switched to Mint/Cinnamon for a few years but finally after 1 or 2 years hated it. I'm on MX since 2016 or something and still love it.
Unknown parent

butter

Debian is great for my server.

I use MX, based on Debian, for my laptop so I only have to remember 1 update command.

My laptop is ancient, and I'm not getting any more out of it than I'm getting with MX

in reply to ursakhiin

Yup; that's when I bailed on Ubuntu and went for Mint.
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu - It was my first distro and I loved it for many years after 6.06. However, it slowly shifted from a very community focused distro ("Linux for human beings" was the original slogan) to a very corporate distro with lots of in-house bullshit, CLAs, and partially-closed projects that seems to focus on profit and business over actual human beings. I correlate this move to around the time when it became purple rather than brown. Snap sucks, Mir sucks, Unity sucks, integrating Amazon and music store paid bullshit sucks. Just no. Move to Debian.

Manjaro - It's Arch, but with incompetence!

Red Hat - Do you enjoy paying licensing fees for a Linux distro that very likely violates the open source licenses it uses? RHEL is for you! Just remember not to share the code! Sharing is most certainly NOT caring!

in reply to CalcProgrammer1

How does Manjaro add incompetence? I've not used either for a while, buy Manjaro never failed me, while arch did manage to make my system nuke itself a couple times just running pacman -Syyu. Granted, this was a long time ago, but it's the only distro to so this to me ever.

JebanuusPisusII doesn't like this.

in reply to wim

The project maintainers repeatedly forget to renew their certificates, causing package upgrades to fail.

The project maintainers, in multiple past instances, have misconfigured their package manager resulting in essentially a DDoS of the AUR.

The packages are out of date vs. the upstream Arch ones, which often causes AUR packages intended for upstream Arch to break on Manjaro. Yet they consider the AUR a supported resource.

Project has had problems with mismanagement of funds in the past.

Despite all this, they seem to heavily focus on marketing, merch, and trying to sell preinstalled systems. Manjaro is in it for profit, not to make an awesome distro.

in reply to CalcProgrammer1

did they ever start backporting security patches? I know that was a major issue in the early days that really soured me on the competence of the project. you cannot take a rolling release distro, bless some package versions as "stable" and call it a day.
in reply to wim

it's a reddit imported hate-train because they didn't renew certificates twice in twenty years and a bug in pamac cause the aur to be ddosed for a few hours total, to tell you how much of an empty bandwagon it is, few years back, manjaro tried to push a closed source office suite in their base installers and none of the clowns parroting anti-manjaro mantras ever mention it, they didn't think about adding it to the agreed list of accusations in the early days so their copy pasted opinions don't feature it.

don't like this

in reply to gnumdk

If that were true then none of this would be news. The CentOS Stream code is available to the public on git, but not the RHEL code. If the RHEL code was available to the public the outrage would have no reason to exist.

Even if paying customers have access to the RHEL code via git, they are forbidden from redistributing it (which is allowed by the FOSS licenses that code is under) or else the customers lose their license. This does not qualify as the code being available in my opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of the FOSS community.

Saying everything is fine and dandy in the RHEL world is FUD.

in reply to kate

They do? I've never seen any.
in reply to Cyborganism

nitter.net/omgubuntu/status/15…
omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/10/ubuntu…
The advertised product is literally free under certain conditions so I don't consider this offending.
in reply to kate

"they put ads in the terminal" isn't really accurate.

Their "ubuntu-advantage-tools" adds information to one of their other products to the output of apt. You can easily get rid of that by uninstalling/replacing "ubuntu-advantage-tools". It's definitely not like they are selling ad space in your terminal to third parties.

don't like this

in reply to cmeerw

You can’t easily uninstall the advantage tools package, they set Ubuntu-minimal meta package to depend on it

Jakeroxs doesn't like this.

in reply to kate

Just thinking about this pisses me off all over again.
in reply to vettnerk

For me, it's Ubuntu as well. Canonical continuously integrates stuff to make the whole distribution more complex and hard to maintain. Without going into much detail, Ubuntu always tries to do things where there is a good standardized way different. Why the heck do we need yet another containerized GUI application environment (I'm looking at you, Snap!); Why do you develop lxd, when there is systemd-nspawn, docker and podman?!
in reply to schaeferpp

Not a fan of lxd, but to be fair, not a fan of systemd'isms either.
Unknown parent

BearPear
I use debian with flatpaks. It is good enough for me. I like it and I am gonna keep using it.
Unknown parent

bankimu

Search for "how to install Firefox in Arch".
Snapstore page which asks you to first install snap from AUR, and then install Firefox through Snap is the second entry, I kid you not!

And they have same pages for Fedora erc.

This predatory behavior is to try and get any potential new Linux users to use their crapstore instead of their distro's package is disgusting and malicious.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to BearPear

No one can dictate what tickles your fancy and ticks your boxes bud. If you're into debian, that's cool by me. Not my jam personally, but wtf does my opinion matter?
in reply to vettnerk

I'm noy going to say I dislike it, but I don't see the point in a source based distro like Gentoo anymore.

I learned a lot from using Gentoo when I was just getting into Linux 20 years ago, but now looking back on it, why would I want to juggle with everyones build systems and compiler flags? Especially now hardware is so homogenous.

in reply to wim

That's no longer the point of Gentoo either.

  • gentoo manages compile options globally. This is not only for optimization. It can be used to enable certain features of a program only available via compile options.
  • freedom between rolling release, stable release, or a mixture of the two. You don't have to opt for one or the other. And you can only make some programs rolling and others stable. Gentoo is the only distro I know that lets you do this without issues
  • can use any version of a program you want. That's the benefit of the build system. Since you're compiling, you link against the versions you want. No more compatibility issues because you didn't use the specific version your distro has.
  • super easy to install programs not in the repos and still have them managed by portage. Ebuilds are easy to write, and you don't have compatibility issues if you configure your deps right
  • super easy patch management. Just drop it the right place and you're done.
  • although its not mandatory, openRC is great
in reply to Cyclohexane

You can pry gentoo from my cold dead hands. The ability to do things like mix LTS and git HEAD packages at will is yuuge, as well as the dynamic dependency graph based on enabled features. Some newer distros like Nix and Guix come close, and even offer the ability to skip compilation via their package caches, but they have a number of pain points in my personal experience.
in reply to PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]

I agree. Nix and Guix follow a very unorthodox approach to managing a unix-like system, and while they make it work for most things, there's always those few issues that linger around.

I really like their approach. But Gentoo's approach is much more "just works" and tries to be unorthodox only where it is necessary or highly beneficial.

in reply to Zucca

I use a self hosted binhost so that I only compile on one of my devices, share with the rest. Works flawlessly.
in reply to Cyclohexane

Sounds like an awesome setup. I can't quite let go of my illusory -march=native benefits lol.
in reply to zagaberoo

I'm sure there are small benefits, but the benefits of the binhost are much cooler to me
in reply to Cyclohexane

Was it much of a pain to set up? I was hemming and hawing about distcc recently, but binhost sounds potentially better.
in reply to zagaberoo

Are your systems the same architecture and similar profiles? If so, then yes. It's just a matter of enabling it and running the quickpkg command.

Otherwise, it's a bit harder. You'll be using cross compiler (if different architecture) and a chroot. You'll have to setup the host to compile for the target systems whenever you do updates. The initial compile will take a while since it'll compile basically everything.

in reply to zagaberoo

If recommend checking out the gentoo wiki on "binary package guide" or something like that. It explains quickpkg and everything else.
in reply to Cyborganism

Having Gentoo update overnight is no big deal. Even better, just leave a core or two free and let updates run while you use the machine anyway!

That being said, Gentoo is definitely a time commitment and I completely understand that it's a particular taste.

Building from source does provide a lot of advantages though, and I don't mean faster binaries.

in reply to vettnerk

in reply to comicallycluttered

Noooo. You find -Syyu less intuitive than "upgrade"? How dare you.

I agree with all yoyr points. Arch has its place but is not for me.

in reply to oldfart

You aren't even supposed to double the y unless you just installed the system or you feel like it's not picking up on updates.
in reply to comicallycluttered

Absolutely understandable, personally I prefer the AUR since I don't ever need to download and compile the source code anymore, since everything I need got an AUR package.

I also had bad experiences with apt, mostly that their release are too slow/I get stuck on an old release (my raspberry pi's python version is still 3.7, which caused problems since I was using a python 3.8 library). That's probably on me for not knowing how to upgrade my release, but I switched to Arch before learning how to fix this

For the pacman flags, I simply use yay, the AUR wrapper instead, yay do a full system upgrade, and yay python will show me a list of packages that have similar names to install. Still not as clear as apt, but at least there's no weird flag letters to remember for most use cases

in reply to kugiyasan

Ah, yes... Good ol' library mismatches. Definitely not a point in Debian's favor.

Well, at least for Stable. In Sid, different ^(Toy)^ story.

in reply to comicallycluttered

I see what you did there, honestly debian major release names and older Linux kernel version names are 2 of my favorites easter eggs in open source 😂
in reply to comicallycluttered

I think the users are off-putting. Can get very blunt in the forums.
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu desktop version, it's slow and buggy and the devs push ads and snaps and other crap.
in reply to 1984

I never saw an ad in Ubuntu.
in reply to sfera

Really? It's even in the apt update command when you update your system.

Stuff like this: askubuntu.com/questions/143451…

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to 1984

Must have to do with the fact that in the meantime I use nala more often instead of apt.
in reply to 1984

Been running Ubuntu 22.04 for the last several months and have yet to see anything resembling an ad. I guess it prompts me why there's system updates every fe days to a week or so. But I'd hardly call that an 'ad'.
in reply to vettnerk

I don’t like Mint, because it looks ugly and dated. (But it is good that there is this distribution for all the boomers out there).
I don’t like arch, because what is the point, if you can use Fedora instead.
I don’t like Ubuntu, but the hate against it is much worse than the distribution itself.
in reply to user8e8f87e

Fedora and Arch are very different. That's like saying openSUSE and Fedora are the same, even that's not as extreme as your claim because they at least use the same package format.
in reply to yum13241

I want a distribution with recent packages = Arch | Fedora
I want a stable and polished distribution = Fedora

I don’t care for the AUR as is not needed anymore in times of flatpak and distrobox.

whynot doesn't like this.

in reply to user8e8f87e

I don't want to use a separate package manager with dumb douche.fuck.shit names, that's a problem for programs like crispy doom for example.

Native packages ftw

in reply to vettnerk

I can find faults in any of them, but mostly hate working with Redhat/CentOS/Fedora. Strongly prefer Debian over Ubuntu, and I strongly prefer Gentoo over Arch. SUSE is an unknown, not sure about that one.

I have a fondness for BSD, if that matters.

don't like this

in reply to Hutch

SUSE


I have a bit of a fear of SLES, purely due to Puredisk using them as their base back in the day (before they were swallowed by Symantec/Veritas/Broadcom/whatever). The amount of time I spent in YaST2 and losing data, again and again, made me genuinely never want to investigate any issues.

in reply to allywilson

I must have played with SUSE at some point, these words bring back horrors I'd long forgotten.
in reply to Hutch

I have fond memories of setting up a FreeBSD desktop while I was in college. It still has a warm place in my heart.
in reply to s20

In highschool, I got a desktop from a yard sale (Pentium I) and got an HDD from goodwill, all for $10, just to install FreeBSD. It was awesome. I think I still have the desktop somewhere in storage.
in reply to vettnerk

This thread has basically devolved into "Ubuntu hate circlejerk party", as expected. I guess I just hate the distro I've spent the majority of my time on Linux using getting constantly dunked on and am a bit sad watching its inevitable death by snap. (Insert Thanos meme here)

don't like this

in reply to Grangle1

I see more manjaro than ubuntu.

Ubuntu had so many years as the "default" that people have some old perfect version of ubuntu that they liked better. Some early version from the gnome2 days, or else people who loved unity.

For my part, the last time I tried it, there were snap and apt versions of so many apps, that when you had an issue it was hard to troubleshoot because there would be two sets of solves. That was enough to get me to bail. I wonder if that's still an issue.

in reply to beef_curds [she/her]

Probably to some degree... But on any other distro, the same is almost certainly true today too. Only it's between... rpm/aur/deb/etc and Flatpaks instead of snap.
in reply to Grangle1

I've been using Ubuntu professionally and as a daily driver for more than a decade now. I've tried the other major ones but Ubuntu is just no fuss. I can stand up a fresh system in 20 minutes and there is an enormous support base. I just don't have time to be a Linux hipster these days.

The only thing I can see which might win me over one day is Nix.

in reply to socsa

Same here. Ubuntu user for a loong time. Tried others but Ubuntu is just easy for me.
in reply to Rumblestiltskin

Yeah. Part of me is annoyed by snaps. But, tbh, having tried fedora and opensuse over the last few years, I don't quite see how they're so much worse than freaking Flatpaks. And at least they come gods damned fully enabled.
in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro, for its incompetence.

I don't hate Gentoo, but will never use it. I hate compiling.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to yum13241

Upvoted for Manjaro, downvoted for gentoo. (no vote as a result)
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Cyclohexane

Console issued server command: /force_vote @a
in reply to vettnerk

Well, scrolling through every comment, it looks like very few people hate Fedora. I've always been using Debian and Debian based distros but recently moved to Fedora, and I'm not surprised people like it.
in reply to True Blue

I still hop around, but I always come back to Fedora. It just works. Well, once you enable parallel downloads on DNF it just works.
in reply to s20

Well, once you enable parallel downloads on DNF it just works.


Thank you. Forgot about that!

in reply to legion

You can make an OS in Scratch? I didnt know that
in reply to RandomVideos

Linux From Scratch is a series of (online) books that walk you through building up your own linux system from the ground up, from compiling the kernel to all the individual systems that turn the kernel into a functional OS.

It's meant to be an educational tool to help people learn about what goes into making a Linux distribution and give you better knowledge of how to build software from source. Some people turn these systems into their own distributions or personal (I guess gentoo-like?) Linux installs

in reply to RandomVideos

Not only can you make your own OS but you can use one of the package managers and build your own repo and do a whole ecosystem yourself.

I used LFS to build a distro for embedded systems I designed at work. Was a fun experience but way too much work.

AProfessional doesn't like this.

in reply to legion

It’s that pesky root user, right? There’s loads of their files on my system. I can’t edit any of them. Don’t know why they are so protective.
in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro got me unironically back to windows

update: thanks to archcraft i'm back on the linux train

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to vettnerk

No longer using Ubuntu at all because they force snaps down your throat. While I do like snaps on the server environment, (I think a lot of the haters out there don't see how nice they are on servers), I prefer to use Debian and then to just install snapd on my terms.
in reply to vettnerk

This is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but Linux mint. It's great if you're just getting into Linux, it's absolutely terrible when you know what you're doing in Linux. The old package base and kernel just kills me sometimes. I get they want a stable base and use the lts versions of Ubuntu, but my goodness it's always so far behind it's not even worth using if you're on AMD. Thankfully they've realized this after so many years and are releasing an EDGE iso with updated packages and kernel and LMDE is getting a version upgrade.

don't like this

in reply to Defaced

Not really an unpopular opinion. My main desktop runs mint, and we're well aware of that being an issue. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make as long as it works. I haven't had enough issues to look for replacement yet. ZorinOS looks interesting, though.

For servers and work I use other distros.

in reply to vettnerk

Yeah there's just not really a big enough reason to move away from Ubuntu unless you're really wanting to avoid snaps (which I completely understand)

abrasiveteapot doesn't like this.

in reply to vettnerk

I love Zorin, probably for more superficial reasons than most. I like a clean UI and Zorin provides that by default, no fiddling. I get that people like customisability and ricing and all that, and if I could design my OS as easily as I could write CSS then I probably would, but I've yet to find something that lets me do that. And even if I do find it, Zorin still looks good and just works, which is most of what I care about.
in reply to Defaced

I've never cared for mint because I don't really want my Linux to look like Windows. Which is what mint does.
in reply to Defaced

I tried it years ago after years and years of Ubuntu. I installed Mint Cinnamon, it was the shit at the time, #1 distro and all. I wanted to like it but was never able to. After less than 2 years I switched to MX/Xfce and still use it, best distro ever.

But Mint is really bleh 🙁

in reply to Magister

How is MX? What do you like over other distros? I see it at the top of the distrowatch list all the time but I've never really found anything special or stand out with the distro.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Unknown parent

Elw
I think reality lies somewhere in the middle. Yes you have to read and yes you have to configure things but the docs are all on the wiki. There’s a point where this is easier than figuring out how to undo the defaults on, say, Ubuntu and do your own thing without official documentation on it.
Unknown parent

tibi

I have mixed feelings about Mir and Unity. Having competition is a good thing. If we only had gnome, Linux would be far less interesting. But at the same time, they could have spent the effort trying to improve Wayland and Gnome, and they would have made a significant difference.

But snaps being forced upon me, they can fuck right off. I don't need my browser in a semifunctional container, when it worked perfectly before. And i hate that they made mount barely unusable.

in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu because of forced Snaps

SUSE because of Yast and the (german) company's rumored? stance on antisemitism (google banned Jewish holidays)

Fedora for it's update mechanism with the forced reboot

Arch as the necessary evil

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

don't like this

in reply to varnia

in reply to Thymos

Same here. I have not heard anything after the initial accusations. The company I am working for is using SLES as a main OS and is switching to another OS without any explanation. So I have no idea if the claims are true or the switch has anything to do with anything.
in reply to varnia

It just goes to show how an accusation like this sticks to a company's reputation. The reason for your company switching could be totally unrelated, yet your mind still jumps to this. Have you asked why they're switching?
in reply to Thymos

The accusation by Bryan is out there, its detailed and looks profounded - there is no response from SUSE anywhere and this seems to follow the described pattern in the accusation of not talking about it.
So as of now the public opinion is that the accusation was not withdrawn and is still standing. Not talking about it won't make it go away for anyone.
in reply to Thymos

If the allegation is just from Bryan Lunduke I'd take it with a pinch of salt. The guy is known for espousing some out-there views so it needs independent corroboration.
in reply to floofloof

Yeah, I've not been able to find any allegations by anyone else, except for his vague mentions. There was also a Jewish person who had worked at SUSE who commented in one thread that they felt nothing less than welcomed.
Unknown parent

CalcProgrammer1
I much prefer the AUR and native system packages to flatpak. It's the big advantage Arch has over other distros, just how much software is natively available due to the AUR. There are a few cases where flatpak works better but generally I prefer all my apps to share one set of up to date dependencies.
in reply to Lolors17

Serious question: what do you not like about snaps? I find the isolation and dependency desolation to be pretty great.

abrasiveteapot doesn't like this.

in reply to first_must_burn

Snap is vendor lock in. They don’t work on many distros, tooling pushes their platform, and they control the only store.

For desktop apps Flatpak is just technically better anyway so what’s the point.

in reply to AProfessional

Snap is the reason I started looking for something else. Flatpak is the reason I went Fedora. It's been great.
in reply to vettnerk

Is ChromeOS a distro? (obvious reasons)

I can't really think of another one I don't like. I had a bad time on Debian but that is because my use case conflicted with it, not because it's bad.

in reply to temptest [any]

I tried Debian once years ago. Hated it. But now it's my favorite (with Plasma). Maybe I had bad luck back then.
in reply to VCTRN

Maybe so. For me it was that even Sid was too outdated for me (e.g. with native Linux games and some software development), and to try and Frankenstein it into what I wanted was effort and instability I didn't want, especially when some Ubuntu-derivatives were much better suited for my personal-use situation.
in reply to temptest [any]

I get you. I've heard some good things about LMDE, but I don't know how much bloat Mint adds, last time I used Mint was ages ago, LMDE didn't exist back then. I wonder how updated they keep it.
in reply to VCTRN

I don't know how much bloat Mint adds


Not enough to make me think about it, it's not like I'm running a server or fighting for storage space. But if the thought of Flatpaks is enough to frighten, then it could be a problem.

in reply to vettnerk

Any 10 or more year support distro because they increase the range of versions that stuff has to work with by 5 extra years and any knowledge I gain about those ancient versions will never be useful again. They also delay a lot of new features in protocols, file formats,... where a large majority of clients needs support before the next phase of introducing a feature can be started.
in reply to vettnerk

Sorry mate. I love them all!
All free software, especially GPL-based but still have high appreciation for the BSDs as well.
Even Red Hat that has messed everything up recently, has a soft spot in my heart, with Fedora being the first distro I really enjoyed Linux in 2003 (very first Fedora Core). However, IBM/RedHat make a real effort to become the one and only distro that I may list here.
in reply to vettnerk

Wish Linux Devs help build and polish OS for Pinephone. I really want Linux to go mainstream. Tired of android and Apple.
in reply to YⓄ乙

The issue is a lack of an app ecosystem with actual AAA apps.
in reply to jecxjo

This! I used Ubuntu Touch as my daily driver for 1 1/2 years. The OS itself was anything but perfect but the real problem was definetly the app ecosystem. WayDroid(an android "emulator") optimization is probably the way to go for linux on mobile
in reply to TheBiGuy

Yeah there's no way a viable Linux phone could be made without the ability to run Android apps.

I think we're probably at least a few years away from being able to daily drive Linux on modern phones with functioning things like NFC payments and a decent native app collection. It's definitely coming but it has far less momentum than even the Linux desktop does.

in reply to coolin

That's the case with almost all FOSS projects at the beginning
in reply to jecxjo

Waydroid could fix that gap tho, the same way Wine/Proton does on the desktop
in reply to Fisch

Sure but that's always going to be sub par experience.
in reply to jecxjo

Waydroid already works really well, it's just small things like notification support that are missing
in reply to vettnerk

Nobody said MX, because MX is the perfect distro! I'm using it since 2016 after years of Ubuntu and some Mint.

MX is the perfect distro. I'm using it with Xfce. Nobody hates it, it's a sign 😜

in reply to vettnerk

I absolutely hated myself after installing Arch on one of my machines.

Then I discovered EndeavourOS... I still hate myself but at least my laptop works now.

snake doesn't like this.

in reply to boeman

Holy shit, I installed it on my Lenovo tablet laptop, and everything works out the box... Even the gyroscope! I couldn't believe it. It's the first arch based I've tried and I think I'm hooked.

To note, I think I tried like 8 other distros before finding endeavor.

in reply to Jayb151

The touchscreen working right out of the box is what surprised me.
in reply to boeman

Dude, this 100%. The touch screen was janky on Windows, and non existent in all Linux distros I tried. Endeavor worked perfectly without any set up. I couldn't believe it.
in reply to vettnerk

Ubuntu brings a ton of awkward and shit memories from the course we had on it in secondary school.

Admittedly, Linux Mint is the only distro I have used in a personal capacity.

in reply to vettnerk

Gentoo. I just found it a pain, from spending forever figuring why nothing would work only to realise I hadn't enabled some kernel module for my SSD to updates taking forever and completely annihilating my battery if on battery power, it just felt like more work than it was worth.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to vettnerk

For beginners, and rolling distribution. A beginner should start with something that doesn't break while you don't understand if it's your or the shiny new program that broke the system. But then, I have been using Debian for more that 20 years. For me it's a tool, not a game.
in reply to vettnerk

Debian. APT sucks, the installer looks like straight out of 1999 and the packages are just wayyy too old. Also apt-autoremove deleted half of my system the 1st time I tried debian...

don't like this

in reply to Presi300

Ive been using many distros in the past but only tried debian once. The installer failed.
in reply to Presi300

A minimal and stable distro, kinda expected
in reply to Presi300

Debian is my hometown because back in, I guess 2014?, I had a computer that just sucked. It was like 1GB RAM, I think a single core CPU. Debian was like the only distro that actually installed. Ubuntu, Mint, etc. didn't even finish the installation
in reply to Presi300

I like the installer but the bundles that get automatically installed are such bloat.

Nala runs since Debian 12, and its the greatest pm interface I know.

But Debian stays outdated.

Unknown parent

TheBiGuy
we don’t need some moron who isn’t even sure what gender he is, brining that crap here.


What does their gender have to do with the distro? and Why would that be any of your business?

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
Unknown parent

ntzm [he/him]
Silence transphobe
in reply to conner5

I'm not sure if I have bad luck but every time I've tried Ubuntu I've had stability issues. Constant crashes and things I've never run into in other distros.

It makes it hard for me to recommend it to new users.

in reply to conner5

The way they pushed that slow crap that is snap down the throat of everyone killed any appreciation I had for the distro
Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

I somewhat agree with the Mac thing, but the same could be said for KDE or Cinnamon and Windows. Don't try to act like they didn't take the Windows UX and run with it lol. But of course if you called their DEs an attempted Windows clone they wouldn't like it either.

The ability to OPTIONALLY pay for apps right from the software centre is a good thing. The money goes to the developers and FOSS has serious problems in terms of actually funding developers. Flathub is looking to implement similar functionality.

You can install elementary apps on other distros just fine... They're available as flatpaks.

Blatant transphobia. Classic.

They aren't restricting freedom at all lol, and even if they were, nobody's forcing you to use Elementary.

in reply to vettnerk

Out of all the distros that I've tried, probably Manjaro. The distro itself is ok, I don't like how kind of bloated the default installation is, but it's not too bad.

However what really pisses me off,among their numerous other controversies, was when they replaced perfectly functional open source apps with proprietary ones...twice. Though the former has since been reversed.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Fisch

Sure, do you go and read the source code for Firefox for every update tho? I used to be a big fan of FF back in the day, it's my daily browser on my phone but I just really like Vivaldi for desktop 🤷‍♂️

don't like this

Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

I'm not American either. I'm just not a salty, whiny little bigot who gets offended at pronouns.

Get a grip, snowflake.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

Swedneck doesn't like this.

in reply to Anafabula

I've always been intrigued by that one. I want to test it out, but finding an image has proven difficult.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Anafabula

too much spyware


That's just capitalist propaganda. There is no spyware! That's just innocent telemetry!

in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro feels like a bit of a mess to me and always ends up with problems.

Ubuntu releases too many buggy updates and dumps their idiosyncratic tastes in software on everyone whether people like it or not.

in reply to floofloof

I really don't get why they want to push snaps so much. Flatpak does basically the same thing but better and is already used by more people. Their efforts would be better spent improving that. It's also weird that the server side of snaps is proprietary, I can't help but think that they may have intentions with that, that go against what the users want.
in reply to vettnerk

Arch and any arch based distro.
It's overused, deb is better and the absolute chads will always be distros like NixOS or Guix System. There is no use for an unstable, beginner-unfriendly, distro where you constantly encounter dependency hell.

Of course I'm just being edgy, every Linux Distro is good for the sole fact of it not being Windows.

don't like this

in reply to quantenzitrone

IDK, when it comes to gaming I find it much easier to install all the weird community patches via AUR vs other distros. I'm on PopOS right now, but if I wanted to reinstall I'd go with Manjaro.

It seems to be the best choice if you want the benefits of Arch but not have to install it manually, which I think is a needlessly difficult process. I wish they had a more bare bones version through. And I know about Arch's autoinstall script. I've had bad luck with it.

JebanuusPisusII doesn't like this.

in reply to vlad

Wouldn't recommend Manjaro, if you install anything from the AUR, there's a good chance your system will just refuse to boot after an update someday (speaking from personal experince btw). I'd go with EndeavourOS instead, which is also arch based and makes the install super easy.
in reply to Fisch

I accept a certain level of volatility with my Linux experience. And I've not had any issues with AUR packages yet. I've been using a few Manjaro laptops for a while. But, that doesn't mean that it can't happen.
in reply to quantenzitrone

I really like Manjaro's rolling releases. For the first few years I was all like "wow Linux I'm a hacker now, time to install Zany Zebra" but now I just want it to keep working and stay up to date.

JebanuusPisusII doesn't like this.

in reply to quantenzitrone

I can see arch or others being great for learning the inner workings of a distro or even more advanced inner workings or something great for tinkererers. But for those that see the OS as a tool to do things, yeah, I don’t see a value in it. But not everyone has the same priorities.
Unknown parent

Hutch
From memory it has a different layout in /etc, /use, and /opt that kept tripping me up. Simple things seemed harder. I do a fair amount in older versions of Java that caused problems. It's been a while though, so things have likely changed.
in reply to vettnerk

which linux distro do you NOT like, and why?


The one with the most elitist gatekeeping users.

in reply to ShunkW

arch isn't really elitest though, gatekeeping sure, but the gate is the arch wiki. if that is elitist...

Kangie doesn't like this.

in reply to kent_eh

Well, ACTUALLY, they're only being elitist about the kernel, and they're gatekeeping about userspace programs, SO...
in reply to vettnerk

I was using Manjaro until the day my install started giving me problems.with dependencies and duplicated packages (?), so I went with Fedora and it's been smooth so far.
in reply to vettnerk

Mint. I just don't get it. It's Ubuntu but "different"? I heard a lot of people have issues with it. But also a lot of people love it and always recommend it.

To be fair I never used it and it's probably fine/great but I just have a weird unfounded hate for it

Provider doesn't like this.

in reply to somenonewho

It’s Ubuntu, but includes proprietary drivers by default if detected. Also the menu is very similar to windows.

It’s got a slightly different store and update app, which also allows you select automatic updates or not etc. it’s a bit friendlier than Ubuntu tbh.

At the same time it can be wonky in its own right. For example I put it on my kids laptop. And rfkill kept disabling the wifi based on a bios setting allowing the wifi to be disabled if a nic was connected and during wake-up from s3 sleep the system would briefly falsely detect a nic and kill wifi.

Disabling the setting in bios was all that was needed. But searching the issue, even for me, led to a LOT of bad advice and threads on their forums.

in reply to somenonewho

It is community-run and works around ubuntu's questionable commercial moves (not including snap and maintaining their own debs for Firefox and Chromium) while developing their own software that I believe are generally more user-friendly than their equivalents in Ubuntu and other distros (the cinnamon desktop, the software manager and the updater, the welcome panel, system reports...)
in reply to vettnerk

For me it's Ubuntu. Whenever I tried it it was buggy and crashing. It kinda feels like Windows of GNU+Linux.

About Manjaro, I like it. I kinda feel sad seeing Manjaro get so much hate. The only thing I disliked was the accidental DDoS of AUR. But so far it's been working relatively well for me. I use Manjaro with Plasma.

And my favorite is Linux Mint. It just works, and it does so reliably. Also the Linux Mint community is really nice.

As such, I donated to Manjaro, Arch, and Linux Mint. Not much, but at least something.

in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro because in the few months I've used it, it happened twice that my system didn't boot anymore after I updated it. The second time I didn't reinstall but installed EndeavourOS instead. Been using that for like 2 years and never had that issue again.
in reply to vettnerk

I've never had a good experience with an arch based distro. I understand that's kind of the goal, and it's great if you want to use your computer to set up arch, but I want to use my computer for other things.

Endeavor, Arch, Manjaro et al.

in reply to Omega_Jimes

in reply to vettnerk

Fuck Ubuntu. Buggy as shit updates, forced snaps, always had problems whenever I was forced to use it, which I've never had again when I switched to Debian.

Debian >>>>>> Ubuntu

3v1n0 doesn't like this.

in reply to vettnerk

Debian, as its so MANUAL. Upgrading by manually updating x times and then literally changing the repos manually in the sources list? Wtf? Without any documentation or automation??

QubesOS, as it probably doesnt run on any real hardware. Didnt get beyond a blackscreen, and also AMD consumer GPUs dont support accelerated VMs making it useless.

Ubuntu because its annoying, but unsnap fixes a lot and its actually okay, still outdated Kernel als a bit weird.

KDE Neon because I cant tolerate its not a workstation distro but want it to be one

Linux Mint. Its old, and always had weird crashes for me. Its kinda nice and easy, kinda weird and complicated to do certain things. Some packages dont run as its not Ubuntu. Would always choose any KDE Distro that is newer.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

ipsirc doesn't like this.

in reply to vettnerk

Android. Google doesnt invest anything in AOSP it seems, GrapheneOS is the only really well made Distro.

Androids security model is a joke as every phone is bloated with malware that has full access over everything.

Banking apps need Google, map apps need Google.

There is no split screen in AOSP since forever.

No tools on the lockscreen. I am not talking about crazy ios like tools that are basically a seperate OS, its still a lockscreen. But camera and torch?

So many restrictions. RootlessJamesDSP is a good example of crazy workarounds that still dont work in the end. No FOSS appstore with autoupdates is also a pain.

in reply to Pantherina

Does GrapheneOS have microg or similar now? The last time I used it, it didn't have it, and some apps (Signal, I'm looking at you) had a constant notification. I went to CalyxOS, which I like fine, but it's more for the masses (gives up a little privacy for convenience) than GrapheneOS is.
in reply to Zatujit

Calyx is not hardened at all like Graphene. MicroG is supposed to be insecure, I miss UnifiedNLP though.

GrapheneOS has sandboxed Google Play apps, which are said to support all things. So they have the regular apps but with a compatibility layer so they work as normal apps like they should.

I dont use it though, and there is no Openstreetmap redirect or UnifiedNLP

in reply to Zatujit

That's a good addition to the ecosystem. I don't know if I want an official Play Services implementation on my phone, though. Even one without root access. I know microg isn't perfect, but Google has been removed as much as functionally possible from it. I may just deal with the persistent notification, once I upgrade my phone (on 4xl atm), because I really liked everything else about GrapheneOS and want to compare it to CalyxOS properly, not after only 2 weeks on Graphene. How do you like it? Have you noticed that you're missing anything important?
in reply to 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘

it has something called sandboxed google play services. they claim its more secure and private than microg. also in my experience notifications and location is more reliable with it than microg. also you can disable the constant notification for apps like signal and it still works afaik.
in reply to norapink

in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro is the one that has caused me the most pain and suffering.
in reply to vettnerk

Manjaro is the one that has caused me the most pain and suffering.
Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

Aww diddums, you poor wittle snowflake

The nasty lady huwt your wittle feewings 🥺🥺❄️

don't like this

Unknown parent

Zucca
GOAT


Gentleman Of All Trades

Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

It's 100% all about your pwecious wittle fee fees.

God lmao

If God was real, which he isn't, I'd hate him anyway. A sexist, pro-slavery, violent, homophobic piece of shit.

I follow facts, not your mentally challenged imaginary friend.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

Swedneck doesn't like this.

Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

Ohhh you assure me? Well that's good. I guess I and everyone else will just convert to Christianity because you've assured us.

You just keep worshipping your sky daddy and I'll continue being a normal person.

Your god is a cowardly piece of shit. If he was real I'd spit in his face for being such a piece of shit. But he obviously isn't, so unfortunately I'll never get that chance.

This entry was edited (1 year ago)

Swedneck doesn't like this.

Unknown parent

TheGrandNagus

Cowardly.

And the whole dying for our sins crap, give me a break. That's another story that proves the fictional god character to be a total piece of shit.

When I want to forgive someone, I just forgive them. I don't demand human sacrifices to appease me. But hey, I'm a bigger, kinder, more compassionate, more emotionally stable person than your sky daddy.

Swedneck doesn't like this.