9 ms·

To be honest, I'd not be too bothered by that specific ad. Hoever, I gave up using Ubuntu long ago with the push for snap applications and all the mayhem it cau

by CSDude 4y ago

To be honest, I'd not be too bothered by that specific ad. Hoever, I gave up using Ubuntu long ago with the push for snap applications and all the mayhem it caused. * Oh, you want to install a package, here are two very distant versions in snap and apt. Select one! * Oh you selected snap, sorry now all program starts are slow now because we need to mount compressed disk for sandboxing. * Oh, this snap does not support sandboxing, here install with --classic flag. I use macOS daily, but when I need Linux, I use Arch btw (meme) but seriously it's much more clear.

intelVISA 4y ago
Snap did it for me tbh
anthropodie 4y ago
Moved to debian after using Ubuntu for a decade and I am not looking back. But I think Ubuntu was necessary for me to see beauty of Debian.
- miroljub 4y ago
  Do you use Debian as a desktop? Would it be possible to switch from Ubuntu to Debian without having to reinstall the whole system? I hope something like updating sources to debian unstable and doing apt-get upgrade should just work, but am afraid to try it on the running system.
  - watashiato 4y ago
    It can be done, but don't attempt this unless you're ready to fix a ton of tiny problems all over the place. Backup your data and move it over to a fresh installation instead.
  - GlacierFox 4y ago
    No, absolutely not. Although people colloquially refer to Ubuntu as Debian with a little stuff sprinkled on top, parts of the underlying architecture are fundamentally different. Here's a video of someone giving it a go. (Doesn't even boot) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dD_cbV5aw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dD_cbV5aw
  - sirius87 4y ago
    That would not be advisable. If you do end up moving to Debain but start missing features, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) may be a better fit. Looking at the way Canonical is operating, as a Linux Mint Cinnamon user, I sure am glad they're building for a "if Ubuntu was ever to disappear" world. "Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint can continue to deliver the same user experience if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. It allows us to assess how much we depend on Ubuntu and how much work would be involved in such an event. LMDE is also one of our development targets, as such it guarantees the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu." https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
    - _chu1 4y ago
      Would be wiser to switch to Fedora, Red Hat has way more funding than Canonical or Debian will ever have
  - anthropodie 4y ago
    Like others recommendations here, I also switched with fresh installation of Debian. If you don't do this you would end up with broken system and also you would not see what all debian has to offer.
    - pooper 4y ago
      What you should be able to do but I have never tried in practice is to keep your home directory. Most "novice" computer users like me, would only need one user anyway although this should work for multiple users as well? I think in theory at least if your username is anthropodie, you should be able to copy /home/anthropodie to an external hard disk just for backup, install your new distro, set up your new user and copy your user home directory back. Anyone tried this?
      - anthropodie 4y ago
        By clean setup I mean, reinstalling / /home is kept intact. After installation of apps on new setup I don't even have to configure them most of times because they can find their config directories in /home/myuser/
        pooper 4y ago
        but debian iirc has only one partition by default, no?
        anthropodie 4y ago
        That is not true. I have configured /home on Debian.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - mikro2nd 4y ago
        The approach I've followed for many years is to have /home mount on a separate partition from anything else. Then when you do any kind of fresh install or upgrade, you only have to make sure that partition doesn't get touched (and usually that's the default) and all is well with the world. It would be slightly more work involving parted (or whatever partition manager you prefer) to create a new partition, resize existing partitions, etc., but quite doable (if tedious and time consuming).
  - gloria_mundi 4y ago
    I did exactly that about a year ago (except it was testing instead of unstable). You need to pass some extra flag to APT because Ubuntu and Debian use different version schemes, so you wouldn't get updates anymore -- might have been '--reinstall', but don't quote me on that. It worked quite well for me, although there were a few issues (for instance, I didn't get kernel updates anymore, and when I fixed that, the Wifi driver was missing). There are probably still a few issues that went undetected and might cause problems later. It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to spend quite some time on it. And don't count on it working at all. (And backup your data. I didn't, and got lucky, but in retrospect, that was irresponsible.)
  - 3np 4y ago
    Possible? Yes. A good idea? No. If you need to ask, you will have regrets. A fresh install would be faster, easier, safer, and more secure.
- password4321 4y ago
  Ubuntu 18 LTS (pre-snap) until next April then on to debian for me.
morsch 4y ago
I'm on Ubuntu. I've got my home on a separate partition. Is replacing Ubuntu with Arch as easy as wiping the root partition, installing Arch and mounting home as home? Wiping and re-installing Ubuntu (which I do every couple of years instead of a dist-upgrade) has always been remarkably smooth, as in it took like 10 minutes and I was back on a working desktop with Firefox restoring my tabs from the previous install. Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_from_existing_Linux https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_from_exi...
- f1refly 4y ago
  It should be that easy, I myself went from Debian to Arch in the past an it just worked. The Arch install process will probably take more like 20 minutes if you do it for the first time though.
- exDM69 4y ago
  > Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun. It's not as crazy as it sounds, after all installing a Linux system is a matter of populating the rootfs, and passing kernel+initrd images to the bootloader. Just regular file system operations, apart from actually installing the bootloader to the MBR. You can install Debian-based distros the same way using the "debootstrap" script.
  - adamzegelin 4y ago
    > installing the bootloader to the MBR You mean copying bootx64.efi onto the ESP, right? It's 2022... MBR is beyond ancient at this point!
- weavie 4y ago
  If you want a quick way to install Arch, Endeavour OS works really well. Got me up and running with what is basically an Arch install in about 10 minutes.
- zbrozek 4y ago
  It's basically the only way to install Arch. The USB stick just dumps you to a root console of a Linux system and you have to do the rest. I've been using Arch since 2003 and am still salty about the loss of the text guided installer.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
Add to it: * Your Firefox can't read the HTML attachment you opened from Thunderbird because we messed up the sandboxing. * Popup: Close your Firefox to update it. Oh, also, unless you manually run the update, it will just tell you to close it as soon as you reopen it. Some variants of the update command will also tell you no updates are available unless Firefox is closed.
velox_neb 4y ago
The snap situation seems like a travesty. For example, the Firefox that's installed by default on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS can't save pages or images. I had to google for how to install the non-snap version, and that fixed it.
- tryauuum 4y ago
  if anyone's curious, the command to get rid of snap is apt-get purge snapd --yes
  - pizza234 4y ago
    That's problematic unfortunately, because one may need a program that is distributed via snaps. Interestingly, snap has a service that self-heals, so that if one tried to hack it, it will overwrite the changes. That's... quite malwarish, I'd say, and very unusual in the Unix world. Regarding hacking it: it's necessary because once snapd is installed, the ubuntu upgrader will sync on every update, so snap is not a service that can be just disabled.
    - krastanov 4y ago
      You can just turn off the service and uninstall snapd. It is annoying to have to do it, but it is pretty straightforward. But yes, you will need to then add PPAs for thing that were only in snap, or use appimage or flathub.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      My understanding is you can prevent the install using apt preference. https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences
- ikt 4y ago
  Yes it can, I've saved tons of pictures... why do you think it can't?
  - 4y ago
senko 4y ago
Not to mention they snapified stuff like the calculator app: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1039411/how-can-i-replace-snap-application-such-as-gnome-calculator-with-a-deb https://askubuntu.com/questions/1039411/how-can-i-replace-sn... Need to multiply two numbers, it's faster to do on paper than to wait the app to launch. Thankfully they walked back on that one.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Early in Win10 days the calculator 'app' was slower to open than it used to be on a Pentium 75 running Windows 95. It was one of the reasons I migrated away from Windows - only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit. WTFSMH.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    Well maybe not slower than anything from the 9x era, but it is definitely slower than it was on Vista for example. Also e.g. the "Whiteboard" program which replaced the older "Sketchpad" program in Windows 10 tablets. The Sketchpad opened even before I released the button on the pen, while the Whiteboard crap just takes forever to open, then takes forever to "login to Microsoft account", then takes forever to load anything...
  - causi 4y ago
    only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit. The tech industry is absurdly dedicated to chasing trends. As an example, most people have forgotten the reason you probably don't have a headphone jack on your phone is because Apple wanted to shill wireless headphones and the entire industry turned on its heel in response.
    - _chu1 4y ago
      And this is why I use computers that still run XP
CalRobert 4y ago
I've used Ubuntu as my main desktop OS for 9 years and recent changes make me want to leave. So many things just... broke. Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass; all the old tools don't work. When I try to open a file from a program (Firefox, whatever - with "File -> Open" I get a notification that "X(1) is ready" and have to alt-tab to it instead of having it be brought to front and getting focus. And for... what?
- pizza234 4y ago
  > Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass I didn't have any problem with this. But your case may be what they're solving by moving from Pulseaudio to Pipewire (see Ubuntu Kinetic 22.10).
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    Thanks! It works if I start an xorg session, at least.
bheadmaster 4y ago
Don't forget that the Snap server is proprietary software, and that Ubuntu's snap server URL is hardcoded into the official snapd code, together with automatic updates, which you cannot disable (except for recompiling the whole thing with auto-updates removed from code). Ubuntu is moving closer and closer to Microsoft with each passing year.
daitangio 4y ago
I agree. I have wrote a small post[1] one year ago, because Ubuntu20 was hard to configure in safe manner. I started switching to Debian all my servers from that day, and for the meantime it pays my bills. But I miss a bit Ubuntu... [1] https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/ https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/
stjohnswarts 4y ago
You can turn off snap and install regular versions of stuff. Canonical chose snap because it makes their life easier and not the users. I think snap is awful, but I'm familiar with Ubuntu so I continue to use it and variants, I use flatpak/appimage wherever I can. I also run a couple of servers with Endeavour OS to kind of also have a bleeding edge machine or two for dev if I need it. I love every minute of having the choice to do both. I feel a lot of us look a gift horse in the mouth and expect free things for no price.
chrisallenlane 4y ago
This is petty, but I'm also constantly annoyed by the presence of the `snap` directory in my home folder, which (to my knowledge) is hard-coded and not configurable. Now, if I want to back up my home directory, I have to configure my backup tools to exclude `snap`. I don't know why the default location couldn't have been in `/usr` or `/opt` or something, or ideally simply been configurable.
m463 4y ago
and the forced software behavior - install something and it comes back, including tracking.

by CSDude 4y ago

intelVISA 4y ago

Snap did it for me tbh

anthropodie 4y ago

Moved to debian after using Ubuntu for a decade and I am not looking back. But I think Ubuntu was necessary for me to see beauty of Debian.

miroljub 4y ago
Do you use Debian as a desktop? Would it be possible to switch from Ubuntu to Debian without having to reinstall the whole system? I hope something like updating sources to debian unstable and doing apt-get upgrade should just work, but am afraid to try it on the running system.
- watashiato 4y ago
  It can be done, but don't attempt this unless you're ready to fix a ton of tiny problems all over the place. Backup your data and move it over to a fresh installation instead.
- GlacierFox 4y ago
  No, absolutely not. Although people colloquially refer to Ubuntu as Debian with a little stuff sprinkled on top, parts of the underlying architecture are fundamentally different. Here's a video of someone giving it a go. (Doesn't even boot) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dD_cbV5aw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dD_cbV5aw
- sirius87 4y ago
  That would not be advisable. If you do end up moving to Debain but start missing features, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) may be a better fit. Looking at the way Canonical is operating, as a Linux Mint Cinnamon user, I sure am glad they're building for a "if Ubuntu was ever to disappear" world. "Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint can continue to deliver the same user experience if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. It allows us to assess how much we depend on Ubuntu and how much work would be involved in such an event. LMDE is also one of our development targets, as such it guarantees the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu." https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
  - _chu1 4y ago
    Would be wiser to switch to Fedora, Red Hat has way more funding than Canonical or Debian will ever have
- anthropodie 4y ago
  Like others recommendations here, I also switched with fresh installation of Debian. If you don't do this you would end up with broken system and also you would not see what all debian has to offer.
  - pooper 4y ago
    What you should be able to do but I have never tried in practice is to keep your home directory. Most "novice" computer users like me, would only need one user anyway although this should work for multiple users as well? I think in theory at least if your username is anthropodie, you should be able to copy /home/anthropodie to an external hard disk just for backup, install your new distro, set up your new user and copy your user home directory back. Anyone tried this?
    - anthropodie 4y ago
      By clean setup I mean, reinstalling / /home is kept intact. After installation of apps on new setup I don't even have to configure them most of times because they can find their config directories in /home/myuser/
      - pooper 4y ago
        but debian iirc has only one partition by default, no?
        anthropodie 4y ago
        That is not true. I have configured /home on Debian.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikro2nd 4y ago
      The approach I've followed for many years is to have /home mount on a separate partition from anything else. Then when you do any kind of fresh install or upgrade, you only have to make sure that partition doesn't get touched (and usually that's the default) and all is well with the world. It would be slightly more work involving parted (or whatever partition manager you prefer) to create a new partition, resize existing partitions, etc., but quite doable (if tedious and time consuming).
- gloria_mundi 4y ago
  I did exactly that about a year ago (except it was testing instead of unstable). You need to pass some extra flag to APT because Ubuntu and Debian use different version schemes, so you wouldn't get updates anymore -- might have been '--reinstall', but don't quote me on that. It worked quite well for me, although there were a few issues (for instance, I didn't get kernel updates anymore, and when I fixed that, the Wifi driver was missing). There are probably still a few issues that went undetected and might cause problems later. It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to spend quite some time on it. And don't count on it working at all. (And backup your data. I didn't, and got lucky, but in retrospect, that was irresponsible.)
- 3np 4y ago
  Possible? Yes. A good idea? No. If you need to ask, you will have regrets. A fresh install would be faster, easier, safer, and more secure.
password4321 4y ago
Ubuntu 18 LTS (pre-snap) until next April then on to debian for me.

morsch 4y ago

I'm on Ubuntu. I've got my home on a separate partition. Is replacing Ubuntu with Arch as easy as wiping the root partition, installing Arch and mounting home as home? Wiping and re-installing Ubuntu (which I do every couple of years instead of a dist-upgrade) has always been remarkably smooth, as in it took like 10 minutes and I was back on a working desktop with Firefox restoring my tabs from the previous install. Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_from_existing_Linux https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_from_exi...

f1refly 4y ago
It should be that easy, I myself went from Debian to Arch in the past an it just worked. The Arch install process will probably take more like 20 minutes if you do it for the first time though.
exDM69 4y ago
> Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun. It's not as crazy as it sounds, after all installing a Linux system is a matter of populating the rootfs, and passing kernel+initrd images to the bootloader. Just regular file system operations, apart from actually installing the bootloader to the MBR. You can install Debian-based distros the same way using the "debootstrap" script.
- adamzegelin 4y ago
  > installing the bootloader to the MBR You mean copying bootx64.efi onto the ESP, right? It's 2022... MBR is beyond ancient at this point!
weavie 4y ago
If you want a quick way to install Arch, Endeavour OS works really well. Got me up and running with what is basically an Arch install in about 10 minutes.
zbrozek 4y ago
It's basically the only way to install Arch. The USB stick just dumps you to a root console of a Linux system and you have to do the rest. I've been using Arch since 2003 and am still salty about the loss of the text guided installer.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

Add to it: * Your Firefox can't read the HTML attachment you opened from Thunderbird because we messed up the sandboxing. * Popup: Close your Firefox to update it. Oh, also, unless you manually run the update, it will just tell you to close it as soon as you reopen it. Some variants of the update command will also tell you no updates are available unless Firefox is closed.

velox_neb 4y ago

The snap situation seems like a travesty. For example, the Firefox that's installed by default on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS can't save pages or images. I had to google for how to install the non-snap version, and that fixed it.

tryauuum 4y ago
if anyone's curious, the command to get rid of snap is apt-get purge snapd --yes
- pizza234 4y ago
  That's problematic unfortunately, because one may need a program that is distributed via snaps. Interestingly, snap has a service that self-heals, so that if one tried to hack it, it will overwrite the changes. That's... quite malwarish, I'd say, and very unusual in the Unix world. Regarding hacking it: it's necessary because once snapd is installed, the ubuntu upgrader will sync on every update, so snap is not a service that can be just disabled.
  - krastanov 4y ago
    You can just turn off the service and uninstall snapd. It is annoying to have to do it, but it is pretty straightforward. But yes, you will need to then add PPAs for thing that were only in snap, or use appimage or flathub.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    My understanding is you can prevent the install using apt preference. https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences
ikt 4y ago
Yes it can, I've saved tons of pictures... why do you think it can't?
- 4y ago

senko 4y ago

Not to mention they snapified stuff like the calculator app: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1039411/how-can-i-replace-snap-application-such-as-gnome-calculator-with-a-deb https://askubuntu.com/questions/1039411/how-can-i-replace-sn... Need to multiply two numbers, it's faster to do on paper than to wait the app to launch. Thankfully they walked back on that one.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Early in Win10 days the calculator 'app' was slower to open than it used to be on a Pentium 75 running Windows 95. It was one of the reasons I migrated away from Windows - only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit. WTFSMH.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  Well maybe not slower than anything from the 9x era, but it is definitely slower than it was on Vista for example. Also e.g. the "Whiteboard" program which replaced the older "Sketchpad" program in Windows 10 tablets. The Sketchpad opened even before I released the button on the pen, while the Whiteboard crap just takes forever to open, then takes forever to "login to Microsoft account", then takes forever to load anything...
- causi 4y ago
  only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit. The tech industry is absurdly dedicated to chasing trends. As an example, most people have forgotten the reason you probably don't have a headphone jack on your phone is because Apple wanted to shill wireless headphones and the entire industry turned on its heel in response.
  - _chu1 4y ago
    And this is why I use computers that still run XP

CalRobert 4y ago

I've used Ubuntu as my main desktop OS for 9 years and recent changes make me want to leave. So many things just... broke. Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass; all the old tools don't work. When I try to open a file from a program (Firefox, whatever - with "File -> Open" I get a notification that "X(1) is ready" and have to alt-tab to it instead of having it be brought to front and getting focus. And for... what?

pizza234 4y ago
> Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass I didn't have any problem with this. But your case may be what they're solving by moving from Pulseaudio to Pipewire (see Ubuntu Kinetic 22.10).
- CalRobert 4y ago
  Thanks! It works if I start an xorg session, at least.

bheadmaster 4y ago

Don't forget that the Snap server is proprietary software, and that Ubuntu's snap server URL is hardcoded into the official snapd code, together with automatic updates, which you cannot disable (except for recompiling the whole thing with auto-updates removed from code). Ubuntu is moving closer and closer to Microsoft with each passing year.

daitangio 4y ago

I agree. I have wrote a small post[1] one year ago, because Ubuntu20 was hard to configure in safe manner. I started switching to Debian all my servers from that day, and for the meantime it pays my bills. But I miss a bit Ubuntu... [1] https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/ https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/

stjohnswarts 4y ago

You can turn off snap and install regular versions of stuff. Canonical chose snap because it makes their life easier and not the users. I think snap is awful, but I'm familiar with Ubuntu so I continue to use it and variants, I use flatpak/appimage wherever I can. I also run a couple of servers with Endeavour OS to kind of also have a bleeding edge machine or two for dev if I need it. I love every minute of having the choice to do both. I feel a lot of us look a gift horse in the mouth and expect free things for no price.

chrisallenlane 4y ago

This is petty, but I'm also constantly annoyed by the presence of the `snap` directory in my home folder, which (to my knowledge) is hard-coded and not configurable. Now, if I want to back up my home directory, I have to configure my backup tools to exclude `snap`. I don't know why the default location couldn't have been in `/usr` or `/opt` or something, or ideally simply been configurable.

m463 4y ago

and the forced software behavior - install something and it comes back, including tracking.