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Semi-related: Does anyone else feel like Ubuntu has lost a lot of its momentum over the past few years? I don't hear about things they're doing nearly as often

Semi-related: Does anyone else feel like Ubuntu has lost a lot of its momentum over the past few years? I don't hear about things they're doing nearly as often anymore.

gjsman-1000 6y ago
Well, they spent several years on Unity8+Mir, and then abandoned it went that went nowhere. They then pivoted to Snaps, where they are so proud of themselves on their echo chamber of a forum that they can't see that the end users are less than impressed. Honestly, I've stopped paying attention because Ubuntu is great at building technology with critical, mind-bogglingly obvious flaws that sink the project every time.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  Don't forget Upstart, Juju, and Ubuntu Phone
  - unixhero 6y ago
    Wait JuJu is dead?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - padraic7a 6y ago
      No juju seems to still be going strong. Mír is still going strong - though it is a Wayland client now, even Ubuntu Touch is still going, though as a community project rather than a Canonical one.
  - xet7 6y ago
    That OS of Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu Touch https://ubports.com https://ubports.com has rapid progress as a community project, it works very well on PinePhone, and there are also other Open Source OSes for PinePhone.
Barrin92 6y ago
As a desktop system maybe slightly, although the change is probably hugely overstated because of very loud subsegments of online communities. Most developers I've seen running linux either run Ubuntu or Fedora and I've rarely ever seen anything else, and that has to be a huge portion of the desktop/laptop segment. On the server if anything it seems like Ubuntu has gotten stronger.
spanhandler 6y ago
They keep spending effort/money on projects competing with something Red Hat's doing, then getting trounced by Red Hat—sometimes politically, sometimes technically, sometimes both—but continuing to spend effort/money long after it's clear they've lost. I have to imagine that's a big drag on them.
- acoard 6y ago
  Can you list some examples? The more the better. Much appreciated.
  - gjsman-1000 6y ago
    Red Hat: Hires Alex to work on Flatpak. Loved by Community, almost a dozen distros supporting Flatpak as a next-gen package format by default. Snap: Loved only by Canonical devotees. Zero distros supporting Snap exclusively by default. Red Hat: SystemD Canonical: Upstart, dead to SystemD. Red Hat & Others: Wayland Canonical: Mir. Dead to Wayland. Red Hat & Others: GNOME 3 Canonical: Unity1-7. Dead to GNOME.
    - abrowne 6y ago
      Red Hat did use upstart before adopting systemd FWIW.
      - gravitas 6y ago
        > Red Hat did use upstart before adopting systemd FWIW RHEL added support for Upstart as a hybrid with SysV, however it was never heavily used and not by most of their own packaged RPMs. Spin up a CentOS 6 server, install a bunch of daemons then go compare /etc/init/ to /etc/rc.d/init.d/.
        xav0989 6y ago
        But the init system was Upstart. Upstart, like SystemD, can start daemons from SysV scripts. At the time, the majority of distros still used SysV or SysV-like init systems. As long as the newer systems had backwards compatibility with the SysV scripts and the newer functionality were not needed, why would upstream switch to the new format? SystemD has managed to gain near-ubiquitous usage, to the point where plenty of upstreams now only ship systemd unit files, but I would argue that this change was first initiated by the introduction and adoption of Upstart in both Ubuntu and RH.
simion314 6y ago
I think they stopped trying new risky things and focusing on survival, there is a large number of people(not a majority though) that regret the fact we did not get the Ubuntu Phone, and the Qt based DE Unity8.
dyingkneepad 6y ago
Things they're currently doing that benefit the larger Linux community as a whole: - still engaging with vendors into making hardware work on Linux - they're contributing optimizations to gnome 3 - their still massive user base is testing stuff, discovering bugs and then those things get fixed upstream or at least get into Debian - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distro
- war1025 6y ago
  > - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distro Amen. Debian is the best.
  - ewzimm 6y ago
    When I fist started using Debian, it was a bit of a potato. It improved over time but still felt a little wooden. Ubuntu brought a lot of people back into the Debian ecosystem, ensured that it improved constantly to the point where it's a corporate power buster, and I feel like the next release will hit the bullseye for sure.
    - turboman 6y ago
      That's a bit of a stretch.
    - bityard 6y ago
      I agreed with everything you sid.
      - type0 6y ago
        Ah, stop with the buzz words
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Why did you squeeze so many release names into that comment?
geofft 6y ago
The LXC/LXD folks at Canonical are doing great work with adding kernel features for namespaces etc. I think the "problem" is that Canonical has figured out - correctly - that all their worthwhile stuff needs to be done upstream of Ubuntu. Even their packagers know to try to get things in Debian first and to reduce diffs when they can. Unfortunately, that means that the unique Ubuntu secret sauce is all the weird stuff that no upstream wants, and if you're in no hurry to upgrade, you may as well run Debian. This is pretty good for the world but I worry about the sustainability of Canonical as a company. I'm worried they'll end up like Mozilla - senior management finally realizes that doing excellent technical work in upstream communities isn't a net positive for their bottom line and has no idea how to remediate that other than layoffs.
- freedomben 6y ago
  I got so excited about LXD ... until I found out it requires snap. My first "cup of ubuntu" was well over 10 years ago now and I've always wanted to see it succeed. It's repeated squandering of so much potential. Edit: I was referring to LXD usage on Ubuntu-20.04 and versions going forward (I should have made that clear in the post). Sure, snap isn't technically required since you can "change distros" or "compile it yourself." Those just aren't great options IMHO (and doubly sad since I'm using the distro of the company that makes the product and the better experience is on another distro).
  - jamesponddotco 6y ago
    It does not require snap, it is just the default way to install it. You can compile it yourself, or check the repositories of your distro of choice otherwise. I think Arch has it in their repositories, for example.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      Doesn't look convenient due to this: lxd - Transitional package - lxd -> snap (lxd)
    - kevin_b_er 6y ago
Thaxll 6y ago
I mean it's the most popular distro, it's the most used on desktop and in the cloud. So I would say they're doing pretty well.

Semi-related: Does anyone else feel like Ubuntu has lost a lot of its momentum over the past few years? I don't hear about things they're doing nearly as often anymore.

gjsman-1000 6y ago

Well, they spent several years on Unity8+Mir, and then abandoned it went that went nowhere. They then pivoted to Snaps, where they are so proud of themselves on their echo chamber of a forum that they can't see that the end users are less than impressed. Honestly, I've stopped paying attention because Ubuntu is great at building technology with critical, mind-bogglingly obvious flaws that sink the project every time.

hannasanarion 6y ago
Don't forget Upstart, Juju, and Ubuntu Phone
- unixhero 6y ago
  Wait JuJu is dead?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - padraic7a 6y ago
    No juju seems to still be going strong. Mír is still going strong - though it is a Wayland client now, even Ubuntu Touch is still going, though as a community project rather than a Canonical one.
- xet7 6y ago
  That OS of Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu Touch https://ubports.com https://ubports.com has rapid progress as a community project, it works very well on PinePhone, and there are also other Open Source OSes for PinePhone.

Barrin92 6y ago

As a desktop system maybe slightly, although the change is probably hugely overstated because of very loud subsegments of online communities. Most developers I've seen running linux either run Ubuntu or Fedora and I've rarely ever seen anything else, and that has to be a huge portion of the desktop/laptop segment. On the server if anything it seems like Ubuntu has gotten stronger.

spanhandler 6y ago

They keep spending effort/money on projects competing with something Red Hat's doing, then getting trounced by Red Hat—sometimes politically, sometimes technically, sometimes both—but continuing to spend effort/money long after it's clear they've lost. I have to imagine that's a big drag on them.

acoard 6y ago
Can you list some examples? The more the better. Much appreciated.
- gjsman-1000 6y ago
  Red Hat: Hires Alex to work on Flatpak. Loved by Community, almost a dozen distros supporting Flatpak as a next-gen package format by default. Snap: Loved only by Canonical devotees. Zero distros supporting Snap exclusively by default. Red Hat: SystemD Canonical: Upstart, dead to SystemD. Red Hat & Others: Wayland Canonical: Mir. Dead to Wayland. Red Hat & Others: GNOME 3 Canonical: Unity1-7. Dead to GNOME.
  - abrowne 6y ago
    Red Hat did use upstart before adopting systemd FWIW.
    - gravitas 6y ago
      > Red Hat did use upstart before adopting systemd FWIW RHEL added support for Upstart as a hybrid with SysV, however it was never heavily used and not by most of their own packaged RPMs. Spin up a CentOS 6 server, install a bunch of daemons then go compare /etc/init/ to /etc/rc.d/init.d/.
      - xav0989 6y ago
        But the init system was Upstart. Upstart, like SystemD, can start daemons from SysV scripts. At the time, the majority of distros still used SysV or SysV-like init systems. As long as the newer systems had backwards compatibility with the SysV scripts and the newer functionality were not needed, why would upstream switch to the new format? SystemD has managed to gain near-ubiquitous usage, to the point where plenty of upstreams now only ship systemd unit files, but I would argue that this change was first initiated by the introduction and adoption of Upstart in both Ubuntu and RH.

simion314 6y ago

I think they stopped trying new risky things and focusing on survival, there is a large number of people(not a majority though) that regret the fact we did not get the Ubuntu Phone, and the Qt based DE Unity8.

dyingkneepad 6y ago

Things they're currently doing that benefit the larger Linux community as a whole: - still engaging with vendors into making hardware work on Linux - they're contributing optimizations to gnome 3 - their still massive user base is testing stuff, discovering bugs and then those things get fixed upstream or at least get into Debian - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distro

war1025 6y ago
> - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distro Amen. Debian is the best.
- ewzimm 6y ago
  When I fist started using Debian, it was a bit of a potato. It improved over time but still felt a little wooden. Ubuntu brought a lot of people back into the Debian ecosystem, ensured that it improved constantly to the point where it's a corporate power buster, and I feel like the next release will hit the bullseye for sure.
  - turboman 6y ago
    That's a bit of a stretch.
  - bityard 6y ago
    I agreed with everything you sid.
    - type0 6y ago
      Ah, stop with the buzz words
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Why did you squeeze so many release names into that comment?

geofft 6y ago

The LXC/LXD folks at Canonical are doing great work with adding kernel features for namespaces etc. I think the "problem" is that Canonical has figured out - correctly - that all their worthwhile stuff needs to be done upstream of Ubuntu. Even their packagers know to try to get things in Debian first and to reduce diffs when they can. Unfortunately, that means that the unique Ubuntu secret sauce is all the weird stuff that no upstream wants, and if you're in no hurry to upgrade, you may as well run Debian. This is pretty good for the world but I worry about the sustainability of Canonical as a company. I'm worried they'll end up like Mozilla - senior management finally realizes that doing excellent technical work in upstream communities isn't a net positive for their bottom line and has no idea how to remediate that other than layoffs.

freedomben 6y ago
I got so excited about LXD ... until I found out it requires snap. My first "cup of ubuntu" was well over 10 years ago now and I've always wanted to see it succeed. It's repeated squandering of so much potential. Edit: I was referring to LXD usage on Ubuntu-20.04 and versions going forward (I should have made that clear in the post). Sure, snap isn't technically required since you can "change distros" or "compile it yourself." Those just aren't great options IMHO (and doubly sad since I'm using the distro of the company that makes the product and the better experience is on another distro).
- jamesponddotco 6y ago
  It does not require snap, it is just the default way to install it. You can compile it yourself, or check the repositories of your distro of choice otherwise. I think Arch has it in their repositories, for example.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Doesn't look convenient due to this: lxd - Transitional package - lxd -> snap (lxd)
  - kevin_b_er 6y ago

Thaxll 6y ago

I mean it's the most popular distro, it's the most used on desktop and in the cloud. So I would say they're doing pretty well.