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Most operating systems I work with have issues. I just got a new MBP from work yesterday. The time zone was off so I went to settings to change it, but I need
by Ologn 4y ago
Most operating systems I work with have issues.
I just got a new MBP from work yesterday. The time zone was off so I went to settings to change it, but I need administrator access to change the time zone (although inexplicably if I turn off my wired connection and turn on wifi the system will switch to my current location). I have a jerry-rigged thing hanging over the camera, since Microsoft Teams randomly decides to turn my camera on during meetings, particularly very large meetings (although once in a while I do need the camera on). I find the new MBP M1 power dongle which plugs into the MBP more bulky than the one on the previous MBP. On my personal MBP, I've also encountered some Intel/ARM headaches with the MBP chip changeover, but that is another story.
I worked for a company three years ago which assigned me a Windows laptop. That had even more issues. I have had so many issues with Windows over the years I don't even need to go into them.
Have not had many problems with Ubuntu in recent times. Last minor problem I had was getting all the nvidia libraries in so I could do Stable Diffusion Dreambooth training. So every time I make the decision to upgrade the system software and kernel stuff comes in, I have to do a little extra work or Nvidia will go away (and the screen will go to 800x600 or something). Much due to Nvidia not playing ball with Linux over the years. I can't think of any system which would be easier to do Automatic1111 Dreambooth training on though along with the rest of the system I'm setting up.
Also there's the X11/Wayland thing. When I resize my terminal in X11 a tooltip shows me what the new size is, not in Wayland. There are some other things I need X11 for, can't even remember them all offhand. So I still use X11 and not wayland, but that's not a big deal currently (although when I upgrade I sometimes forget to switch to X11 initially and get confused why some things break for me).
Also, if you want stability, like in many things in software, it doesn't make much sense to upgrade on the day a new Ubuntu release drops. It usually takes about 2-3 months to shake out some larger bugs. When I had more time in the past I used to fire up a KVM, download the beta, test it out and file bugs if I found anything (or even send in patches sometimes).
Ubuntu has its problems, but it has been the best of all of them for the past years. Forget Windows. MacOS is OK - with MacOS there is a stability/limiting tradeoff - it might be a little more stable, but it is more limiting sometimes. I prefer the limits off, I prefer to be able to dive down into the GTK libraries or even kernel if need be. Also with MacOS I could conceivably get stuck with something, with Ubuntu I'm not going to get stuck with anything because if I want to enough I can always just go down and change the code.
Ubuntu can have issues, but I don't know of anything better for my needs. It can depend on needs - Gentoo in some ways is even less limiting, but seems to need more time devoted to tuning and maintaining it. I just want a nice Linux desktop where I can tune things and dig into the code if I want, but usually won't have to. Ubuntu fits that for me. Some people here say they think Ubuntu has gone downhill in the past few years, but I don't know of an alternative I can switch to and stick with for the next decade like I have with Ubuntu (more than a decade).