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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)

• thdrdt 7y ago
  Most reviews are very positive. Faster, better, Amazon removed, maybe the best Ubuntu release until now. The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. I doubt this would ever happen, but that would be huge. Most people stick on Windows and MacOS because Adobe software is not available on Linux. Personally I switched back from Xubuntu to Ubuntu. And I must say: Ubuntu is back on track!
  • iforgotpassword 7y ago
    I use Ubuntu at work. Chromium is now snap only, and snap crapped itself with some error messages that didn't immediately lead to a solution when thrown into Google. Firefox was my main browser anyways so not too a great loss but oh man...
    • aritmo 7y ago
      They ramped up the security in Chromium and it is not identical to the old package. It is too much security that hurts ease of use.
    • cies 7y ago
      There is a way, which I documented here: https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chrome https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chrome I also use FF primarily, but sometimes I need Chrome (chromium actually, I should fix that).
      • iforgotpassword 7y ago
        Thanks for that. A little hacky but worst thing that can happen is it just doesn't run I guess... URL is now https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/blob/master/chromium https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/blob/master/chromium for the curious.
  • gerdesj 7y ago
    "It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal." There's another way?
    • capableweb 7y ago
      Oh yeah, used to be at least two more ways. Not sure which one of these are not possible but anymore, but you used to be able to do: 1) Synaptic package manager which is a GUI for searching and installing .debs. My first exposure to a package manager when I first installed Ubuntu some 12 years ago. 2) Simply double-clicking on the file, opening the Gdebi (I think?) UI for installing that specific .deb file.
      • jakear 7y ago
        In my experience, simply double clicking on the file never actually worked for installing debs. The UI would pop up, give me a nice pleasant "Install" button, but clicking it would either no-op, crash the UI, show a progress bar that stalled out, or act like everything worked perfectly but not actually install it. Command line install works flawlessly every time.
        • capableweb 7y ago
          Judging by your other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954061) you were using Software Center for the installing. Gdebi was working fine back before Software Center.
          • jakear 7y ago
            I was using whatever popped up in a default Ubuntu VM when I double clicked a .deb file. If they've chosen to make that not the best software for installing .deb's... lets just say I can see why people say Linux distributions tend to be user-unfreindly.
            • capableweb 7y ago
  • Iolaum 7y ago
    Snap packages are the reason I moved from Ubuntu Mate to Fedora Mate. I use free software to own my computer, if it decides on its own when to update like snaps do that defeats the purpose.
    • cies 7y ago
      Does that distro use flatpacks? I also hate snap with a passion, but I dont think flatpack will be better, what are your thoughts on this?
      • Iolaum 7y ago
        No, fedora Mate has no flatpaks by default. I do use them on my machine though. They are not as integrated to the system as snaps on Ubuntu but they update only when I tell them to and I like the additional security benefits of the flatpak project overall.
        • cies 7y ago
          I think security wise it got worse. With traditional package repos someone still does some due diligence. Also it's not clear what's going on, and that is a huge prerequisite for security.
  • Legogris 7y ago
    This, for me, marks the release when (somewhat unfortunately, 18.04 LTS has been good) I will not use Ubuntu for any new installations - desktop or server. I can see how snaps are beneficial for novice desktop users who want an AppStore-like experience, but how do they see people adopting this for Ubuntu Server?
    • iameli 7y ago
      Apt isn't going anywhere. What changed for you on the server side?
      • Legogris 7y ago
        A couple of packages (specifically which slip my mind) that either were only available as snaps and not in the main apt repos, or had way older versions in the apt repos. At that point, there's no reason to not run debian instead.
        • Kudos 7y ago
          I'd like to understand which packages, I've had no packages I need disappear. I'm skeptical that the packages are actually missing to favour snaps, and not simply renamed or replaced.
          • Legogris 7y ago
            My guess is more attention and focus on snaps and increasing neglect maintaining the deb repo.
      • oefrha 7y ago
        Just upgraded on my non-essential home server, and apparently lxd is only available via snap now, for whatever reason. https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=lxd&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=lxd&searchon=nam...
        • 7y ago
  • Jonnax 7y ago
    I've not used Snap, Flatpack, Appimage and all the other types of app packaging tools before. What are the benefits? Are they effectively like bundling an application with all its dependencies? Is it a way of running "native" apps instead of in a docker container? What should I and shouldn't be using it for?
    • bjoli 7y ago
      They claim that it does sandboxing, which to my knowledge was never actually activated in any meaningful way. I have used flatpaks on fedora which was nice, and I also built some which was quite painless. I hate that I can't launch them from the terminal like usual though.
      • brtln 7y ago
        It is possible, flatpak exports shell wrappers for binaries at /var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin and ~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin. It uses application ID for security reasons though.
      • jamieweb 7y ago
        You're right regarding the sandboxing. Snaps use 'plugs' to add sandbox exceptions that can be configured by the package author and enabled at install time, e.g. to allow access to your home area or the network. Even if the sandboxing may technically prevent the package escalating to root or whatever, this is a fairly moot point on a personal computer as everything valuable is probably in your home area.
    • readwind 7y ago
      The negatives, of snap, at least, was that most apps became 'un-skinned,' and looked like unthemed things you'd launch directly in an X11-session so they look like their base-worst, and so on, in my experience. - The first Ubuntu LTS I tried that had snap even had problems with the [snap-packed] calculator, which for some dumb reason was a snap-app instead of a .deb, I'm talking the main included/internal calc-app, and the VLC snap-package I tried was totally unskinned, due to being snap'ped I suppose, as the ppa and etc .deb versions of VLC certainly was and looked better. Now I am on EndeavourOS, an arch-based distro, easy to use and set up, and this is due to snap being introduced in Ubuntu directly, plus not wanting the ppa chase-game, and et cetera. It's just an/my opinion(s), and certainly not a pointer. Just being objective from my own perspectives, here. Got nothing against Ubuntu or anything, it's a free world, thankfully, still.
  • bragh 7y ago
    I hope the HiDPI support is improved now. Right now, when I use fractional scaling on 19.10, none of the display settings get saved and so after a restart, I have to readjust all of the layout, orientation and scaling for displays. Pretty annoying for a dual-boot triple display system. edit: Nevermind, seems that it got even worse for my case: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1870736 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mutter/+bug/1873403 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mutter/+bug/187340...
    • encom 7y ago
      Try using mixed DPI displays. My main display is 27 inch 4K display, and on the sides I have old 19 inch 1280x1024 displays, used for IRC, music player, process monitor, email etc. Stuff I glance at from time to time. _NOTHING_ supports this setup properly. Even Windows has bugs galore as soon as you mix high and low DPI displays. I don't believe anyone ever tests this scenario. I've learned to tolerate and work around the Windows bugs, but I've never gotten it to work at all in any Linux desktop environment I've tried.
      • Aeolos 7y ago
        I am using a 1200p, a 1800p and a 2160p monitor side-by-side on MacOS and it works fine. The 2160p monitor is rotated to portrait mode for reading/writing text documents. I can hotplug a monitor and it will automatically switch to the right layout, remembering the correct location for all open windows. I am using a 1080p and a 2160p on ArchLinux/Wayland/Gnome3. It's not perfect, but it's not unusable either (compared to X11, which was completely broken).
      • jrockway 7y ago
        I use a 1440p display at 100% and a 4k display at 175% on Windows and it works fine. The only bug that I see is that if a window is spanned across two monitors, it picks the scaling based on which monitor contains more of the window. I'm not even sure that's a bug, it's just how it has to be done. (My first mixed DPI setup was actually on ChromeOS. That got around the issue by not letting a window span monitors. Actually a somewhat elegant workaround, since it didn't let you do that before HiDPI support ;) Windows and the applications I use even handle the different refresh rates of my monitors pretty well. I have a 165Hz main monitor and a normal 60Hz monitor. Apps are aware of the framerate differences when I move them around. It wasn't always good, but as time goes forward applications and Windows itself handles HiDPI better and better. (FWIW, I haven't had any problems on Ubuntu... except that letting the monitors go into power saving mode resets the display scaling override. That was with 18.10, though. I use an Ubuntu VM under Hyper-V now... begrudgingly.) Having said that, I am not a GUI power user by any means. On Linux, all I ever use are a browser, terminal, and Emacs. On Windows, I use CAD software and games (and a browser, terminal, and Emacs). It all works well enough for me.
  • safgasCVS 7y ago
    Sorry I’m not adding anything to the conversation here, but have they removed that strange ‘swipe-up to login’ gesture at the start screen?
    • renewiltord 7y ago
      I don't believe my 19.04 login manager does that. I do recall that being annoying because my first keystroke would actually just move that up. Now it starts up to the user list by default.
      • Izkata 7y ago
        I'm still on 18.04, and it doesn't do it. I remember it in an older version though.
    • Joeboy 7y ago
      I don't know if they've removed the ability to do it. I don't think you've ever had to do it. You can just hit space, or just start typing your password from the lock screen.
      • readwind 7y ago
        Yeah you can just start typing your password, last time I tried Ubuntu, at least. Or press any key, and the prompt should appear. Even pressing ctrl could work. But any character-key should be the key, in my experience.
    • bmaupin 7y ago
      Yes: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/ubuntu-20-04-release-features https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/ubuntu-20-04-release-fea...
  • curt15 7y ago
    >Ubuntu is also researching if they can get Adobe on board. Where did you hear about this?
    • Vinnl 7y ago
      They mention it here, but it's pretty non-committal: https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-20-04-survey-results https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-20-04-survey-results > Adobe Photoshop (Illustrator®, Acrobat and Creative Cloud®) were asked for over a hundred times. (...) bringing these kinds of tools and applications to Linux is an ongoing effort.
  • Jean-Philipe 7y ago
    > The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. I don't get why they're doing that. Snaps have mostly created problems for me, like they don't scale when other apps do, or the styling is off, or they don't show up properly in the software manager. The snap daemon on one of my laptops always blocks the shutdown by 30 seconds. Generally a rather confusing experience.
    • turbinerneiter 7y ago
      I'm on Fedora where the equivalent is called Flathub/Flatpaks. There are definitely some rough edges still, but the possible upsides are amazing for me. It makes it way easier for a developer to release for different Linux-flavors. The applications get sandboxed and there is much less risk to mess up your system. Stuff like permission, similar to Android/iOS becomes possible. There for sure is problems to: it makes it way easier for a lazy developer to ship ancient libraries without security fixes, the "packages", now images, are much larger and the quality check of the packager gets sidestepped. And, as always when you try something new, it gets worse before it gets better. But I think the idea is good and I hope for the best.
      • mcny 7y ago
        My understanding is snap and flatpak are not equivalent at all because snap is more permissive whereas flatpak is sandboxed. Specifically, it is not possible to do gpg signed commits from flatpak (e.g., jetbrains idea) without tweaks upstream. I agree with the overarching idea though: it gets worse before it gets better. See wayland and how we still can’t capture display in obs. I am a little torn on this. Should the onus to “fix” be on jetbrains and obs? I personally think no where possible. Replacements should be drop in without effort or at least with clear guidance and not too much effort on behalf of individual applications.
        • stubish 7y ago
          Snaps are sandboxed. They can be granted extra privileges, such as access to $HOME, camera, bluetooth etc. Some of these interfaces such as $HOME can be gained automatically by any snap. Others need to be granted by Canonical (to automatically grant access on install), or manually granted by the user post install. There is also a 'classic' mode where the app is unsandboxed, which again needs to be granted by Canonical and in addition requires explicit acceptance by the user when being installed.
  • davb 7y ago
    So far, I'm very impressed with 20.04 on my personal laptop (a Thinkpad L390). HiDPI works better out-of-the-box (I didn't actually need to enable scaling manually, but did have to add a Chrome and Teams .desktop file with --force-device-scale-factor=1.2). Power management is much better out-of-the-box too (I've gone from 2-3h battery to 4-8h depending on workload, rivalling what I see under Windows). But you're right about Snaps. I love the concept (easier distribution, fewer dependency issues especially if you're a few years into the lifecycle of an LTS release) but they're not, in my opinion, production-ready yet so it's frustrating to see them pushed by Ubuntu. The main issues we have are the slow startups compared to non-snap apps (which is felt more acutely on old hardware with spinning disks) and the fact that they don't work if /home lives on an NFS server. That rules out their use for many academic and enterprise deployments.
    • usr1106 7y ago
      oh, I am suprised you praise HiDPI support. I could not make emacs work resonably. It does not react on the widely documented Xft and GDK_DPI_SCALE settings as in other distros. I am on Xubuntu though if that makes a difference. And I have not tried for a couple of weeks. There have been many package updates since I tried last.
      • davb 7y ago
        I actually tried installing xubuntu-desktop first (and then plain old xfce) as I fancied switching back to them after a few years using Gnome. But you're definitely right that out-of-the-box, XFCE HiDPI support was lacking. Widgets (panels, icons, etc) and fonts all scaled fairly independently, and I gave us after manually resizing a few elements. On Ubuntu 20.04 (with Gnome), it just worked (with the exception of Chromium/CEF/Blink based applications like Chrome and Teams, which needed the aforementioned command line argument to scale them). I actually had to undo most of the scaling changes that came across with my restored home folder. The one other thing I had to change was the Terminal font as the default was a little too small to use comfortably on my laptop screen - I opted for Liberation Mono Regular, 12pt (px?) with 1.10x height. As a former long-time XFCE proponent, I recommend you give Ubuntu + Gnome a try. It's the best it's been since the Gnome 2 days, and is no-where near as power hungry as it has been in recent years. The most power-hungry application I'm running is Evolution, where the webkit process that renders HTML email frequently gets out of control and burns 40% CPU until I restart it (I'd use Thunderbird but the Lightning plugin https://github.com/ExchangeCalendar/exchangecalendar https://github.com/ExchangeCalendar/exchangecalendar to handle Exchange calendar stopped working with recent versions of Thunderbird some months ago).
  • coinerone 7y ago
    The only thing that holds back my Employer to switch to Linux for 6500+ Desktops is Microsoft Office and full MS Exchange compatibility. The Collegues who need Adobe Products just have to work with Apple Machines anyway.
    • Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
      Just switch to LibreOffice. The dependency on .docx/.xlsx is an overblown propaganda. I personally had a business in 2007..2011 that replaced windows for Linux. All that time I heard that same old song again: "But but MS Office is so essential!". Turned out, not so much, on over 5000 PCs in several dozen companies. Update: business eventually failed, for one simple reason - Ubuntu Linux is too freaking stable. The idea was transferring customers to Ubuntu, and have them pay a monthly service fee to do maintenance and fixes. And we have soon discovered that a properly configured GNU/Linux desktop PC can run for YEARS without maintenance at all. Customers had it figured out too and opted to do one-time fees when something goes wrong, and it just wasn't sustainable.
      • Kipters 7y ago
        You'd lose the realtime collaboration features though.
      • sparkling 7y ago
        Ignoring format issues, LibreOffice just feels extremly slugish for me. I get little freezes all the time, the UI is laggy and startup time is pretty bad too. I came to dislike it so much that i prefer to edit things in Google Docs over LibreOffice .
        • readwind 7y ago
          I haven't tried it but some people say 'OnlyOffice' is a better branch than libreoffice, it seems to support MS-Office standards better, but, as I said I've never tried it. Only trouble these people had was with certain fonts, but I guess the remedy would be to choose embed all fonts upon saving and sharing, if that helps, then perhaps OnlyOffice, desktop version, is an option, for some. I plan to try it, although I use my old office-versions, in a vm, for now.
  • curt15 7y ago
    >The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. The graphical "gnome software" software installer was replaced in the default install by a snap-only fork named "Snap Store" with no support for Flatpak (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/snap-store/+bug/1871944 https://bugs.launchpad.net/snap-store/+bug/1871944). Were there some technical reasons for this move or was it a business decision to kneecap the other package format?
    • zyga 7y ago
      IIRC GNOME removed support for snaps from gnome-software so this was the only way forward.
      • majewsky 7y ago
        No. Canonical absolutely has the resources to make an appstore that supports all three package formats (dpkg, flatpak, snap).
      • brtln 7y ago
        It's not true. GNOME Software still ships Snap plugin. It's Canonical that decided to fork gnome-software and provide it under different name without competition plugins enabled.
      • curt15 7y ago
        According to git, gnome-software snap support still seems to be actively developed: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/commits/master/plugins https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/commits/mast...
  • cies 7y ago
    I hate snap. It makes my system less predictable, increases load times, makes UI stuff look ugly, obfuscates process monitoring, hogs memory, cannot deal with files in /tmp (and I happen to use /tmp a lot), makes if hard to do audio (like connecting a mic to Chromium)... I can go on. But in 2019 versions of buntu it could still be removed: https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap I found a way to use Debian packages reliably on buntus with a trick that is shown here for Chromium: https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chrome https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chrome If this snap thing continues to invade the *buntus I will move away from them. For now I still like the combination of stable + up-to-date + familiar (Debian based), but --as others have said-- the snap thing goes against why I choose to use open source.
    • suby 7y ago
      Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about Flatpak?
      • cies 7y ago
        Have not tried that. Maybe I should, but im on Debian-style distros for so long (and use 'm on servers and such) that I dont really want to learn the basics again. Also, from my RPM days I remember essential (pgk mgmt) tools changing way too often for my taste. Also I'm a KDE/Qt kinda person, and the RPM ecosystem was mostly GTK based.
        • r3ll 7y ago
          You can install flatpaks on many distros, including Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Kubuntu, et cetera. I have some flatpaks on a Kubuntu laptop I maintain for a family member and installation was about as smooth as it is on my own fedora machine. I use cli exclusively though so ymmv if you prefer gui(Edit: Exclusively use CLI for sysadmin).
      • imglorp 7y ago
        On that note, what requirements pushed Ubuntu to select snap over flatpack?
  • markosaric 7y ago
    Nice release! The latest Gnome included (3.36) is so much smoother and faster!
  • timClicks 7y ago
    Snaps are significantly safer for users and easier for publishers to produce. The styling issues and so forth occur because of a security-first mindset. [Disclaimer: work for Canonical, but not on the Snapcraft team]
    • FpUser 7y ago
      As a user I do not care about publisher's convenience. They should solve their own problems without making users the victims of said convenience. As for "safer" - I'll buy this argument when you get rid of slow startup, bloat and other problems associated with snap.
    • enriquto 7y ago
      > because of a security-first mindset. I would believe you here if snap was not an auto-updating system. This is about the least security-first mindset that it can be; it has a single, gaping, point of failure, after which an attacker may get hold of millions of user's computers without action by their part.
  • tannhaeuser 7y ago
    Idk, since 10.04 I've appreciated that Ubuntu is as far as a mainstream Linux desktop distro as it gets and just works (I used to run various distros including RH/CentOS, Debian, Suse, Gentoo, and also FreeBSD). But I'm on the brink to leave (maybe towards Void Linux, Debian/Devuan, or back-to-Slackware) because the things I care about have atrophied (lightweight DE, real Unix environment) while crap (snap, systemd, gnome-shell, invasive command-line suggestions) has taken over. On 19.10 gnome-shell really gets in the way for me. And Unix command line utilities I'm using all the time stopped working for me (for example, even vim on Ubuntu 19.04 comes with broken syntax highlighting OOTB, and annoingly and incompetently inserts tabs and spaces where there must be none, something I haven't seen any vi implementation doing for over 30 years; also, awk rejects complex regexpes all of a sudden on 19.04). I know there are other 'buntus shipping with alternatives for gnome-shell but for me the point is/was that there is a large installed base eliminating glitches, which however isn't the case for alternate 'buntus any more than it is for non-'buntus. I also don't see the benefit of yet another packaging format; the point of a desktop distro should be to deliver a consolidated set of shared libs rather than going nuclear and ship everything in fscking containers, especially when there are exactly zero new desktop apps coming out these days (with the exception of Chrome which I'd rather install containerized, and which I only use for website testing, my main browser being FF anyway).
    • bmaupin 7y ago
      > On 19.10 gnome-shell really gets in the way for me. Xfce is a nice alternative to GNOME 3 that reminds me a lot of GNOME 2.
  • usr1106 7y ago
    > It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Oh, I did not even notice that during 4+ weeks on the unreleased Xubuntu Focal because I never use anything else but the command line to install software. But the target audience Ubuntu is wider, so I think that is a very bad change. One might think they have learned from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 , but obviously not. Well, formally they declared bug #1 solved, but few would agree that the Linux desktop has won. How does the snap "repo" compare to the Ubuntu repos in terms of count? I would have guessed it's orders of magnitude. Even if many of the packages might not be useful for those requiring an installation GUI.
    • readwind 7y ago
      One can dpkg -i , but, how about dependencies? I always had a problem with that. Whenever the app-store didn't work, which usually pulled-in all deps, I just naively used dpkg -i pkg.deb, and chased all the deps manually, through google. I have done that at least. Thank god for arch. No politics/"religion(s/*)" intended.
      • usr1106 7y ago
        apt is your friend. Or apt-get if you prefer old school. Or aptitude if you are willing to learn something pretty powerful.
        • readwind 7y ago
          huh how well does that work with individual downloaded *.deb packages? You're probably right, but, the included repos are usually full of outdated versions, if you get a too-new deb, from some experimental site, in terms of Ubuntu freshness, and then no pkgs in the repo will have a new enough version. (In terms of dependencies for the local exteriorally-gotten base pkg.deb and it's deps,) I guess ppa's are a thing, but, yeah, good to be off this train, no disrespects to Ubuntu, if it picks up I will surely be glad, and even, chances are slim, ever use it again. We're all friends, let's say yes to progress, in general, in the right directions.
  • flavor8 7y ago
    > The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. Another solution to this (aside from synaptic, command line, other clients) is to use Kubuntu (which has an apt based package manager called Discover, much improved in this release over prior versions). KDE still doesn't work great on tablets, but in all other respects it's a lot nicer than Gnome. Spend 30 minutes tweaking it to your preferences after install (apt install kubuntu-desktop) and you'll have a desktop that does exactly what you need it to. (You could also install KDE Neon, which packages latest stable KDE with a LTS Ubuntu core.)
  • BiteCode_dev 7y ago
    I understand the hate for snap (and flatpak) and I personally use deb as much as I can, but they are the right move. Yes, right now it's a subpar experience. But you need to deploy it now to be able to improve on it and have it as the default in the future. And I believe it's a better future, because: - packaging a deb is difficult. I've done it, and it's a lot of complicated hard work you get to repeat for every release for anything that is not a simple program. Snap and flatpak are very easy to build and support accross releases. This will increase the number of software that will be provided to Linux. In fact, it already has. - the permissions model we have on our phones is very hard to replicate on Linux, yet something like this proves more and more necessary. SELinux and Apparmor are too low level. Snap and flatpak make it easy to make sandboxed app and request permissions by abstracting those. What's more, they make it ovious for the user to know that the apps it uses are sandboxed and the permissions they use. It will take a few years before we get a streamlined experience with snap and flatpak, and it will be at the cost of a bit of performance and disk space. For now they feel bloated, are not necessarily more secure, and are less well integrated. But in the end, it will make the Linux ecosystem more user friendly.
    • readwind 7y ago
      I agree with almost everything you say, and, yes, people used IIS, windows, as webservers, only not-long ago, so, let's hope for progress. Totally agreed.
      • breakingcups 7y ago
        I don't see what that has to do with the post you replied to.
        • readwind 7y ago
          I'll enlighten you. About twenty years ago people used IIS for web-servers, encumbered in costly licenses, for everything, and progress goes on. That's the point man. Time goes on, and things gets better. Hope you see now. That was the point, anyways. I really hope it helps. Progress goes on is just the general point. Nothing else intended. Should be clear enough.
  • jamieweb 7y ago
    > The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. My main concern with Snap is security. Using the default Ubuntu Apt repositories, I can `apt install` pretty much anything I want and it's almost guaranteed to not be malicious/dangerous, as only trusted/well-established developers can get their package into the Apt repos. However, with Snap, everybody in the world can publish any old rubbish in the Snap Store, including packages that typosquat the names of others. Snap's current 'protections' for this are mainly reactionary rather than preventative, which is far from satisfactory [1]. For me, the absolute key selling point of Linux over Windows/Mac is the secure-by-default and natively integrated package management. Pushing Snaps as the main package management method goes too close to the Windows way of just downloading random EXEs from the internet. I personally would like to see Apt remain as the default system package manager for all common/well-known software, with Snap existing purely as a 'community' repository for software that is known to be untrusted/unknown. [1] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/is-there-any-protection-against-typosquatting-on-the-snap-store/10815 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/is-there-any-protection-against...
    • ric2b 7y ago
      This could be fixed by separating the store into an "official" repo that only includes trusted apps and an opt-in "community" repo with the rest. It's not really an issue with snap itself.
      • O_H_E 7y ago
        It kinda is. Canonical explictly doesn't want to do that. The cli doesn't support any other server except canonical's.[1] Flatpack on the other hand, does support that structure out of the box, and a few projects are already using there own repos.[2] [1] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/external-repositories/176 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/external-repositories/176 [2] https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/repositories.html https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/repositories.html
    • modzu 7y ago
      there's debian!
  • miiiiiike 7y ago
    I've been using 20.04 since the early betas and Ubuntu since the first release. I haven't been this impressed with an Ubuntu release since that first install.
  • jki275 7y ago
    Most people stick with Mac and Windows because of MS Office, not Adobe.
    • saagarjha 7y ago
      Microsoft Office has fairly reasonable and popular browser-based alternatives. Adobe’s suite doesn’t.
      • jki275 7y ago
        Sort of, and only really starting in the last year or so, and still limited from the real version, but the market for adobe products among anyone who wants to use Linux is pretty much zero.
        • saagarjha 7y ago
          (I'm talking about Google Docs.)
          • jki275 7y ago
            Oh, well. Google Docs is simply not capable of business level work. Sorry. I thought you were talking about Office 365, which is significantly better, but still not up to par with the native applications.
  • sfifs 7y ago
    > It looks like deb files only can be installed via the terminal. That's a good thing! I can't wait for Deb installers to stop mucking about dumping random files all over my system. I also can't wait for the whole ppa nightmare which is the only way to get cutting edge versions of software by giving the right to muck about with the system to random packages on the internet to end.
  • maelito 7y ago
    What's keeping Adobe from releasing Photoshop for Ubuntu ? Convincing ? Or real technical difficulties ? Like recoding the interface ?
    • ric2b 7y ago
      They're probably just not willing to absorb the support costs for such a small market.
    • llcoolv 7y ago
      Colour profiles, display calibration.
  • peq 7y ago
    Some problems I had with Snaps: * Installed VScode. The terminal in VScode was in a different environment from the system terminal, so used different Python environments. Took me a while to figure out why installing a package was not working. * Installed Slack. When I click a link in Slack it opens a new Firefox process that does not have access to my normal profile, saved logins, etc. and is not shown as a Firefox window in the sidebar. In both cases I uninstalled the Slack version and installed the "real" version.
    • sojournerc 7y ago
      The new firefox on link click in slack can be guided by going to `about::profiles` or something like that, and making sure there's only one profile, and that it's default.
  • brnt 7y ago
    Does the snap store mean that much software was moved out of the apt repositories or is it also still available there as well?
  • foresto 7y ago
    > The only 'con' is the pushing of Snap packages. I am disappointed that snap still forcibly clutters everyone's $HOME with an extra directory[1] that cannot be moved or renamed. It was reported four years ago, and nearly a thousand people have joined the bug report. The glacial pace at which they're addressing this problem makes me hesitant to embrace snap. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053
• zeppelin101 7y ago
  "Fractional scaling does not work with the NVIDIA proprietary driver (bug 1870736, bug 1873403)." That's kind of a big deal for any desktop users with a high resolution display.
  • sho_hn 7y ago
    While I would agree it's certainly not insignificant, fractional means, say, 1.5.x. A nice high-resolution display will be 2x, which will generally result in a nicer experience (largely due to how software deals with it or not). Now many people do indeed have displays where a fractional multiplier works better, but as a buying rec - try to avoid them.
    • innocenat 7y ago
      You usually want 1.5x for 13.3" laptop with 1080p which is not uncommon at all and is kinda hard to avoid.
      • jhasse 7y ago
        I work around that by setting the default scale in the browser and that's it.
    • oefrha 7y ago
      The nice 2x high-resolution display is generally significantly more expensive (just compare 4k and 5k displays at 27’’), so the advice isn’t wrong, it’s just not very practical.
      • majewsky 7y ago
        > just compare 4k and 5k displays at 27’’ I have one of these, a Samsung U28E590D which I'm very happy with in every way. That thing cost me 220 € (purchased in Germany), so I don't see what's particularly expensive about 4K 27" displays at this point unless you have some very particular requirements about shortest possible reaction time or precise color calibration.
• 8bitsrule 7y ago
  Noticed the Xubuntu flavor has some graphics problems on some hardware combinations (as did 18.04 & 19.10).
• d99kris 7y ago
  Note that it's still in beta as of now. But it will (most likely) be released today.
  • aritmo 7y ago
    It is released in the afternoon. Someone posted the releae notes a bit too early.
• LeonM 7y ago
  Looking through the features Gnome 3.36 - X11 fractional scaling. I got all excited, because this means that now finally Ubuntu will be usable on my Lenovo X1E with High-DPI display. But then further down below: Fractional scaling does not work with the NVIDIA proprietary driver (bug 1870736, bug 1873403). OK, nevermind, back to Windows with WSL...
  • globular-toast 7y ago
    Throw your nVidia card in the bin and be free. After many years with nVidia I removed the card and I've been happily using Intel hardware for a year now.
    • LeonM 7y ago
      Lenovo X1E is a laptop... So removing the GPU will be a bit of a challenge ;) I thought of turning the GPU off under Linux, but external displays (through the thunderbolt port) can only be used with the nVidia GPU. I need external displays for my work, so disabling the nVidia GPU is not an option for me.
      • devit 7y ago
        You may be able to either: - Use Nouveau instead of the proprietary driver - Use a nested X/wayland server, which should then presumably support fractional scaling - Use non-fractional scaling and adjust font sizes
    • speedgoose 7y ago
      I guess you don't play videogames on your computer.
    • vesinisa 7y ago
      Desolder the NVIDIA card on a laptop?
      • panpanna 7y ago
• cHaOs667 7y ago
  The best news from an Ubuntu release is that a new Pop_OS! Release is available. Can't wait for the final release tonight!
  • sparkling 7y ago
    ... and a new elementaryOS release will be coming at some point!
  • zeppelin101 7y ago
    It's the best Ubuntu-based distro for desktop use!
    • throwlaplace 7y ago
      how well does workspaces work? are they at all close to workspaces on mac?
      • zeppelin101 7y ago
        I hate to say it, but I don't use workspaces. I use a number of window management keyboard shortcuts in place of it.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• renewiltord 7y ago
  It isn't released yet, right? My package manager isn't bumping up.
  • jpsnz 7y ago
    From the link, I had to run sudo do-release-upgrade -d to get mine to upgrade.
    • renewiltord 7y ago
      Thank you. Wow, they removed Python 2.7 huh? Had to clear out some packages to let that go through.
      • nsomaru 7y ago
        Python 2.x is EOL Jan 2020
        • renewiltord 7y ago
          Yeah but didn't think anyone would have the balls to do it haha.
          • Lev1a 7y ago
            IIRC Arch did that years ago.
            • bscphil 7y ago
              No, it was a few months ago, and it's still a work in progress: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/python2/ https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/python2/
      • jpsnz 7y ago
        No worries. Yep, that's an exciting change they've gone and made.
• doublesCs 7y ago
  For a long time I've been using Lubuntu on my laptop. However, a couple of years ago they changed focus and From wikipedia: Lubuntu was originally touted as being "lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient", but now aims to be "a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer" I stopped updating my OS since (I'm on 14). Does anyone care to suggest an ubuntu-like distribution for someone like me who wants their OS light?
  • frozenport 7y ago
    I use Gentoo at home and up until a year ago at work (when my replacement didn't want to deal with it).
  • Zhyl 7y ago
    If you're just looking for a DE/WM that's light on resources, I can definitely recommend tiling window managers like i3 [1]. I'm not sure what other changes would be in your sightlines given that you were happy with Ubuntu, but I usually go to the Arch wiki in those times to see what fat I can trim off of my setup. [1] https://i3wm.org/ https://i3wm.org/
    • fstephany 7y ago
      Regolith [1] is the perfect i3+Ubuntu combo for me. It comes with sensible default for a good i3 experience but you keep the Ubuntu "universality". [1]: https://regolith-linux.org/ https://regolith-linux.org/
      • chronolitus 7y ago
        I cannot recommend this enough for those looking to dip their toes in tiling managers. I would have saved a lot of time and trouble if I'd gone to Regolith directly, which I only did after spending hours trying to get i3wm into a useful (for me) DE, and realizing that Regolith was what I'd been trying to do all along. The good stuff from Ubuntu-gnome (easy-to-use common settings GUIs, utilities etc), + the good stuff from i3, well put together and simple to customize, i3-gaps by default, and easy to install. It also led me to discover i3blocks/i3xrocks which I didn't know I needed. here's an example of a i3xrocks script for bluetooth status in the tray. #!/bin/bash # how hard is it to find a bluetooth symbol in common fonts... # more icons at https://fontawesome.com/cheatsheet?from=io LABEL_ICON= #ᛒ # '' # #  # ᛒ LABEL_FONT="Material Design Icons" LABEL_COLOR=${label_color:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.label.color "#7B8394")} VALUE_COLOR=${color:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.value.color)} VALUE_FONT=${font:-$(xrescat i3xrocks.value.font)} PANGO_START="<span color=\"${LABEL_COLOR}\" font_desc=\"${LABEL_FONT}\">${LABEL_ICON}</span><span color=\"${VALUE_COLOR}\" font_desc=\"${VALUE_FONT}\">" PANGO_END="</span>" NCONNECTED=$(expr $(hcitool con | wc -l) - 1) echo ${PANGO_START}${NCONNECTED}${PANGO_END} if [ ! -z "$button" ]; then /usr/bin/i3-msg -q exec /usr/bin/gnome-control-center bluetooth fi
• laurentdc 7y ago
  Did they fix the dbus (?) bug that made some applications like FileZilla or VLC hang for about a minute on startup? [0] [0] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1184774/some-applications-on-ubuntu-19-10-very-slow-to-start https://askubuntu.com/questions/1184774/some-applications-on...
  • bArray 7y ago
    Not sure if it's related, but I have a nice bug with VLC where if I suspend my machine with it open, /var/log/syslog fills my main disk to the brim with error messages!
• rcarmo 7y ago
  Awesome. Now let's wait for Elementary to upgrade (all my Linux machines with a GUI run it)
  • driton 7y ago
    How is ElementaryOS doing nowadays? I used it for about a year a few years back and while gorgeous to look at, it had quite a few UI glitches.
• globular-toast 7y ago
  I wonder if we'll ever get /usr/bin/python back. Or is it going to be like browser user-agent strings where we call it "python3" forever and forget why we can't just call it python?
  • amelius 7y ago
    I guess it will break too many things, some of which may be out of control of Ubuntu.
  • markrian 7y ago
    You can install the [python-is-python3][0] package on 20.04, which symlinks /usr/bin/python to python3. [0]: https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/python-is-python3 https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/python-is-python3
    • globular-toast 7y ago
      I saw that, but it's not the default setting. You can't just write a python script and expect it to work on Ubuntu without putting python3 in the shebang.
  • py3canbelinked 7y ago
    apt-get install python-is-python3
  • e12e 7y ago
    I think the python team decided to do it that way, in combination with various distro?
    • Johnnynator 7y ago
      The python symlink is allowed to be python2 or python3. E.g. Archlinux has it point to py3, Void Linux allows the symlink to be configured by the user. See https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/ https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/ for details.
• clappski 7y ago
  I use Ubuntu via WSL2 when WFH (i.e. always, at the moment). I've ran into lots of issues trying to use snaps (e.g. for ccls) in WSL, because of the lack of systemd as PID 1. Does anyone know a robust way to get snapd running properly in WSL2? I would prefer to use whatever package there is than compiling everything that isn't packaged as .deb myself. In the case of ccls it's particularly annoying because I had to install the whole clang toolchain just to build it (which isn't typically on my dev machines, because the work I do is GCC-based).
  • simosx 7y ago
    There are guides for this at https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/wsl2 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/wsl2 That's the place where you can find any working solutions for WSL2 and Ubuntu.
• mehrdadn 7y ago
  Just tried upgrading on WSL and I got an endless loop of sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument Ctrl+C and then I get $ sudo apt --fix-broken install ... Setting up libc6:amd64 (2.31-0ubuntu9) ... Checking for services that may need to be restarted... Checking init scripts... Nothing to restart. sleep: cannot read realtime clock: Invalid argument dpkg: error processing package libc6:amd64 (--configure): installed libc6:amd64 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1 and I have no clue how to fix this. (Edit: Found a fix. [1]) For the life of me I don't get how people always say upgrades are so easy on Ubuntu. I practically never have a pain-free Ubuntu upgrade experience... never. And while this particular issue appears WSL-related, I'm not just talking about WSL. There's always some random things breaking in the middle. Update: After fixing that and upgrading everything, now I get this nonsense: The following packages have been kept back: libpython3.8 libpython3.8-dev libpython3.8-minimal python3.8 python3.8-minimal $ sudo apt-get install --upgrade python3.8 ... The following packages have unmet dependencies: python3.8 : Depends: python3.8-minimal (= 3.8.2-1+bionic1) but 3.8.2-1ubuntu1 is to be installed Depends: libpython3.8-stdlib (= 3.8.2-1+bionic1) but 3.8.2-1ubuntu1 is to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. $ sudo apt-get install libpython3.8-stdlib ... The following packages have unmet dependencies: libpython3.8-stdlib : Depends: libffi6 (>= 3.0.4) but it is not installable Depends: libreadline7 (>= 7.0~beta) but it is not installable [1] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4898#issuecomment-613385939 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4898#issuecomment-61...
  • TsiCClawOfLight 7y ago
    20.04 (well, modern glibc) is not compatible with WSL 1 due to missing bridges for a realtime-clock system call! Microsoft is working on a patch, but until then, you need WSL 2 or stay on the previous release.
  • Tade0 7y ago
    For the life of me I don't get how people always say upgrades are so easy on Ubuntu. They do? I just assume that I have to do a backup of my data, wipe the disk and install they new version. Ubuntu updates never worked for me.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• someperson 7y ago
  This is the first Ubuntu LTS release without a 32 bit version
  • e12e 7y ago
    Oh? I'll have to see if I can boot 18.04 on an old laptop I found. I think it was one of those mismatched efi vs arch things (32bit boot, 64bit cpu ?) - and last time I couldn't get it to boot... Maybe I can just run it as 32bit...
• philliphaydon 7y ago
  I've been running this since mid Feb at home. It's been rock solid. I've only had 1 issue (other than it never remembering default audio devices which I set manually to resolve) Snaps break all the time for me. I installed VS Code, after reboot I couldn't launch it, had to uninstall/reinstall. Fixed, reboot, broken. Installed it via terminal. 0 issues. Same with Slack, Chrome, and Skype, and anything else I tried with Snaps. Very happy with 20.04 so far.
  • llarsson 7y ago
    That sounds like a huge "1 issue", then, if Snaps are supposed to be the way forward for installing packages in Ubuntu as other threads make it seem.
    • philliphaydon 7y ago
      One thing that threw me off is Snaps are sandboxed. So I installed Slack, and I clicked on support ticket links and I had to sign in again. Cos when it loaded Firefox it loaded a separate instance of Firefox rather than re-using my existing open instance. So I've resorted to removing all the snap apps and installing them from terminal and no longer have any issues. I'm not sure who the target audience is for Snaps.
• llarsson 7y ago
  Hard to not read that code name as "fecal fossil". Sorry if you can't get that out of your head now. I know I can't.
  • simosx 7y ago
    You can, if you focus.
  • readwind 7y ago
    More people are getting the Limp Larynx feeling such as you do. I had the same thought, especially after snap, and all. So I agree.
  • CrLf 7y ago
    In portuguese I'm having a hard time not to read it as "fossa fecal" (~cesspool).
  • pnako 7y ago
    You can call it Ubuntu Coprolite as an informal name.
• Osiris 7y ago
  If you usual from scratch you can use ZFS as the root filesystem and until will automatically create snapshots before software updates. The feature is still experimental but has been working well for me during the beta period.
• FpUser 7y ago
  If I really need to sandbox anything I'll use the VM for that. As for the rest as a user I am staying away from bloat, slow startup and lots of other inconveniences of snap. This whole security thing is getting really annoying.
• williesleg 7y ago
  Switched to Debian Testing a few months ago, glad I jumped ship. Ubuntu is getting too close to Microsoft, and we all know what that means.
• turowicz 7y ago
  Any news on CUDA Drivers/Toolkit for 20.04?
• franky47 7y ago
  My first Ubuntu install was 7.04 Fiesty Fawn, a full alphabet circle ago, crazy how time flies.
  • scns 7y ago
    Mine too
• hn20180220 7y ago
  all sorts of apparmor issues, dhcp client doesn't even work out of box, need to run dhclient on every reboot https://pastebin.com/PUkH3Y1P https://pastebin.com/PUkH3Y1P with rtlsdr (RTL2832U) plugged in, every process gets blocked with nouveau, as soon as onboard HDMI (Intel) is connected, desktop becomes very sluggish and system locks up in a few minutes I am impressed it works at all on release day. Previous LTS releases are hardly usable until LTS .03
• ramboldio 7y ago
  I love how easy it is to install snaps. And no more including of PPAs of some developer whose apps seems nifty at first glance.
  • ramboldio 7y ago
    If only, not every snap would come with its own version of Chrome/Electron.. Would save lots of storage and potentially RAM.
• bkovacev 7y ago
  Was anyone able to run 18.04 or 20.04 successfully on a relatively modern desktop spec (AMD Ryzen 9 3950X / Nvidia 2080 TI / 32GB RAM / Custom water cooling) and two displays? I'm thinking of upgrading my development machine and running ubuntu only and I'm looking for some hints as to what could go wrong.
  • orbifold 7y ago
    Personally I won't upgrade until NVIDIA releases their next CUDA version officially for 20.04. Past experience leads me to believe that otherwise I can run into a few unpleasant surprises.
    • LandR 7y ago
      A couple of weeks ago I installed Ubuntu 18.04, it took hours to get it working fine. I had to install the properitary NVidia drivers but it kept locking the entire machine, sometimes 30 seconds after booting, sometimes a few minutes. Took hours of restarting and trying to get the drivers installed before it would hang to get it stable. Since getting them installed it's been solid. I'd now like to upgrade to 20.04, but not if I need to go through the whole ordeal of racing to get drivers updated before the system crashes.
  • e12e 7y ago
    It's at least easy to run live from USB, and see if anything pops out. Ed: i would probably go straight for 20.04 on a fresh install - but heed sibling comment about nvidia drivers. Might run fine on open source drivers until proprietary ones gets an update (fine, but slow).
  • patresh 7y ago
    Running an i5 9600K / 2x Nvidia 2070 / 64GB RAM on 19.10 and I managed to get to a fairly stable configuration. The only pain point was and has always been Nvidia drivers and CUDA stability. I have yet to find a consistent way to install the driver and CUDA version you want and lock them. A couple of weeks ago I installed Wine which deleted my CUDA packages. For now it's stable enough for a few months until I need to reinstall or tinker with something but maybe someone has suggestions for improving stability.
• iso1631 7y ago
  Ubuntu has been regressing on the server side for a while. 1804 introduced netplan, a proprietary wrapper around systemd-networking. Going back to /etc/network/interfaces is an uphill struggle, but it is required for some functions. This time they've removed debian-installer, so it's no longer a matter of a new kernel/initrd/preseed file. On top of that, the automation has only appeared in the last few days.
• wheresvic3 7y ago
  It does not look like it is available yet: https://releases.ubuntu.com/ https://releases.ubuntu.com/
  • ikeboy 7y ago
    It releases at 2100 UTC.
  • ataylor32 7y ago
    I see it at that address now. Also at https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/ https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/
• vermaden 7y ago
  Still no ZFS Boot Environments ... pity. Maybe in 2022.04 LTS then ...
• punnerud 7y ago
  I will definitely try this out: “Support for raspberry pi (Pi 2B, Pi 3B, Pi 3A+, Pi 3B+, CM3, CM3+, Pi 4B)”
• linsomniac 7y ago
  In the linked post they mention "ZFS Native Encryption", but (to save others the time I spent on it): Encrypted ZFS is not available in the installer. However, it will boot encrypted ZFS fine. If you boot the live image and modify a source file, you can install to an encrypted ZFS. I've documented what I had to do here: https://linsomniac.gitlab.io/post/2020-04-09-ubuntu-2004-encrypted-zfs/ https://linsomniac.gitlab.io/post/2020-04-09-ubuntu-2004-enc...
  • paines 7y ago
    Highly appreciated. Thanks!
• enriquto 7y ago
  is there an apt-file equivalent for available snap packages? I rely strongly on this tool and would be sad to lose its functionality if everything becomes snap-based.
• sireat 7y ago
  I fondly remember the free CDs in early Ubuntu days. Is it actually possible to buy an "official" USB/DVD of Ubuntu these days? When I say buy I mean most of money would go to support Canonical. There used to be such an option about 10 years ago but I guess there is very little demand. The world has moved onto mostly online distributions. For some reason I still do yearn for the world of "touchable" official software - the world of 6 foot long Borland C++ manuals. PS One of honorable sources - https://www.osdisc.com/ https://www.osdisc.com/ - closed last August
• xvilka 7y ago
  Finally with more recent (4.08.1)[1] OCaml version, even though significantly behind upstream (4.10.0 - was released in June 2019!)[2]. The problem with Debian and all distributions based on it, including Ubuntu, is the ancient versions of the software. [1] https://repology.org/project/ocaml/versions https://repology.org/project/ocaml/versions [2] https://ocaml.org/releases/4.10.0.html https://ocaml.org/releases/4.10.0.html
• AzzieElbab 7y ago
  Apparently everyone hates snap, while I hate Gnome, especially purple Gnome with oversized windows titles and borders
• diehunde 7y ago
  > In 20.04 LTS, the python included in the base system is Python 3.8. Python 2.7 has been moved to universe and is not included by default in any new installs. Finally.
• nairnkenedy 7y ago
  (1) After update to 20.04, my Ubuntu Software Store app wasn't there, and neither wad there an icon for Snap Store. (2) Aftet I installed snap-store, it showed me only 16 available apps rather than the umpteen which should have been there. I'm sure these are only intitial glitches, and I'll wait patiently for an update to fix the bug.
• joshuaellinger 7y ago
  Yesterday, I didn't know what Snaps were. I'm returning to Linux from years in Microsoft land. Used to use Solaris back in the 90s. I'm running big servers in a coloc environment (not desktop) but I want nice things like, oh Python 3, by default. Now, I know way more than I ever wanted to. So far, there have been two real pain points: 1. Netplan is a mysterious friend who occasionally rearranges my furniture when I'm not looking. 2. Snap is a young kid who wants to make help me get groceries but borrow my car to drive to the store. I'll leave netplan aside for a moment and focus on Snap. I got 20.04 to fail badly under KVM using either the just released version or the nightly build because Snap fails. I can see exactly where it fails thanks to Python (cool). It's in an error handler for a UI view that's reading a property that doesn't exist and it hoses the install (ouch). It appears to be triggered because I was testing an odd network configuration. Once something goes wrong, after that, every change just results in a one-line "apt-get fails" error message. But consider the implications... Canonical apparently doesn't have an automated testing system which checks how Snap behaves under failure conditions but they put it into the install process without protections around it. This feels pretty half baked....