8 ms·

There is a big user issue on top of the philosophical and maintenance issues - snaps are SLOOOOOOW. I've only experienced them with two applications, and both t

There is a big user issue on top of the philosophical and maintenance issues - snaps are SLOOOOOOW. I've only experienced them with two applications, and both took forever to startup compared to the apt-get installed versions I quickly replaced them with. OK, "forever" is hyperbole - it was probably about 5 seconds. But it was enough of an annoyance for me to figure out how to install a deb packaged version. And every user having to wait an extra 5 seconds every time they open an app aggregates to a lot more time than Canonical saves maintaining packages. That doesn't sit right with me, so my next OS upgrade will be Mint or pure Debian. I've been with Ubuntu since Dapper Drake, and I'd like to thank Canonical for making great distros all that time. But I'm not going to follow you down the snap-only path, time for me to move on.

flukus 6y ago
A little while ago I discovered snaps can be slow even when you're not using them. I had the fun of trying to log into an online job interview and couldn't because snapd was hogging the CPU doing god knows what. Restarted and the same happened, the machine became usable about 20 minutes later. Little "surprises" like that are infuriating. > so my next OS upgrade will be Mint or pure Debian I've moved one machine to debian stable and haven't looked back. There are a few teething issues like /usr/sbin not being in the default path, some sudo issues, the installer isn't as grandma friendly, but it's rock solid and doesn't nag me about updating 137 packages of things I've never heard of needing an update.
dcow 6y ago
Sending some encouragement your way: try Debian. I bet money you won't even notice it's not Ubuntu. Or you will, because your software will launch when you ask it to. I'm super happy with Debian lately. I know it used to be the old neck beard slow and steady distro, but honestly these days packages get updates rather timely and it doesn't feel like the Debian of 10 years ago. And you can always run Debian testing with almost no overhead if you want the shinnies. That's what I do and have only had to deal with gnome not starting after a reboot once XD
- caro_douglos 6y ago
  Made the switch 4 years ago after running raspian with no problems on the pi?. If someone is debating just setup rasp with headless ssh and have at it.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  I've been using Debian unstable with apt-listbugs for many years with barely a problem. Testing has issues of its own which one should be aware of before choosing it over unstable (see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/choosing.en.html#s3.1.5 https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/choosing.en.ht..., "Testing has more up-to-date software than Stable, and it breaks less often than Unstable. But when it breaks, it might take a long time for things to get rectified. Sometimes this could be days and it could be months at times. It also does not have permanent security support.")
- amelius 6y ago
  One problem I have with Debian (that is not Debian's fault) is that NVidia does not officially support it. It probably works just fine, but it's just another thing you might run into.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    There are .deb packages in the non-free repo and it just works as long as the driver has no bugs regarding to card installed on the system.
- streb-lo 6y ago
  Debian is nice if you don't mind the glacial pace of updates -i.e. you're running a server. After using Arch I don't think I can give up rolling releases.
  - dcow 6y ago
    That’s why people are recommending unstable (sid) which is Debian’s rolling updates channel.
- 6y ago
nightowl_games 6y ago
Im here to push you towards Mint. mint is cleaner ubuntu. the wifi drivers work. the UI is really good. it just works.
- gradstudent 6y ago
  Except when it doesn't? I had all kinds of frustrations with Mint on a 2019 X1 Carbon which had some newfangled digital microphone. Ubuntu 20.04 worked out of the box. There were a bunch of other frustrations too. Bluetooth never worked right. The resolution kept resetting to the display native 4k mode instead of the 1080p I set it to which caused all other kinds of display bugs when switching back I can see that Mint could be nice though. On a desktop, running hardware a few years old.
- nix23 6y ago
  Im here to push you away from secondhand distros use: ArchLinux NOT Manjaro Debian NOT Ubuntu etc And so on, the 'originals' work always better in the long run.
  - franga2000 6y ago
    > the 'originals' work always better in the long run Except that normal people can actually install Manjaro and it doesn't make you use AUR for pretty basic things. Except that Ubuntu actually doesn't shit itself almost every time you add a 3rd party package/repo and comes with reasonable defaults. Also, have you used Pop OS? Your statement is quite simply untrue.
    - nix23 6y ago
      >Except that normal people can actually install Manjaro And when 'normal' people try to fix a problem with a rolling distro then they have a problem. >Except that Ubuntu actually doesn't shit itself As if that's a problem in Debian, or are you talking about snap's? >Also, have you used Pop OS No thanks, using OpenSuse Tumbleweed, FreeBSD, Debian and CentOS is perfectly fine for me.
    - imtringued 6y ago
hedora 6y ago
I’ve had good luck with Devuan (Debian - systemd), though they tend to run a bit behind Debian Stable. For me, the stability of it working (well) as it has for the last few decades is worth missing a few of the latest updates.

flukus 6y ago

A little while ago I discovered snaps can be slow even when you're not using them. I had the fun of trying to log into an online job interview and couldn't because snapd was hogging the CPU doing god knows what. Restarted and the same happened, the machine became usable about 20 minutes later. Little "surprises" like that are infuriating. > so my next OS upgrade will be Mint or pure Debian I've moved one machine to debian stable and haven't looked back. There are a few teething issues like /usr/sbin not being in the default path, some sudo issues, the installer isn't as grandma friendly, but it's rock solid and doesn't nag me about updating 137 packages of things I've never heard of needing an update.

dcow 6y ago

Sending some encouragement your way: try Debian. I bet money you won't even notice it's not Ubuntu. Or you will, because your software will launch when you ask it to. I'm super happy with Debian lately. I know it used to be the old neck beard slow and steady distro, but honestly these days packages get updates rather timely and it doesn't feel like the Debian of 10 years ago. And you can always run Debian testing with almost no overhead if you want the shinnies. That's what I do and have only had to deal with gnome not starting after a reboot once XD

caro_douglos 6y ago
Made the switch 4 years ago after running raspian with no problems on the pi?. If someone is debating just setup rasp with headless ssh and have at it.
lorenzhs 6y ago
I've been using Debian unstable with apt-listbugs for many years with barely a problem. Testing has issues of its own which one should be aware of before choosing it over unstable (see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/choosing.en.html#s3.1.5 https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/choosing.en.ht..., "Testing has more up-to-date software than Stable, and it breaks less often than Unstable. But when it breaks, it might take a long time for things to get rectified. Sometimes this could be days and it could be months at times. It also does not have permanent security support.")
amelius 6y ago
One problem I have with Debian (that is not Debian's fault) is that NVidia does not officially support it. It probably works just fine, but it's just another thing you might run into.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  There are .deb packages in the non-free repo and it just works as long as the driver has no bugs regarding to card installed on the system.
streb-lo 6y ago
Debian is nice if you don't mind the glacial pace of updates -i.e. you're running a server. After using Arch I don't think I can give up rolling releases.
- dcow 6y ago
  That’s why people are recommending unstable (sid) which is Debian’s rolling updates channel.
6y ago

nightowl_games 6y ago

Im here to push you towards Mint. mint is cleaner ubuntu. the wifi drivers work. the UI is really good. it just works.

gradstudent 6y ago
Except when it doesn't? I had all kinds of frustrations with Mint on a 2019 X1 Carbon which had some newfangled digital microphone. Ubuntu 20.04 worked out of the box. There were a bunch of other frustrations too. Bluetooth never worked right. The resolution kept resetting to the display native 4k mode instead of the 1080p I set it to which caused all other kinds of display bugs when switching back I can see that Mint could be nice though. On a desktop, running hardware a few years old.
nix23 6y ago
Im here to push you away from secondhand distros use: ArchLinux NOT Manjaro Debian NOT Ubuntu etc And so on, the 'originals' work always better in the long run.
- franga2000 6y ago
  > the 'originals' work always better in the long run Except that normal people can actually install Manjaro and it doesn't make you use AUR for pretty basic things. Except that Ubuntu actually doesn't shit itself almost every time you add a 3rd party package/repo and comes with reasonable defaults. Also, have you used Pop OS? Your statement is quite simply untrue.
  - nix23 6y ago
    >Except that normal people can actually install Manjaro And when 'normal' people try to fix a problem with a rolling distro then they have a problem. >Except that Ubuntu actually doesn't shit itself As if that's a problem in Debian, or are you talking about snap's? >Also, have you used Pop OS No thanks, using OpenSuse Tumbleweed, FreeBSD, Debian and CentOS is perfectly fine for me.
  - imtringued 6y ago

hedora 6y ago

I’ve had good luck with Devuan (Debian - systemd), though they tend to run a bit behind Debian Stable. For me, the stability of it working (well) as it has for the last few decades is worth missing a few of the latest updates.