24 ms·

What's new in Ubuntu 19.04

244 points by logix 7y ago

siriniok 7y ago
Does anyone still use good old Unity? :)
- someguy101010 7y ago
  I liked it a lot, really didn't understand the community hate for it. At first it was not nice but it was pretty nice before it was deprecated.
  - siriniok 7y ago
    Agree. The last versions were pretty and (still) very stable.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Was because of the slow screen refresh, and the shitty metro look that announces "im like windows, but poorer".
  - Liquix 7y ago
    Never had any qualms with the design, it was just too heavy for most machines I run ubuntu on. Felt like a laggy remote desktop connection.
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    I think it was too simple and non-customizable for Linux user's taste, but it was that same simplicity that made it a perfect OS for a public computer or for parents who only use simple apps.
  - zanny 7y ago
    When it came out it was a substantial UX regression from Gnome 2 and it took a few releases to even reach feature parity. The same thing has been seen with KDE 4 and 5, Gnome 3, and how long LXQT has taken. Users hate experience regressions passionately, and will actively hate projects that depreciate or replace their workflows, sometimes for years, and sometimes forever.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    I can't understand any of it. Its looked the same to me for years and years. Other distros look a little different but nothing substantive is actually different that I ever notice.
  - avhon1 7y ago
    When Unity first became the default DE on Ubuntu, it was unusably slow and buggy on my computer. (This was actually an improvement -- in the previous release, Unity would immediately crash, so I had only seen it in pictures and videos.) Gnome 3 Classic was still available as a fallback, but it still wasn't the same (to many changes, to much CPU), so I switched distros. (I didn't know enough at the time to install a DE myself.) At the time, I was quite unhappy at Canonical for making their OS so difficult for me to use. I felt that I was being totally left behind, with a machine that was just old enough that it wasn't worth it to them to support it. 1 or 2 years later, I tried a newer release of Ubuntu on that machine. Unity was definitely more stable than before, but it was still frustratingly slow, and had sprouted the weird, unwanted amazon search feature. I continued to be disappointed that the default install of Ubuntu had become so needlessly graphics-intensive, and haven't played with it since. --- One other gripe with Unity -- I really didn't like how it thought that applications were more important than windows. It was difficult to switch between 2 or more windows of the same applications on the same desktop. The icon on the taskbar just showed a tiny arrow for each window. You had to hover over it before it would show buttons (icons? previews?) of each window that you could select. Alt+Tab was the same. You could only rotate between applications, but if you held it down for a moment, it would show the windows of that applications, and there was some way to pick between those on the keyboard. I really didn't like that. I would often have 2 or more terminals open, or text editors, or file browsers, and I would want to switch to the one that I had least-recently used, and I would have to do this whole dance of pulling up the application, waiting to see the individual windows, and finally picking the one I wanted. The 2-3 seconds that took were very frustrating, since I knew that I had used to be able to hit Alt+Tab a couple of times to go directly to the window I wanted. I have the same frustration every time I have to use an apple computer. It bugged me enough that I read through the keyboard shortcuts settings and learned about Cmd+Tilde, which helps, but is still very frustrating. I want a window! Why does it take two different kinds of keyboard shortcuts to get to the window I want! --- Between those two troubles, I am happy to have avoided using Unity.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Old Unity? No. New Unity (Gnome Shell), yes.
- rafaelfers 7y ago
  Yes, I still use it on ubuntu 16.04. I Will stay with this version until the eol
  - siriniok 7y ago
    I'm using it on 18.04, works perfectly.
    - jandrese 7y ago
      IIRC 18.04 is supposed to be an extra extra extended release, so it's a good one to get comfortable with.
  - dgivney 7y ago
    Me too, I spent 3 days with 18.04 and promptly downgraded again.
- p_man 7y ago
  Of course. Fractional scaling.
  - opencl 7y ago
    GNOME 3.32/Ubuntu 19.04 allegedly adds fractional scaling for Wayland sessions but it doesn't work for me (doesn't show up in settings).
- dopeboy 7y ago
  After discovering Cinnamon, I haven't been able to go back.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    Cinnamon is a truly underrated DE. I don't use it anymore (now that I have most of the Gnome 3 shortcuts memorized, I love it) but Cinnamon took the gorgeousness of Gnome 3 and mashed it up with the classic functionality of Gnome 2. Why the community rallied around MATE and not Cinnamon I will never understand.
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Question: do you ever feel like Cinnamon isn't as responsive as it could be? I was using Cinnamon (first on Linux Mint and then on Manjaro) for a few months before the release of Gnome 3.32. I've switched to Gnome 3.32 and it feels much more responsive than Cinnamon. In particular cycling windows and doing anything while a notification is being displayed. I really wish Cinnamon didn't stutter as much. It's the right amount of "desktop" I need.
    - jandrese 7y ago
      IIRC Cinnamon still does compositing, so maybe you've gotten stuck on the software only path? This can happen when drivers get blacklisted for example. I use it on one of my laptops and it's been pretty smooth for me.
    - dopeboy 7y ago
      I sense it too - it's just sluggish enough for me to notice.
- benttoothpaste 7y ago
  Unity is still available but needs to be installed explicitly (apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop).
  - finchisko 7y ago
    which version is available? unity8?
- sandov 7y ago
  I do. I haven't upgraded from 16.04 because I like Unity.
- chrismonsanto 7y ago
  I do and have no plans to switch from it. The constant UI flux is the worst part about using Linux.
  - Rooster61 7y ago
    This is why I personally like MATE. I remember when they switched from Gnome 2 to Unity, and I just stopped using Ubuntu until I discovered Mint, which I installed with MATE and the rest was history. I've moved on from Mint, but the fact that the MATE dev community took the tried and true paradigms learned from Gnome 2 and made kept them alive in spirit won me over. I installed Ubuntu MATE to a box just the other day.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      I remember the switch. That's when I switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu, where I still am.
    - freedomben 7y ago
      Ubuntu MATE is a phenomenal distro. For VMs and lower resource machines it is always my go to. Not to imply that it isn't valuable on high end machines (it is), but I personally really like Gnome 3 these days once I got used to it's way of doing things.
  - jjrh 7y ago
    Never got this complaint. Just because something different is installed by default doesn't mean you can't install something else (or use one of the many _buntu's to make life a little easier) A constant window manager is actually one of the strong points of linux. Lot of people still use twm.
    - mort96 7y ago
      When someone complains that they enjoyed using DE X, and the distro switches to DE Y, they get told that they can just install and keep using DE X. When they later come asking about issues they're having related to DE X, they get told that it's not officially supported and that they should probably switch to DE Y. Both responses on their own are perfectly reasonable, but it's understandable if users get a bit frustrated.
- eitland 7y ago
  Weird to see anyone talk about "good old" Unity. I'm getting old enough to belive you. For me however while I can believe it I really really cannot understand it: it broke my workflow in a number of ways by default and unlike Gnome 3, Unity was next to impossible to reconfigure to something I could use productively. It is actually somewhat of a learning experience for me to see something I almost despised be missed by a number of people. I think two easy conclusions should be "different strokes for different folks" and "make your software configurable".
- reddotX 7y ago
  yep on 19.04 works fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmJPjfenEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmJPjfenEo sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop
- levesque 7y ago
  Even though the switch happened a long time ago, I still have a strong dislike for Gnome Shell. It might be irrational at that point since I've had plenty of time to get used it and I can't pinpoint an exact reason why I dislike it so, but it just irks me. I think the default theme deserves part of the blame. How can it still be so ugly? Unity was beautiful and behaved more naturally IMO.
- Kipters 7y ago
  I do and I have no plans to switch away from it. If/when it won't work on Ubuntu anymore I'll probably switch to Plasma, but for sure I'm not going to switch to Gnome. I have a desktop i7-7700 with 32 GB of ram and an RTX 2060 and Gnome still feels sluggish
  - freedomben 7y ago
    Interesting, I have almost the same system (slightly different Nvidia card) and Gnome feels very quick and responsive to me. Maybe I need to try out unity again
- artworx 7y ago
  Its still the smoothest DE on my old Acer laptop from 2012. It never misses a frame and gets out of the way maximizing the space for the applications. Out of the box its not very configurable, but install compiz settings manager and its very good.
cuu508 7y ago
> Tracker is installed by default And is a dependency of Nautilus – cannot remove tracker but keep Nautilus :-(
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  What is "Tracker" -- it does not sound good...
  - jayalpha 7y ago
    Did not know either. "Tracker is installed by default with Ubuntu 19.04. Tracker is a filesystem indexer, metadata storage system and search tool" So no real privacy issue here or anything. But load on the system may be annoying. Boloo should be the KDE equivalent and I don't like it. PS: Yes, this stuff can be annoying: " It wasn't installed by default until now due to performance concerns, but those issues seem to have been resolved."
    - eitland 7y ago
      Isn't the KDE equivalent named Baloo?
      - commoner 7y ago
        Yes. https://community.kde.org/Baloo https://community.kde.org/Baloo
      - jayalpha 7y ago
        Yes, and it is annoying. For finding stuff I use recoll. Not sure if baloo has also other uses.
        zanny 7y ago
        Its not that annoying because you can go into the Search settings page of system settings (or just search for "search" in any of the various launchers) and turn it off with a checkbox.
liquidify 7y ago
What does optional GCC 9 mean? I've really been hoping for a major GCC update.
- spydum 7y ago
  Maybe simply that you can install Gcc9 package?
- no_wizard 7y ago
  This is typically an indicator that its upgradable via an apt install. For reference, a quick search on launchpad appears that yes, this is now the case for Disco: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-9 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-9 `sudo apt-get install gcc-9` away!
Iv 7y ago
And here again, of course, they are going to change the behavior of default shortcuts in a totally unnecessary way (Alt-Tab, really?) and move settings in different places so that all of stackoverflow's answers become obsolete. They also mention a "better" multi-monitor support. that scares me. I have a multi-monitor setup that works. I could do with a few more options but it works. Every change of behavior has required me to whack down some quirks. I am pretty sure the behavior when booting/rebooting with our without the screen connected, with or without the power plugged, is going to change in a way they found "logical, practical and intuitive" and that will waste me a few hours of correcting.
- OrgNet 7y ago
  > Alt+Tab handling now switches windows by default. Switching applications by default can be done with Super+Tab So if you have multiple windows of the same application, it will now switch between them? that's a good thing and that's how it used to be a while ago
  - liquidify 7y ago
    I don't understand what the problem was. Alt tab to get to the program, then alt tilde to get to the window. It was a very natural feeling action.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      It's the difference between MacOS or Windows default behavior. Alt-tab between windows has always been the default on Windows, and it was the default for most open source window managers for a long time too. I believe Gnome changed their default to follow how MacOS worked a few years back. Now it seems Ubuntu is reverting back (or is this a Gnome change again?). Different people prefer different defaults. Personally I can't stand the MacOS version, and for the few years I used MacOS, it drove me nuts. That said, I don't use Ubuntu, so this doesn't matter to me either way.
      - isostatic 7y ago
sharno 7y ago
I understand how hard it is to improve an open source software to get to be on the same level of proprietary ones, but it seems that Gnome took multiple steps backwards, or rather maybe the ubuntu adaptation of it. I saw multiple UX hiccups and small missing functionalities that makes me wonder when would a DE reach the full maturity to stay as it is with small improvements and doing what's intended to be done. For the time being I think KDE is a more stable and functional DE than Gnome, hope Gnome returns to its glorious days soon though.
- cheald 7y ago
  I love modern KDE. I've been running Kubuntu for the last year or so and just adore it.
- pas 7y ago
  I can understand that GNOME wanted to migrate off of C for the non-core things, so they cut down features. Now if you need something you can write a plugin in JS. It has advantages, and of course disadvantages too. (The expressiveness of the plugin API is naturally lacking compared to possibilities of built-in features, but with time that can/will change.)
  - Lorkki 7y ago
    Right now the main disadvantage is that GNOME Shell is single-threaded, and handles not only those JS extensions, but also essential tasks like window compositing. This means that a misbehaving extension can freeze the whole desktop, which is especially bad on Wayland where that includes the mouse cursor and input processing. I still prefer GNOME for the rest of its UX, but if you ask me, the next rewrite can't happen too soon. Edit: I noticed that some of the new improvements seem to be addressing just this, so what I'm saying may be out of date in regards to the latest version.
- hathawsh 7y ago
  I understand why Ubuntu doesn't switch the default to KDE; there's too much history and people would recoil at such a big change. That said, I always run Kubuntu rather than the default Ubuntu desktop and I'm really happy with it. Switching to KDE is almost as smooth as it can possibly be: once I have Ubuntu installed, all I have to do is "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" and then choose KDE at login. Some of the reasons I really like KDE: * I have keyboard shortcuts for switching desktops; I feel much more productive with 9 easily accessible virtual desktops. I use the "windows" key, sometimes called "meta": meta-Q, meta-W, meta-E, meta-A, etc. * I've added rules for automatically changing the window title bar colors to make it easier to distinguish between very similar-looking windows. My Sublime Text windows in particular have a different bar color for each project. Sometimes I have as many as 4 projects open at once. * I can lay out and enhance my screen any way I like. KDE doesn't quibble and even encourages it.
jammygit 7y ago
Installed this last night a couple of hours early. Compared to 18.04, boot times and the ui seems a lot snappier because of some gnome updates. This was the reason I did the upgrade so I'm pretty happy. Haven't tested on my laptop yet though.
sahaskatta 7y ago
Has anyone tried it out on the Dell XPS 13 (9370 or 9380)?
- jammygit 7y ago
  I will update an xps 13 later today. I'll try to remember to post about it.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    So far at least, working great with no issues. In the case of the xps, I reinstalled from scratch instead of upgrading. Apparently things often use 16% less battery now too based on some benchmarks I read. Its been about 3.5 hours I guess and I've went through half my battery wile downloading packages and browsing, and haven't set up powertop or tlp yet. Its a lot snappier than before. I know that before I had an issue with resume from suspend where the machine was just slow on waking, haven't used it enough to tell if its still happening though. xps-9360
- ayoisaiah 7y ago
  I upgraded on a 9360 this afternoon, and I haven't noticed any problems thus far.
jwr 7y ago
I really hope that some day Ubuntu will have enough power&steam to attack the Clipboard Problem. It is the #1 issue that makes me dislike working with a Linux desktop. Consistent system-wide clipboard behavior with consistent keyboard shortcuts. Look to Mac OS for an example of how to get this right. And I don't even need graphics/media support in the first iteration: just get me basic plaintext copy/paste.
- massive-tea 7y ago
  Linux (really X Windows) has the best clipboard: select text to "copy", middle click to "paste".
  - jwr 7y ago
    Yes, I also had this smug attitude, having used the X terminals (the real ones, as in physical X terminals) back in 1994 or so, and then using X11 on various machines and operating systems since then. Then I started using Mac OS X and I realized that it's actually nice to be able to select text and NOT have it auto-copied obliterating my clipboard, but instead be able to replace it using Command-V. And it's a pretty cool invention that the same shortcuts work in all applications, consistently. And that I can copy text in any application and paste it in any other using the same shortcut. And that I don't have to use the middle mouse button, which is a scrollwheel these days and is difficult to hit without invoking the scroll functionality. And it's pretty nice to be able to paste to where the cursor is RIGHT NOW without carefully positioning the mouse pointer and making sure it doesn't move while you carefully try to hit the middle button (otherwise your text will get inserted wherever the mouse moves in the meantime, if you are in a browser edit window). I could go on. There are so many things which can be done better if we drop the "the way X11 did this is the best way, ever" attitude. And then, eventually, once we get text copy/paste right, we can get to copying images, which again is a totally solved problem on Mac OS X.
    - massive-tea 7y ago
      X has the manual clipboard as well, though. It's always worked for me. Do you have any specific examples of where it fails? > is a totally solved problem on Mac OS X. It's solved there because it's a walled garden. It's essentially a different problem that they've solved. The problem here is making that work while still being the free software operating system we love.
modeless 7y ago
Updating is going to be a huge pain. It always is, for one reason: Nvidia. I need CUDA for ML, and nouveau is so bad anyway that 18.10 wouldn't even boot on my machine when I tried to install it. It's guaranteed that if I upgrade right now I will be troubleshooting black screens, hangs, and compiler incompatibilities for hours if not days in an attempt to install a working set of ML tools including up to date drivers and CUDA. It's sad that one required proprietary component ruins the whole experience. But there's no other option for ML research. AMD just isn't investing enough.
- levesque 7y ago
  If you are using it as a working environment, you probably should stick to LTS releases.
- c0un7d0wn 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19282074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19282074
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  In theory, things should be better[1] (I have an nvidia card too, I will probably hold off for a few weeks). 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/04/15/ubuntu-19-04-delivers-a-welcome-surprise-for-nvidia-gpu-owners/#32163a243c93 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/04/15/ubunt...
  - sneakernets 7y ago
    We've said "things should be better" since GLX became a thing. The real problem is that every Linux-based OS is too stupid to realize when something in the windowing system is broken. Every time I upgrade Ubuntu, I run into a login loop where Xinit refuses to work, gets sacked, then redirects me back to the login screen. The fix is a simple one liner. I see the solution to my problem has 11k upvotes. The solution is 5 years old. It's been like this for almost a decade, and I haven't even gotten into Laptops with Integrated/Discrete "piggyback" setups. That nut still is not cracked. It's kind of sad.
jayalpha 7y ago
I never liked Unity nor Gnome. I use KDE but also like enlightenment distributions like Bodhi Linux. Would someone explain why to use Gnome? Just a habbit?
- petepete 7y ago
  It's better-looking and more consistent than KDE and more actively-developed than Enlightenment (which feels at best half-finished).
  - jayalpha 7y ago
    Moksha Deskop, based on a previous E version, is actively developed. https://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/ https://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/
- ufo 7y ago
  Well, some of us do like GNOME. I particularly love the Overview mode when you press the Super key.
- justwalt 7y ago
  I’m used to the exact setup it offers me. I built a keyboard with custom macros to interface with some shortcuts that the desktop offers and I’m very particular about having them all available. That alone isn’t a deal breaker, it’s not very difficult to replicate all the tweaks that I prefer, but I also have a 144hz monitor and Gnome has some of the best support for that that I’ve found. I don’t like having my window manager lagging behind, and the combination of the two leave basically only Gnome in the intersection. Besides, in my experience, there isn’t a huge benefit in changing either. I try new options now and then and never feel like I’m missing out.
berbec 7y ago
Is the promised land of a pure snap distro, devoid of apt, still "just around the corner"?
- wmf 7y ago
  I don't see that ever happening; the amount of work needed would be enormous and the breakage would be epic. Even in Fedora land, Silverblue still uses RPMs to build OSTree layers.
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  If you're not wedded to the snap ecosystem, you can have this with Fedora Silverblue, which uses flatpak instead of snap.
- jcastro 7y ago
  It's been around a while now: https://www.ubuntu.com/core https://www.ubuntu.com/core
brightball 7y ago
Wait...I can't get automatic security updates anymore if I install this? Am I misreading that?
- e12e 7y ago
  I'm not entirely sure what canonical guarantees in terms of "security" updates, but non-lts releases do get updates - just for a shorter window than lts releases.
  - brightball 7y ago
    This update just warns that it disable LivePatch. I've never seen that in a release before.
    - e12e 7y ago
      I guess it makes sense that live patch is (primarily) supported on lts releases?
- AgentME 7y ago
  LivePatch is a service that offers hot-patching running systems with security updates, so they don't have to be rebooted. It's entirely separate from normal updates.
mehrdadn 7y ago
Does anybody know why this happens when I try to do-release-upgrade 18.04 in WSL? I didn't have trouble going from 16.04 to 18.04... $ do-release-upgrade Checking for a new Ubuntu release Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [819 B] Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,243 kB] Fetched 1,244 kB in 0s (0 B/s) authenticate 'cosmic.tar.gz' against 'cosmic.tar.gz.gpg' extracting 'cosmic.tar.gz' [sudo] password for $USER: $
- trogdor3000 7y ago
  You have to add a flag to get off of the LTS brach, Maybe '-d"? Both 16.04 and 180.04 are LTS. the next LTS will be 20.04
  - mehrdadn 7y ago
    Thanks, but nope that's not the issue, I've already done both. It's just failing to do anything for some reason. $ do-release-upgrade -p -c Checking for a new Ubuntu release New release '18.10' available. Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.
    - e12e 7y ago
      I'm not sure if do-release-upgrade supports skipping releases, except for going from lts to lts? In other words, it might either: 16.04 -> 18.04 -> 20.04, or 18.04 -> 18.10 -> 19.04. But not 18.04 (lts) -> 19.04?
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        I think it should: https://askubuntu.com/a/240189 https://askubuntu.com/a/240189
        e12e 7y ago
        Actually, that answer seems to imply that "skipping" is just for lts>lts?
sebastos 7y ago
>new Ubuntu 19.04 Oh sweet, did they make NetworkManager not garbage? >no Cool, cool. I do appreciate some of the other updates though. A little user-friendly support for Nvidia cards is a welcome add, and the latest Gnome is looking sexy.
indigodaddy 7y ago
What happened to the xx.10 releases? They still do that?
- Arubis 7y ago
  Yes, each October.
- teach 7y ago
  Every October. They only do long-term-support (LTS) releases every two years, and those are always in April, so you're reading references to the most recent LTS release, 18.04. I'll be upgrading to 19.04 from 18.10, though.
terryschiavo22 7y ago
Does anyone have a recommendation on which version a total noob should install?
- AsyncAwait 7y ago
  If you like to try a new type of working environment, the main Ubuntu with GNOME is a solid choice. GNOME is actually pretty great. If you're more looking for familiarity coming from Windows, go with KDE and their Ubuntu-based distro, Neon - https://neon.kde.org https://neon.kde.org - Also, I have to mention, If what you want is the latest & greatest, want continual updates, great setup for multimedia & gaming etc. try https://manjaro.org https://manjaro.org - this is not based on Ubuntu, but rather on a distro called Arch, however the advantages are that you're always getting the latest software & as a result there's much better support in terms of the latest GPU drivers etc. Many are afraid of occasional instability that can come with fresh software that Manjaro ships, which is something to consider, but it hasn't been a problem from what I've seen.
  - mrwebmaster 7y ago
    I've been using XFCE for years. It worked better in my old computer. Now I have a fast i7 w/8GB now and still using old XFCE with Ubuntu. Am I missing a lot?
    - AsyncAwait 7y ago
      If Xfce works for you, not really. :-) On the other hand, am not sure things like GTK2 etc, would make a good first impression on a new user such as the OP.
- e12e 7y ago
  If you want to try Ubuntu, try the latest long time support release (currently 18.04). All Ubuntu (and indeed most major Linux disto) releases come with a "live image" - so there's no reason to start off with an actual install - it's easy to boot off an USB and play around.
- 7y ago
Andrex 7y ago
Looks great! The screenshots really made me pine for the days of using Ubuntu as my daily driver circa ~2010, right before the (IMO detrimental and pointless) switch to Unity instead of Gnome 3. Giving Unity up and switching back to Gnome was such a step in the right direction. Look how big that feature list is because they can lean on Gnome's development! This represents open source at its best.
jammygit 7y ago
I noticed the update mirror uses http. In my inexperience, I'm not sure whether this introduces a MitM vector or not. Can anybody comment?
- anowlcalledjosh 7y ago
  Not exactly the same, but: https://whydoesaptnotusehttps.com/ https://whydoesaptnotusehttps.com/ tldr: if you verify the download against a trusted PGP key, it doesn't matter where the download actually came from.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    Thanks!
  - sneakernets 7y ago
    It does matter if you're behind a dumb corporate firewall that doesn't care what you're requesting, unless it's not going through HTTPS. Why yes, this is dumb. Why yes, I can't do anything about it. This is why having an https path matters.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
    Which is, IMHO, a ridiculously short-sighted approach that ignores the difference between theory and practice. If there is a vuln in (or before) the GPG signature check, using HTTPS has a good chance of making it a lot harder to exploit (because the attacker will likely need to get into a trusted position instead of MitMing any HTTP connection).
corn13read 7y ago
Call me when they switch back to Mate
anderspetersson 7y ago
Default python3 version is now 3.7. Upgraded and found python performance improvement over py3.6 to be quite significant.
brightball 7y ago
Gnome is A LOT snappier after the update. Update was very simple and quick too. I especially appreciate being able to set the flag to avoid disabling every PPA.
sneakernets 7y ago
I dunno what Ubuntu did, but Filesystems tab in gnome task monitor is now completely useless. It's filled with virtual file systems from packages that I will never ever care about accessing in this way, and they can't be hidden. Why? Whyyy why why.
- justwalt 7y ago
  Might those be snap packages? It sounds like a similar annoying I had, where df would be filled with /dev/loop entries, multiple for each snap package, to the point where 20% of the lines were actually useful. That was enough for me to purge every snap package from my install and remove the snap core altogether.
  - sneakernets 7y ago
    This is exactly what it was. It has since been purged from my system. Thank you!
radarsat1 7y ago
So many complaints here. I just want to say that I love Ubuntu. It's the perfect combination of the sturdiness of Debian combined with easy access to a sprinkling of proprietary apps that I need on a regular basis. Thanks Ubuntu!
- ramy_d 7y ago
  We don't say thank you enough :( Thanks Ubuntu!
- panpanna 7y ago
  Thanks Ubuntu! (heading to their gift shop to support them by more than words... )
yNeolh 7y ago
I have been using Windows and Mac for years now, and Ubuntu on servers. Yesterday I made a dual boot between Windows 10 and Ubuntu 19.04 and I have to say... It's been pretty awesome, almost everything was configured out of the box, I have 3 monitors and this works almost as good as W10 (Maybe the way to arrange windows could improve). For now I will use it as my main Desktop OS and I will just change to W10 for the games. Very happy with it, good job Ubuntu and Linux teams! :D

244 points by logix 7y ago

siriniok 7y ago

Does anyone still use good old Unity? :)

someguy101010 7y ago
I liked it a lot, really didn't understand the community hate for it. At first it was not nice but it was pretty nice before it was deprecated.
- siriniok 7y ago
  Agree. The last versions were pretty and (still) very stable.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Was because of the slow screen refresh, and the shitty metro look that announces "im like windows, but poorer".
- Liquix 7y ago
  Never had any qualms with the design, it was just too heavy for most machines I run ubuntu on. Felt like a laggy remote desktop connection.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  I think it was too simple and non-customizable for Linux user's taste, but it was that same simplicity that made it a perfect OS for a public computer or for parents who only use simple apps.
- zanny 7y ago
  When it came out it was a substantial UX regression from Gnome 2 and it took a few releases to even reach feature parity. The same thing has been seen with KDE 4 and 5, Gnome 3, and how long LXQT has taken. Users hate experience regressions passionately, and will actively hate projects that depreciate or replace their workflows, sometimes for years, and sometimes forever.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  I can't understand any of it. Its looked the same to me for years and years. Other distros look a little different but nothing substantive is actually different that I ever notice.
- avhon1 7y ago
  When Unity first became the default DE on Ubuntu, it was unusably slow and buggy on my computer. (This was actually an improvement -- in the previous release, Unity would immediately crash, so I had only seen it in pictures and videos.) Gnome 3 Classic was still available as a fallback, but it still wasn't the same (to many changes, to much CPU), so I switched distros. (I didn't know enough at the time to install a DE myself.) At the time, I was quite unhappy at Canonical for making their OS so difficult for me to use. I felt that I was being totally left behind, with a machine that was just old enough that it wasn't worth it to them to support it. 1 or 2 years later, I tried a newer release of Ubuntu on that machine. Unity was definitely more stable than before, but it was still frustratingly slow, and had sprouted the weird, unwanted amazon search feature. I continued to be disappointed that the default install of Ubuntu had become so needlessly graphics-intensive, and haven't played with it since. --- One other gripe with Unity -- I really didn't like how it thought that applications were more important than windows. It was difficult to switch between 2 or more windows of the same applications on the same desktop. The icon on the taskbar just showed a tiny arrow for each window. You had to hover over it before it would show buttons (icons? previews?) of each window that you could select. Alt+Tab was the same. You could only rotate between applications, but if you held it down for a moment, it would show the windows of that applications, and there was some way to pick between those on the keyboard. I really didn't like that. I would often have 2 or more terminals open, or text editors, or file browsers, and I would want to switch to the one that I had least-recently used, and I would have to do this whole dance of pulling up the application, waiting to see the individual windows, and finally picking the one I wanted. The 2-3 seconds that took were very frustrating, since I knew that I had used to be able to hit Alt+Tab a couple of times to go directly to the window I wanted. I have the same frustration every time I have to use an apple computer. It bugged me enough that I read through the keyboard shortcuts settings and learned about Cmd+Tilde, which helps, but is still very frustrating. I want a window! Why does it take two different kinds of keyboard shortcuts to get to the window I want! --- Between those two troubles, I am happy to have avoided using Unity.
Mikeb85 7y ago
Old Unity? No. New Unity (Gnome Shell), yes.
rafaelfers 7y ago
Yes, I still use it on ubuntu 16.04. I Will stay with this version until the eol
- siriniok 7y ago
  I'm using it on 18.04, works perfectly.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    IIRC 18.04 is supposed to be an extra extra extended release, so it's a good one to get comfortable with.
- dgivney 7y ago
  Me too, I spent 3 days with 18.04 and promptly downgraded again.
p_man 7y ago
Of course. Fractional scaling.
- opencl 7y ago
  GNOME 3.32/Ubuntu 19.04 allegedly adds fractional scaling for Wayland sessions but it doesn't work for me (doesn't show up in settings).
dopeboy 7y ago
After discovering Cinnamon, I haven't been able to go back.
- freedomben 7y ago
  Cinnamon is a truly underrated DE. I don't use it anymore (now that I have most of the Gnome 3 shortcuts memorized, I love it) but Cinnamon took the gorgeousness of Gnome 3 and mashed it up with the classic functionality of Gnome 2. Why the community rallied around MATE and not Cinnamon I will never understand.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  Question: do you ever feel like Cinnamon isn't as responsive as it could be? I was using Cinnamon (first on Linux Mint and then on Manjaro) for a few months before the release of Gnome 3.32. I've switched to Gnome 3.32 and it feels much more responsive than Cinnamon. In particular cycling windows and doing anything while a notification is being displayed. I really wish Cinnamon didn't stutter as much. It's the right amount of "desktop" I need.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    IIRC Cinnamon still does compositing, so maybe you've gotten stuck on the software only path? This can happen when drivers get blacklisted for example. I use it on one of my laptops and it's been pretty smooth for me.
  - dopeboy 7y ago
    I sense it too - it's just sluggish enough for me to notice.
benttoothpaste 7y ago
Unity is still available but needs to be installed explicitly (apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop).
- finchisko 7y ago
  which version is available? unity8?
sandov 7y ago
I do. I haven't upgraded from 16.04 because I like Unity.
chrismonsanto 7y ago
I do and have no plans to switch from it. The constant UI flux is the worst part about using Linux.
- Rooster61 7y ago
  This is why I personally like MATE. I remember when they switched from Gnome 2 to Unity, and I just stopped using Ubuntu until I discovered Mint, which I installed with MATE and the rest was history. I've moved on from Mint, but the fact that the MATE dev community took the tried and true paradigms learned from Gnome 2 and made kept them alive in spirit won me over. I installed Ubuntu MATE to a box just the other day.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    I remember the switch. That's when I switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu, where I still am.
  - freedomben 7y ago
    Ubuntu MATE is a phenomenal distro. For VMs and lower resource machines it is always my go to. Not to imply that it isn't valuable on high end machines (it is), but I personally really like Gnome 3 these days once I got used to it's way of doing things.
- jjrh 7y ago
  Never got this complaint. Just because something different is installed by default doesn't mean you can't install something else (or use one of the many _buntu's to make life a little easier) A constant window manager is actually one of the strong points of linux. Lot of people still use twm.
  - mort96 7y ago
    When someone complains that they enjoyed using DE X, and the distro switches to DE Y, they get told that they can just install and keep using DE X. When they later come asking about issues they're having related to DE X, they get told that it's not officially supported and that they should probably switch to DE Y. Both responses on their own are perfectly reasonable, but it's understandable if users get a bit frustrated.
eitland 7y ago
Weird to see anyone talk about "good old" Unity. I'm getting old enough to belive you. For me however while I can believe it I really really cannot understand it: it broke my workflow in a number of ways by default and unlike Gnome 3, Unity was next to impossible to reconfigure to something I could use productively. It is actually somewhat of a learning experience for me to see something I almost despised be missed by a number of people. I think two easy conclusions should be "different strokes for different folks" and "make your software configurable".
reddotX 7y ago
yep on 19.04 works fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmJPjfenEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmJPjfenEo sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop
levesque 7y ago
Even though the switch happened a long time ago, I still have a strong dislike for Gnome Shell. It might be irrational at that point since I've had plenty of time to get used it and I can't pinpoint an exact reason why I dislike it so, but it just irks me. I think the default theme deserves part of the blame. How can it still be so ugly? Unity was beautiful and behaved more naturally IMO.
Kipters 7y ago
I do and I have no plans to switch away from it. If/when it won't work on Ubuntu anymore I'll probably switch to Plasma, but for sure I'm not going to switch to Gnome. I have a desktop i7-7700 with 32 GB of ram and an RTX 2060 and Gnome still feels sluggish
- freedomben 7y ago
  Interesting, I have almost the same system (slightly different Nvidia card) and Gnome feels very quick and responsive to me. Maybe I need to try out unity again
artworx 7y ago
Its still the smoothest DE on my old Acer laptop from 2012. It never misses a frame and gets out of the way maximizing the space for the applications. Out of the box its not very configurable, but install compiz settings manager and its very good.

cuu508 7y ago

> Tracker is installed by default And is a dependency of Nautilus – cannot remove tracker but keep Nautilus :-(

mbrumlow 7y ago
What is "Tracker" -- it does not sound good...
- jayalpha 7y ago
  Did not know either. "Tracker is installed by default with Ubuntu 19.04. Tracker is a filesystem indexer, metadata storage system and search tool" So no real privacy issue here or anything. But load on the system may be annoying. Boloo should be the KDE equivalent and I don't like it. PS: Yes, this stuff can be annoying: " It wasn't installed by default until now due to performance concerns, but those issues seem to have been resolved."
  - eitland 7y ago
    Isn't the KDE equivalent named Baloo?
    - commoner 7y ago
      Yes. https://community.kde.org/Baloo https://community.kde.org/Baloo
    - jayalpha 7y ago
      Yes, and it is annoying. For finding stuff I use recoll. Not sure if baloo has also other uses.
      - zanny 7y ago
        Its not that annoying because you can go into the Search settings page of system settings (or just search for "search" in any of the various launchers) and turn it off with a checkbox.

liquidify 7y ago

What does optional GCC 9 mean? I've really been hoping for a major GCC update.

spydum 7y ago
Maybe simply that you can install Gcc9 package?
no_wizard 7y ago
This is typically an indicator that its upgradable via an apt install. For reference, a quick search on launchpad appears that yes, this is now the case for Disco: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-9 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-9 `sudo apt-get install gcc-9` away!

Iv 7y ago

And here again, of course, they are going to change the behavior of default shortcuts in a totally unnecessary way (Alt-Tab, really?) and move settings in different places so that all of stackoverflow's answers become obsolete. They also mention a "better" multi-monitor support. that scares me. I have a multi-monitor setup that works. I could do with a few more options but it works. Every change of behavior has required me to whack down some quirks. I am pretty sure the behavior when booting/rebooting with our without the screen connected, with or without the power plugged, is going to change in a way they found "logical, practical and intuitive" and that will waste me a few hours of correcting.

OrgNet 7y ago
> Alt+Tab handling now switches windows by default. Switching applications by default can be done with Super+Tab So if you have multiple windows of the same application, it will now switch between them? that's a good thing and that's how it used to be a while ago
- liquidify 7y ago
  I don't understand what the problem was. Alt tab to get to the program, then alt tilde to get to the window. It was a very natural feeling action.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    It's the difference between MacOS or Windows default behavior. Alt-tab between windows has always been the default on Windows, and it was the default for most open source window managers for a long time too. I believe Gnome changed their default to follow how MacOS worked a few years back. Now it seems Ubuntu is reverting back (or is this a Gnome change again?). Different people prefer different defaults. Personally I can't stand the MacOS version, and for the few years I used MacOS, it drove me nuts. That said, I don't use Ubuntu, so this doesn't matter to me either way.
    - isostatic 7y ago

sharno 7y ago

I understand how hard it is to improve an open source software to get to be on the same level of proprietary ones, but it seems that Gnome took multiple steps backwards, or rather maybe the ubuntu adaptation of it. I saw multiple UX hiccups and small missing functionalities that makes me wonder when would a DE reach the full maturity to stay as it is with small improvements and doing what's intended to be done. For the time being I think KDE is a more stable and functional DE than Gnome, hope Gnome returns to its glorious days soon though.

cheald 7y ago
I love modern KDE. I've been running Kubuntu for the last year or so and just adore it.
pas 7y ago
I can understand that GNOME wanted to migrate off of C for the non-core things, so they cut down features. Now if you need something you can write a plugin in JS. It has advantages, and of course disadvantages too. (The expressiveness of the plugin API is naturally lacking compared to possibilities of built-in features, but with time that can/will change.)
- Lorkki 7y ago
  Right now the main disadvantage is that GNOME Shell is single-threaded, and handles not only those JS extensions, but also essential tasks like window compositing. This means that a misbehaving extension can freeze the whole desktop, which is especially bad on Wayland where that includes the mouse cursor and input processing. I still prefer GNOME for the rest of its UX, but if you ask me, the next rewrite can't happen too soon. Edit: I noticed that some of the new improvements seem to be addressing just this, so what I'm saying may be out of date in regards to the latest version.
hathawsh 7y ago
I understand why Ubuntu doesn't switch the default to KDE; there's too much history and people would recoil at such a big change. That said, I always run Kubuntu rather than the default Ubuntu desktop and I'm really happy with it. Switching to KDE is almost as smooth as it can possibly be: once I have Ubuntu installed, all I have to do is "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" and then choose KDE at login. Some of the reasons I really like KDE: * I have keyboard shortcuts for switching desktops; I feel much more productive with 9 easily accessible virtual desktops. I use the "windows" key, sometimes called "meta": meta-Q, meta-W, meta-E, meta-A, etc. * I've added rules for automatically changing the window title bar colors to make it easier to distinguish between very similar-looking windows. My Sublime Text windows in particular have a different bar color for each project. Sometimes I have as many as 4 projects open at once. * I can lay out and enhance my screen any way I like. KDE doesn't quibble and even encourages it.

jammygit 7y ago

Installed this last night a couple of hours early. Compared to 18.04, boot times and the ui seems a lot snappier because of some gnome updates. This was the reason I did the upgrade so I'm pretty happy. Haven't tested on my laptop yet though.

sahaskatta 7y ago

Has anyone tried it out on the Dell XPS 13 (9370 or 9380)?

jammygit 7y ago
I will update an xps 13 later today. I'll try to remember to post about it.
- jammygit 7y ago
  So far at least, working great with no issues. In the case of the xps, I reinstalled from scratch instead of upgrading. Apparently things often use 16% less battery now too based on some benchmarks I read. Its been about 3.5 hours I guess and I've went through half my battery wile downloading packages and browsing, and haven't set up powertop or tlp yet. Its a lot snappier than before. I know that before I had an issue with resume from suspend where the machine was just slow on waking, haven't used it enough to tell if its still happening though. xps-9360
ayoisaiah 7y ago
I upgraded on a 9360 this afternoon, and I haven't noticed any problems thus far.

jwr 7y ago

I really hope that some day Ubuntu will have enough power&steam to attack the Clipboard Problem. It is the #1 issue that makes me dislike working with a Linux desktop. Consistent system-wide clipboard behavior with consistent keyboard shortcuts. Look to Mac OS for an example of how to get this right. And I don't even need graphics/media support in the first iteration: just get me basic plaintext copy/paste.

massive-tea 7y ago
Linux (really X Windows) has the best clipboard: select text to "copy", middle click to "paste".
- jwr 7y ago
  Yes, I also had this smug attitude, having used the X terminals (the real ones, as in physical X terminals) back in 1994 or so, and then using X11 on various machines and operating systems since then. Then I started using Mac OS X and I realized that it's actually nice to be able to select text and NOT have it auto-copied obliterating my clipboard, but instead be able to replace it using Command-V. And it's a pretty cool invention that the same shortcuts work in all applications, consistently. And that I can copy text in any application and paste it in any other using the same shortcut. And that I don't have to use the middle mouse button, which is a scrollwheel these days and is difficult to hit without invoking the scroll functionality. And it's pretty nice to be able to paste to where the cursor is RIGHT NOW without carefully positioning the mouse pointer and making sure it doesn't move while you carefully try to hit the middle button (otherwise your text will get inserted wherever the mouse moves in the meantime, if you are in a browser edit window). I could go on. There are so many things which can be done better if we drop the "the way X11 did this is the best way, ever" attitude. And then, eventually, once we get text copy/paste right, we can get to copying images, which again is a totally solved problem on Mac OS X.
  - massive-tea 7y ago
    X has the manual clipboard as well, though. It's always worked for me. Do you have any specific examples of where it fails? > is a totally solved problem on Mac OS X. It's solved there because it's a walled garden. It's essentially a different problem that they've solved. The problem here is making that work while still being the free software operating system we love.

modeless 7y ago

Updating is going to be a huge pain. It always is, for one reason: Nvidia. I need CUDA for ML, and nouveau is so bad anyway that 18.10 wouldn't even boot on my machine when I tried to install it. It's guaranteed that if I upgrade right now I will be troubleshooting black screens, hangs, and compiler incompatibilities for hours if not days in an attempt to install a working set of ML tools including up to date drivers and CUDA. It's sad that one required proprietary component ruins the whole experience. But there's no other option for ML research. AMD just isn't investing enough.

levesque 7y ago
If you are using it as a working environment, you probably should stick to LTS releases.
c0un7d0wn 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19282074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19282074
blacksmith_tb 7y ago
In theory, things should be better[1] (I have an nvidia card too, I will probably hold off for a few weeks). 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/04/15/ubuntu-19-04-delivers-a-welcome-surprise-for-nvidia-gpu-owners/#32163a243c93 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/04/15/ubunt...
- sneakernets 7y ago
  We've said "things should be better" since GLX became a thing. The real problem is that every Linux-based OS is too stupid to realize when something in the windowing system is broken. Every time I upgrade Ubuntu, I run into a login loop where Xinit refuses to work, gets sacked, then redirects me back to the login screen. The fix is a simple one liner. I see the solution to my problem has 11k upvotes. The solution is 5 years old. It's been like this for almost a decade, and I haven't even gotten into Laptops with Integrated/Discrete "piggyback" setups. That nut still is not cracked. It's kind of sad.

jayalpha 7y ago

I never liked Unity nor Gnome. I use KDE but also like enlightenment distributions like Bodhi Linux. Would someone explain why to use Gnome? Just a habbit?

petepete 7y ago
It's better-looking and more consistent than KDE and more actively-developed than Enlightenment (which feels at best half-finished).
- jayalpha 7y ago
  Moksha Deskop, based on a previous E version, is actively developed. https://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/ https://www.bodhilinux.com/moksha-desktop/
ufo 7y ago
Well, some of us do like GNOME. I particularly love the Overview mode when you press the Super key.
justwalt 7y ago
I’m used to the exact setup it offers me. I built a keyboard with custom macros to interface with some shortcuts that the desktop offers and I’m very particular about having them all available. That alone isn’t a deal breaker, it’s not very difficult to replicate all the tweaks that I prefer, but I also have a 144hz monitor and Gnome has some of the best support for that that I’ve found. I don’t like having my window manager lagging behind, and the combination of the two leave basically only Gnome in the intersection. Besides, in my experience, there isn’t a huge benefit in changing either. I try new options now and then and never feel like I’m missing out.

berbec 7y ago

Is the promised land of a pure snap distro, devoid of apt, still "just around the corner"?

wmf 7y ago
I don't see that ever happening; the amount of work needed would be enormous and the breakage would be epic. Even in Fedora land, Silverblue still uses RPMs to build OSTree layers.
LeoPanthera 7y ago
If you're not wedded to the snap ecosystem, you can have this with Fedora Silverblue, which uses flatpak instead of snap.
jcastro 7y ago
It's been around a while now: https://www.ubuntu.com/core https://www.ubuntu.com/core

brightball 7y ago

Wait...I can't get automatic security updates anymore if I install this? Am I misreading that?

e12e 7y ago
I'm not entirely sure what canonical guarantees in terms of "security" updates, but non-lts releases do get updates - just for a shorter window than lts releases.
- brightball 7y ago
  This update just warns that it disable LivePatch. I've never seen that in a release before.
  - e12e 7y ago
    I guess it makes sense that live patch is (primarily) supported on lts releases?
AgentME 7y ago
LivePatch is a service that offers hot-patching running systems with security updates, so they don't have to be rebooted. It's entirely separate from normal updates.

mehrdadn 7y ago

Does anybody know why this happens when I try to do-release-upgrade 18.04 in WSL? I didn't have trouble going from 16.04 to 18.04... $ do-release-upgrade Checking for a new Ubuntu release Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [819 B] Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,243 kB] Fetched 1,244 kB in 0s (0 B/s) authenticate 'cosmic.tar.gz' against 'cosmic.tar.gz.gpg' extracting 'cosmic.tar.gz' [sudo] password for $USER: $

trogdor3000 7y ago
You have to add a flag to get off of the LTS brach, Maybe '-d"? Both 16.04 and 180.04 are LTS. the next LTS will be 20.04
- mehrdadn 7y ago
  Thanks, but nope that's not the issue, I've already done both. It's just failing to do anything for some reason. $ do-release-upgrade -p -c Checking for a new Ubuntu release New release '18.10' available. Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.
  - e12e 7y ago
    I'm not sure if do-release-upgrade supports skipping releases, except for going from lts to lts? In other words, it might either: 16.04 -> 18.04 -> 20.04, or 18.04 -> 18.10 -> 19.04. But not 18.04 (lts) -> 19.04?
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      I think it should: https://askubuntu.com/a/240189 https://askubuntu.com/a/240189
      - e12e 7y ago
        Actually, that answer seems to imply that "skipping" is just for lts>lts?

sebastos 7y ago

>new Ubuntu 19.04 Oh sweet, did they make NetworkManager not garbage? >no Cool, cool. I do appreciate some of the other updates though. A little user-friendly support for Nvidia cards is a welcome add, and the latest Gnome is looking sexy.

indigodaddy 7y ago

What happened to the xx.10 releases? They still do that?

Arubis 7y ago
Yes, each October.
teach 7y ago
Every October. They only do long-term-support (LTS) releases every two years, and those are always in April, so you're reading references to the most recent LTS release, 18.04. I'll be upgrading to 19.04 from 18.10, though.

terryschiavo22 7y ago

Does anyone have a recommendation on which version a total noob should install?

AsyncAwait 7y ago
If you like to try a new type of working environment, the main Ubuntu with GNOME is a solid choice. GNOME is actually pretty great. If you're more looking for familiarity coming from Windows, go with KDE and their Ubuntu-based distro, Neon - https://neon.kde.org https://neon.kde.org - Also, I have to mention, If what you want is the latest & greatest, want continual updates, great setup for multimedia & gaming etc. try https://manjaro.org https://manjaro.org - this is not based on Ubuntu, but rather on a distro called Arch, however the advantages are that you're always getting the latest software & as a result there's much better support in terms of the latest GPU drivers etc. Many are afraid of occasional instability that can come with fresh software that Manjaro ships, which is something to consider, but it hasn't been a problem from what I've seen.
- mrwebmaster 7y ago
  I've been using XFCE for years. It worked better in my old computer. Now I have a fast i7 w/8GB now and still using old XFCE with Ubuntu. Am I missing a lot?
  - AsyncAwait 7y ago
    If Xfce works for you, not really. :-) On the other hand, am not sure things like GTK2 etc, would make a good first impression on a new user such as the OP.
e12e 7y ago
If you want to try Ubuntu, try the latest long time support release (currently 18.04). All Ubuntu (and indeed most major Linux disto) releases come with a "live image" - so there's no reason to start off with an actual install - it's easy to boot off an USB and play around.
7y ago

Andrex 7y ago

Looks great! The screenshots really made me pine for the days of using Ubuntu as my daily driver circa ~2010, right before the (IMO detrimental and pointless) switch to Unity instead of Gnome 3. Giving Unity up and switching back to Gnome was such a step in the right direction. Look how big that feature list is because they can lean on Gnome's development! This represents open source at its best.

jammygit 7y ago

I noticed the update mirror uses http. In my inexperience, I'm not sure whether this introduces a MitM vector or not. Can anybody comment?

anowlcalledjosh 7y ago
Not exactly the same, but: https://whydoesaptnotusehttps.com/ https://whydoesaptnotusehttps.com/ tldr: if you verify the download against a trusted PGP key, it doesn't matter where the download actually came from.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Thanks!
- sneakernets 7y ago
  It does matter if you're behind a dumb corporate firewall that doesn't care what you're requesting, unless it's not going through HTTPS. Why yes, this is dumb. Why yes, I can't do anything about it. This is why having an https path matters.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  Which is, IMHO, a ridiculously short-sighted approach that ignores the difference between theory and practice. If there is a vuln in (or before) the GPG signature check, using HTTPS has a good chance of making it a lot harder to exploit (because the attacker will likely need to get into a trusted position instead of MitMing any HTTP connection).

corn13read 7y ago

Call me when they switch back to Mate

anderspetersson 7y ago

Default python3 version is now 3.7. Upgraded and found python performance improvement over py3.6 to be quite significant.

brightball 7y ago

Gnome is A LOT snappier after the update. Update was very simple and quick too. I especially appreciate being able to set the flag to avoid disabling every PPA.

sneakernets 7y ago

I dunno what Ubuntu did, but Filesystems tab in gnome task monitor is now completely useless. It's filled with virtual file systems from packages that I will never ever care about accessing in this way, and they can't be hidden. Why? Whyyy why why.

justwalt 7y ago
Might those be snap packages? It sounds like a similar annoying I had, where df would be filled with /dev/loop entries, multiple for each snap package, to the point where 20% of the lines were actually useful. That was enough for me to purge every snap package from my install and remove the snap core altogether.
- sneakernets 7y ago
  This is exactly what it was. It has since been purged from my system. Thank you!

radarsat1 7y ago

So many complaints here. I just want to say that I love Ubuntu. It's the perfect combination of the sturdiness of Debian combined with easy access to a sprinkling of proprietary apps that I need on a regular basis. Thanks Ubuntu!

ramy_d 7y ago
We don't say thank you enough :( Thanks Ubuntu!
panpanna 7y ago
Thanks Ubuntu! (heading to their gift shop to support them by more than words... )

yNeolh 7y ago

I have been using Windows and Mac for years now, and Ubuntu on servers. Yesterday I made a dual boot between Windows 10 and Ubuntu 19.04 and I have to say... It's been pretty awesome, almost everything was configured out of the box, I have 3 monitors and this works almost as good as W10 (Maybe the way to arrange windows could improve). For now I will use it as my main Desktop OS and I will just change to W10 for the games. Very happy with it, good job Ubuntu and Linux teams! :D