15 ms·

Xubuntu 20.04

145 points by mmphosis 7y ago

greendave 7y ago
I've found xfce 4.14 to be a very nice update from 4.12 (which was in 18.04). Glad to see it will be getting a lot more exposure now via xubuntu.
- curious2 7y ago
  What were the nice parts? Curious on Xubuntu 20.04 now but to be honest I dont think I notice anything different than 18.04 or earlier
- xubuntu-fan-123 7y ago
  Does the Xubuntu 20.04 installer has ZFS install option as well?
  - tribaal 7y ago
    I just checked, and yes, the installer offers a "erase all disk and install ZFS" option (although it's flagged as experimental). I'm not sure whether that means encrypted ZFS or not though.
    - xubuntu-fan-123 7y ago
      Thank you very much. You saved me some bandwidth!
      - tribaal 7y ago
        I also checked the encryption status and the graphical installer option does not enable encryption on the created ZFS pools. All created pools have lz4 compression enabled, however.
pachico 7y ago
Definitely the best flavour. You guys help me resuscitate tons of old laptops for frustrated ex Windows users, which are very happy with now with their new OS. Great work!
- Eldandan 7y ago
  Here, here! I love Xubuntu. Of all the lighter flavors like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint/xfce, Xubuntu has been the one I had the best experience setting up for others on old thinkpads. And lately my go-to distro.
- DanTheManPR 7y ago
  It's never been perfect, but Xubuntu has been my secondary OS of choice for more than ten years now. It's Linux without the nonsense.
SethTro 7y ago
Looks like Ubuntu 20.04 came out 24 hours ago https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/ https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
znpy 7y ago
Long live XFCE!
- koolba 7y ago
  This made me smile.
ikurei 7y ago
> Users with AMD graphics may experience significant graphical issues Then, in the bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu/+bug/1873895 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video...): > This only happens when the secondary external display is operating at a different pixel width to the internal. Isn't this a fairly common usecase? My whole company works on high-density laptop displays connected to cheaper 1080p displays. It surprised me to see this kind of bug in a final Xubuntu release, although the bug report says the issue is in the AMD driver. * I love Xubuntu, I´ve always appreciated its stability, simplicity and flexibility. It has gotten a bit behind in features, when I use it now I miss a good Exposé-like feature, but it´s not that big of a deal. The thing that keeps me on Mac or Windows most of the time is solid support for high density displays. I can´t get Linux to look quite as good as Windows, and nowhere as good as MacOS, on a 4k display or retina display, without having to go very deep into experimental features and patches... and I don´t want to do that. Have you noticed that experience improving lately?
- tgtweak 7y ago
  Text rendering used to be a mess on Linux in general, even on the same browser and website. It's gotten better lately and focal looks pretty good out of the box. Gripes: Even on Ubuntu 20.04 I find that display resolutions jump around after initial setting which is very bizarre. I started testing in a VMware workstation vm and it never respects the resolution I set - always reverts back to 800x600 after a restart. Also on a bare metal 20.04 install with two gtx1080 and two screens it was a real mess getting even the welcome screen to display on the right monitor. Admittedly there's a lot of display connectors on that system but windows gets it right off the bat even with inbox drivers. Setting up remote desktop access using built-in screen sharing feature is not possible using the default install without having access to the ui... This makes it hard/impossible to do a remote install and get desktop without kvm/ipmi. Last gripe is if you want to use X/gdm instead of whatever Ubuntu has for x window compatability reasons, its a pretty big rabbit hole and stuff doesn't work well (login to a blank screen, hacking configs, UI breaks), understanding this is an unsupported setup, it's still an issues I ran into when trying to use window capture feature on ffmpeg for example.
- gindely 7y ago
cies 7y ago
What is Xubu's position on snap? It seems to be at odds with other design goals of this lovely distro. (I've used it for a while, but recently switch back to KDE as resource consumption of KDE dropped a lot and is now ballpark on par with Xubu's[1] yet gives me a lot more features an configurability) [1]: https://youtu.be/fo45bo1jvZI?t=78 https://youtu.be/fo45bo1jvZI?t=78
- stingraycharles 7y ago
  Isn’t snap entirely optional? I don’t understand why all of a sudden this is being brought up with each of these releases, as far as I know it was in Ubuntu for years already?
  - asicsp 7y ago
    as per [0] (see comments) Chromium is snap only, even if you do `apt install` [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954442
  - cies 7y ago
    Its installed by default and removing it leaves you with some apps (notably Chrome) missing. I found a way to remove snap[1] and get Chromium from Debian[2]. But I'm close to leaving the buntus over this drama (see [1] for my reasons to hate it). [1] https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap [2] https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chromium https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chromium
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - easytiger 7y ago
      Snap is total junk and needs to be binned. Also agree KDE has now finally got back to feature parity and the usability of KDE 2 in 2005.
    - 7y ago
w-m 7y ago
"Focal Fossa is a long-term support (LTS) release and will be supported for 3 years, until April 2024" Is this LTS release supported for 3 years, or until April 2024 (4 years)?
- flatiron 7y ago
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases my guess is the xubuntu team will stop supporting it in 3-4 but the base ubuntu will be the standard 5/10 from upstream
tga 7y ago
Oh great, a brand new LTS release, two years after the previous one. Let's see what wonderful new things it contains: Straight from the release note: # Highlights > A brand new dark theme was added > Six community wallpapers are bundled > We no longer ship Python 2 by default Amazing! So there is nothing else more interesting, worth highlighting in the current release?
- igetspam 7y ago
  You forgot "all the changes from the new Ubuntu 20.04 release," which is a lot. What Xubuntu does is provides an improved user experience on top of Ubuntu so their specific change log will always be rather slim. That's probably why you're being down voted.
  - tga 7y ago
    If Xubuntu is a separate distribution, it's safe to assume I'm not independently following Ubuntu and XFCE development -- sell me on the latest features I'll get to see when I upgrade from Xubuntu 18.04, no matter where they're coming from. The current approach makes it sound like Xubuntu is not worth the separate identity. It's just Ubuntu + upstream XFCE + six new wallpapers.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > A brand new dark theme was added 90s Desktop OS user would laugh at such a thing being considered a feature worth mentioning.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- tga 7y ago
  For reference, here what I find to be a better release post: https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-focal-fossa-release-notes/ https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-focal-fossa-release...
lexa1979 7y ago
So, what about the 32 bit libraries needed to run my Steam-Proton games ? I heard it was going to be removed from 20.04, is it real ? If I upgrade my 18.04 installation, will it keep it ?
- dindresto 7y ago
  No, the compatability libraries are still there and Steam and Proton will run fine.
- pizza234 7y ago
  Just restore the i386 architecture: dpkg --add-architecture i386 and you'll be able to install the i386 packages required. This also applies to (and is required by) Wine.
qwerty456127 7y ago
I just wonder how much time has to pass before XFCE stops picks up with the modern (Win7/8/10/Unity/KDE) task panel behaviour. There is DockBarX but this really is a thing which should be bundled by default nowadays. Windows 95 is not where any of the new users come from anymore.
gardaani 7y ago
They don't have a 32-bit version anymore. That's sad. I know that Ubuntu has dropped 32-bit support but I was hoping that Xubuntu would still provide it. Will the same happen for Lubuntu? Currently, there's a 32-bit version for 19.10, but they haven't released 20.04, yet. I have several 32-bit computers, so I need a 32-bit OS for them. Are there any good lightweight 32-bit distros left with long term support?
- qplex 7y ago
  I run Debian on my 32-bit netbook. Currently Debian offers installers for amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386, mips, mips64el, mipsel, ppc64el and s390x.
sccxy 7y ago
Screenshots page still uses 16.04... https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/ https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/ Why bother trying this distro, when developers even don't bother to update screenshots.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  Instead of been so dismissively negative perhaps let them know? Open source people tend to appreciate things like that? Fwiw xubuntu was my default Dev OS for years it's great and what I'd go back to if I didn't have cinnamon/fedora.
- cbHXBY1D 7y ago
  Yeah I'd like to see greybird-dark.
albertzeyer 7y ago
ikurei reports here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22966663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22966663) that it still uses Xorg? I thought that Wayland is standard since a while now? I haven't really followed up on that. Is that not the case?
MdAyq0l 7y ago
Is there anythng that prevents https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases from being updated concerning focal?

145 points by mmphosis 7y ago

I've found xfce 4.14 to be a very nice update from 4.12 (which was in 18.04). Glad to see it will be getting a lot more exposure now via xubuntu.

curious2 7y ago
What were the nice parts? Curious on Xubuntu 20.04 now but to be honest I dont think I notice anything different than 18.04 or earlier
xubuntu-fan-123 7y ago
Does the Xubuntu 20.04 installer has ZFS install option as well?
- tribaal 7y ago
  I just checked, and yes, the installer offers a "erase all disk and install ZFS" option (although it's flagged as experimental). I'm not sure whether that means encrypted ZFS or not though.
  - xubuntu-fan-123 7y ago
    Thank you very much. You saved me some bandwidth!
    - tribaal 7y ago
      I also checked the encryption status and the graphical installer option does not enable encryption on the created ZFS pools. All created pools have lz4 compression enabled, however.

pachico 7y ago

Definitely the best flavour. You guys help me resuscitate tons of old laptops for frustrated ex Windows users, which are very happy with now with their new OS. Great work!

Eldandan 7y ago
Here, here! I love Xubuntu. Of all the lighter flavors like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint/xfce, Xubuntu has been the one I had the best experience setting up for others on old thinkpads. And lately my go-to distro.
DanTheManPR 7y ago
It's never been perfect, but Xubuntu has been my secondary OS of choice for more than ten years now. It's Linux without the nonsense.

SethTro 7y ago

Looks like Ubuntu 20.04 came out 24 hours ago https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/ https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

znpy 7y ago

Long live XFCE!

koolba 7y ago
This made me smile.

ikurei 7y ago

> Users with AMD graphics may experience significant graphical issues Then, in the bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu/+bug/1873895 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video...): > This only happens when the secondary external display is operating at a different pixel width to the internal. Isn't this a fairly common usecase? My whole company works on high-density laptop displays connected to cheaper 1080p displays. It surprised me to see this kind of bug in a final Xubuntu release, although the bug report says the issue is in the AMD driver. * I love Xubuntu, I´ve always appreciated its stability, simplicity and flexibility. It has gotten a bit behind in features, when I use it now I miss a good Exposé-like feature, but it´s not that big of a deal. The thing that keeps me on Mac or Windows most of the time is solid support for high density displays. I can´t get Linux to look quite as good as Windows, and nowhere as good as MacOS, on a 4k display or retina display, without having to go very deep into experimental features and patches... and I don´t want to do that. Have you noticed that experience improving lately?

tgtweak 7y ago
Text rendering used to be a mess on Linux in general, even on the same browser and website. It's gotten better lately and focal looks pretty good out of the box. Gripes: Even on Ubuntu 20.04 I find that display resolutions jump around after initial setting which is very bizarre. I started testing in a VMware workstation vm and it never respects the resolution I set - always reverts back to 800x600 after a restart. Also on a bare metal 20.04 install with two gtx1080 and two screens it was a real mess getting even the welcome screen to display on the right monitor. Admittedly there's a lot of display connectors on that system but windows gets it right off the bat even with inbox drivers. Setting up remote desktop access using built-in screen sharing feature is not possible using the default install without having access to the ui... This makes it hard/impossible to do a remote install and get desktop without kvm/ipmi. Last gripe is if you want to use X/gdm instead of whatever Ubuntu has for x window compatability reasons, its a pretty big rabbit hole and stuff doesn't work well (login to a blank screen, hacking configs, UI breaks), understanding this is an unsupported setup, it's still an issues I ran into when trying to use window capture feature on ffmpeg for example.
gindely 7y ago

cies 7y ago

What is Xubu's position on snap? It seems to be at odds with other design goals of this lovely distro. (I've used it for a while, but recently switch back to KDE as resource consumption of KDE dropped a lot and is now ballpark on par with Xubu's[1] yet gives me a lot more features an configurability) [1]: https://youtu.be/fo45bo1jvZI?t=78 https://youtu.be/fo45bo1jvZI?t=78

stingraycharles 7y ago
Isn’t snap entirely optional? I don’t understand why all of a sudden this is being brought up with each of these releases, as far as I know it was in Ubuntu for years already?
- asicsp 7y ago
  as per [0] (see comments) Chromium is snap only, even if you do `apt install` [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22954442
- cies 7y ago
  Its installed by default and removing it leaves you with some apps (notably Chrome) missing. I found a way to remove snap[1] and get Chromium from Debian[2]. But I'm close to leaving the buntus over this drama (see [1] for my reasons to hate it). [1] https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup#remove-snap [2] https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chromium https://github.com/cies/kubuntu-setup/tree/master/chromium
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - easytiger 7y ago
    Snap is total junk and needs to be binned. Also agree KDE has now finally got back to feature parity and the usability of KDE 2 in 2005.
  - 7y ago

w-m 7y ago

"Focal Fossa is a long-term support (LTS) release and will be supported for 3 years, until April 2024" Is this LTS release supported for 3 years, or until April 2024 (4 years)?

flatiron 7y ago
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases my guess is the xubuntu team will stop supporting it in 3-4 but the base ubuntu will be the standard 5/10 from upstream

tga 7y ago

Oh great, a brand new LTS release, two years after the previous one. Let's see what wonderful new things it contains: Straight from the release note: # Highlights > A brand new dark theme was added > Six community wallpapers are bundled > We no longer ship Python 2 by default Amazing! So there is nothing else more interesting, worth highlighting in the current release?

igetspam 7y ago
You forgot "all the changes from the new Ubuntu 20.04 release," which is a lot. What Xubuntu does is provides an improved user experience on top of Ubuntu so their specific change log will always be rather slim. That's probably why you're being down voted.
- tga 7y ago
  If Xubuntu is a separate distribution, it's safe to assume I'm not independently following Ubuntu and XFCE development -- sell me on the latest features I'll get to see when I upgrade from Xubuntu 18.04, no matter where they're coming from. The current approach makes it sound like Xubuntu is not worth the separate identity. It's just Ubuntu + upstream XFCE + six new wallpapers.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> A brand new dark theme was added 90s Desktop OS user would laugh at such a thing being considered a feature worth mentioning.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tga 7y ago
For reference, here what I find to be a better release post: https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-focal-fossa-release-notes/ https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-focal-fossa-release...

lexa1979 7y ago

So, what about the 32 bit libraries needed to run my Steam-Proton games ? I heard it was going to be removed from 20.04, is it real ? If I upgrade my 18.04 installation, will it keep it ?

dindresto 7y ago
No, the compatability libraries are still there and Steam and Proton will run fine.
pizza234 7y ago
Just restore the i386 architecture: dpkg --add-architecture i386 and you'll be able to install the i386 packages required. This also applies to (and is required by) Wine.

qwerty456127 7y ago

I just wonder how much time has to pass before XFCE stops picks up with the modern (Win7/8/10/Unity/KDE) task panel behaviour. There is DockBarX but this really is a thing which should be bundled by default nowadays. Windows 95 is not where any of the new users come from anymore.

gardaani 7y ago

They don't have a 32-bit version anymore. That's sad. I know that Ubuntu has dropped 32-bit support but I was hoping that Xubuntu would still provide it. Will the same happen for Lubuntu? Currently, there's a 32-bit version for 19.10, but they haven't released 20.04, yet. I have several 32-bit computers, so I need a 32-bit OS for them. Are there any good lightweight 32-bit distros left with long term support?

qplex 7y ago
I run Debian on my 32-bit netbook. Currently Debian offers installers for amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386, mips, mips64el, mipsel, ppc64el and s390x.

sccxy 7y ago

Screenshots page still uses 16.04... https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/ https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/ Why bother trying this distro, when developers even don't bother to update screenshots.

noir_lord 7y ago
Instead of been so dismissively negative perhaps let them know? Open source people tend to appreciate things like that? Fwiw xubuntu was my default Dev OS for years it's great and what I'd go back to if I didn't have cinnamon/fedora.
cbHXBY1D 7y ago
Yeah I'd like to see greybird-dark.

albertzeyer 7y ago

ikurei reports here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22966663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22966663) that it still uses Xorg? I thought that Wayland is standard since a while now? I haven't really followed up on that. Is that not the case?

MdAyq0l 7y ago

Is there anythng that prevents https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases from being updated concerning focal?