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Honestly - I find Ubuntu desktop a pretty bad experience these days. I still think they do a pretty solid job with Ubuntu server, but I much prefer something (

Honestly - I find Ubuntu desktop a pretty bad experience these days. I still think they do a pretty solid job with Ubuntu server, but I much prefer something (really anything) other than Ubuntu these days for my daily driver. I'm not a fan of Snap (I don't hate it, but it's just really not ready yet), and I think they do a bad job of getting required desktop features in place - and have ever since they gave up on Unity, basically. Plus they have a pretty poor track record around user privacy and advertising. In my opinion - Pop!_OS has kind of taken the role of "Best default" for linux users who just want things to work (they took Ubuntu and drove it back to where it started - a big focus on the DE), and I'm firmly in the Arch camp for anyone who wants the best experience and is willing to put in the time. Frankly - I'd even recommend a plain Debian install over Ubuntu at this point. The foundations are the same, and the tooling is basically identical, but you have much less cruft. That said - Wayland is moving really fast still, and I find being on the latest updates on Arch is my preferred experience.

dont__panic 5y ago
The dealbreaker for me is that Snap is hard to disable (across updates), and somehow Snap apps have a tendency of sneaking into my installs. Even when there's a non-snap alternative. But I can always tell when I load up the app and the fonts and scaling are total garbage.
- cies 5y ago
  I hate snap. But Ubtuntu still works without (maybe no longer after their April release): sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/ && sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd && rm -fr ~/snap And make sure it never installs again: sudo bash -c "cat > /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-snapd.pref" << EOL Package: snapd Pin: origin "" Pin-Priority: -1 EOL
  - pavon 5y ago
    However, there are an increasing number of packages in Ubuntu that require snap to install, while those packages can be installed normally in Debian.
    - horsawlarway 5y ago
      This was my pain point. I started recommending debian over ubuntu when they replaced the default "chromium" package with a shim that instructs you to install it as a snap. I don't mind snap - I don't mind them defaulting to snap. I really would still like to use the non-snap variety of certain applications, and I don't want to have to fight the system to do so.
      - dont__panic 5y ago
        Looks like they're switching Firefox to a similar solution, just a wrapper around Snap. Makes me glad that I've played around with Manjaro enough now to switch over.
- Izkata 5y ago
  > and somehow Snap apps have a tendency of sneaking into my installs. Even when there's a non-snap alternative. There's a bunch of things in the apt repository that just do a snap install, for example: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345385/how-can-i-stop-apt-from-installing-snap-packages https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345385/how-can-i-stop-apt-f...
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Desktop has been in an absolutely terrible state of affairs for a decade. Windows with the two-desktop tablet/old desktop dual state of affairs. OSX basically ignored/abandoned by Apple because iPhones were where the money was, closed expensive hardware, and have fun using hotkeys when switching between OSX and Windows/Linux. And constant constant constant rewrite churn in Linux land. If it wasn't KDE and Gnome doing total rewrites, it's Wayland and other "guts" being totally rewritten. PC laptops being stuck several generations behind in port support, display, technology, efficiency. Thank god all the web "trendy material design" didn't introduce a half-dozen other waves of disruption. Just one or two. Well, I suppose it's like C++ quote: there are two types of UIs: those people complain about and those that don't get used. But I do feel desktop has completely stagnated and it has been a lost decade of deck chair rearrangement.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I somewhat agree with you. I think in many ways desktop usage hasn't seen much improvement in the last 10 to 15 years or so - at least not the kind of improvement that really opens new possibilities to the user. At least from my view - there was a wave of change in priorities that started happening in the early 2000s. Previously, most applications were expected to be single user, offline first, thick clients. At best, every now and then they would send a payload over the network (like syncing with a mail server, or publishing a new revision of a document). The internet speed-up changed everything. To the point where I would argue that the browser is the real desktop environment in most modern computer work. Documents moved online first, email syncing became real time chat/voice/video. The majority of my day to day application usage is through a website, or a desktop application that's really hiding that fact that it's a website (ex: anything based on a webview). We still need some foundational pieces that the OS provides, but the DE doesn't matter quite so much when compared to the browser - so companies have been hugely under-investing in this space. Most of the work isn't in user-facing improvements, it's in core pieces that facilitate online/browser based interactions. If you want to know where all the desktop improvements are... they went to IE, V8, and Chromium (for good or for bad). In a major way - I think this is why linux desktop is actually so compelling these days. It can run a browser just fine, and by extension access basically all the software a user might need (utterly different from running linux in 2005, where you often had to use completely different, often incompatible software). Games were one of the last stumbling blocks, and Valve has bitten the bullet and really pushed on that front. --- My hunch is that this isn't going to change unless something like AR/VR (or some other new input/output) genuinely becomes mainstream. In which case we're going to see another wave of interest in UX/UI on the desktop.
cies 5y ago
>I still think they do a pretty solid job with Ubuntu server Apart from the "snapd" debacle I agree :)

dont__panic 5y ago

The dealbreaker for me is that Snap is hard to disable (across updates), and somehow Snap apps have a tendency of sneaking into my installs. Even when there's a non-snap alternative. But I can always tell when I load up the app and the fonts and scaling are total garbage.

cies 5y ago
I hate snap. But Ubtuntu still works without (maybe no longer after their April release): sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/ && sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd && rm -fr ~/snap And make sure it never installs again: sudo bash -c "cat > /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-snapd.pref" << EOL Package: snapd Pin: origin "" Pin-Priority: -1 EOL
- pavon 5y ago
  However, there are an increasing number of packages in Ubuntu that require snap to install, while those packages can be installed normally in Debian.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    This was my pain point. I started recommending debian over ubuntu when they replaced the default "chromium" package with a shim that instructs you to install it as a snap. I don't mind snap - I don't mind them defaulting to snap. I really would still like to use the non-snap variety of certain applications, and I don't want to have to fight the system to do so.
    - dont__panic 5y ago
      Looks like they're switching Firefox to a similar solution, just a wrapper around Snap. Makes me glad that I've played around with Manjaro enough now to switch over.
Izkata 5y ago
> and somehow Snap apps have a tendency of sneaking into my installs. Even when there's a non-snap alternative. There's a bunch of things in the apt repository that just do a snap install, for example: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345385/how-can-i-stop-apt-from-installing-snap-packages https://askubuntu.com/questions/1345385/how-can-i-stop-apt-f...

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Desktop has been in an absolutely terrible state of affairs for a decade. Windows with the two-desktop tablet/old desktop dual state of affairs. OSX basically ignored/abandoned by Apple because iPhones were where the money was, closed expensive hardware, and have fun using hotkeys when switching between OSX and Windows/Linux. And constant constant constant rewrite churn in Linux land. If it wasn't KDE and Gnome doing total rewrites, it's Wayland and other "guts" being totally rewritten. PC laptops being stuck several generations behind in port support, display, technology, efficiency. Thank god all the web "trendy material design" didn't introduce a half-dozen other waves of disruption. Just one or two. Well, I suppose it's like C++ quote: there are two types of UIs: those people complain about and those that don't get used. But I do feel desktop has completely stagnated and it has been a lost decade of deck chair rearrangement.

horsawlarway 5y ago
I somewhat agree with you. I think in many ways desktop usage hasn't seen much improvement in the last 10 to 15 years or so - at least not the kind of improvement that really opens new possibilities to the user. At least from my view - there was a wave of change in priorities that started happening in the early 2000s. Previously, most applications were expected to be single user, offline first, thick clients. At best, every now and then they would send a payload over the network (like syncing with a mail server, or publishing a new revision of a document). The internet speed-up changed everything. To the point where I would argue that the browser is the real desktop environment in most modern computer work. Documents moved online first, email syncing became real time chat/voice/video. The majority of my day to day application usage is through a website, or a desktop application that's really hiding that fact that it's a website (ex: anything based on a webview). We still need some foundational pieces that the OS provides, but the DE doesn't matter quite so much when compared to the browser - so companies have been hugely under-investing in this space. Most of the work isn't in user-facing improvements, it's in core pieces that facilitate online/browser based interactions. If you want to know where all the desktop improvements are... they went to IE, V8, and Chromium (for good or for bad). In a major way - I think this is why linux desktop is actually so compelling these days. It can run a browser just fine, and by extension access basically all the software a user might need (utterly different from running linux in 2005, where you often had to use completely different, often incompatible software). Games were one of the last stumbling blocks, and Valve has bitten the bullet and really pushed on that front. --- My hunch is that this isn't going to change unless something like AR/VR (or some other new input/output) genuinely becomes mainstream. In which case we're going to see another wave of interest in UX/UI on the desktop.

cies 5y ago

>I still think they do a pretty solid job with Ubuntu server Apart from the "snapd" debacle I agree :)