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In the last few months it really looks like someone payed for a web campaign against Canonical/Ubuntu. I've never seen so much articles how someone had to aband

In the last few months it really looks like someone payed for a web campaign against Canonical/Ubuntu. I've never seen so much articles how someone had to abandon Ubuntu for Fedora/Arch before. And the most curious thing that the reasons provided are usually very outdated. Like many years old story about Amazon deal (even when it was valid you had to write a single command to remove integration). Or horror stories about snaps that are not valid for many months already. How firefox snap is shit (I'm writing it from snapped firefox and it works perfectly and faster that .deb and flatpak alternatives). And let's just look on this article specifically. So, the guy ditched Ubuntu for Fedora because he felt that Canonical uses Ubuntu users as testers. And it's true, they do, just like RedHat uses Fedora to betatest for RHEL. So he switched to Fedora and had to fix one problem after another just because previously Canonical was fixing them and now he has to do it himself. Complains that Ubuntu is a bit behind in Gnome features is true, but it happens specifically because Gnome devs don't care much about stability of a fresh release and tend to break UX because they just felt so, or because they were unable to reintroduce some feature in a shiny new library they just created and had to rewrite entire app with it but dropping features due to lack of time/effort. Nautilus is notorious for throwing away features people love and use for years, and Canonical had to stick to older versions to not infuriate users. Fedora just provides what Gnome released and you have to deal with that. Flatpak and Flathub are nice for him, but what stopped him using both in Ubuntu? He 'feels' that Fedora is more stable, but have to deal with 3rd party software crashes, because devs tend to test everything for Ubuntu. Even the Software center crashes for him all the time (yeah, Gnome devs...) And he's happy that he switched as he feels more solid. Quote: "To get to this state I did have to put in some work and research, but not at a level of recompiling kernels. If you are comfortable googling, using the terminal for some commands and interpreting an occasional error message I would now recommend Fedora over Ubuntu." It really feels like someone has paid for an anti Canonical media campaign, because this shit is ridiculous.

blibble 4y ago
> Flatpak and Flathub are nice for him, but what stopped him using both in Ubuntu? https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ > In the last few months it really looks like someone payed for a web campaign against Canonical/Ubuntu. maybe canonical's bullshit have caused enough people to hit the tipping point? I had a similar moment with microsoft with the 2015 windows 10 release
- selivanovp 4y ago
  > Flatpak and Flathub are nice for him, but what stopped him using both in Ubuntu? >https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ Have you tried to read what's in the article you posted? Ubuntu never had flatpak installed by default. But you can install and use it if you want. I personally use both flatpak and snaps in Ubuntu. >maybe canonical's bullshit have caused enough people to hit the tipping point? I don't think so, as I've been using Ubuntu since 8.04 and there were horrendous releases like 11.04 and 11.10 that was full of nasty bugs, 13.04 was also a shit show. But lately here or in /r/Ubuntu there're lots of people with the same really strange arguments about snaps and how everyone have to uninstall it immediately and/or ditch Ubuntu for a better distro. I've heard that Canonical is hoping for IPO this year though, there may be the answer.
  - plaguepilled 4y ago
    The community DE versions DID change though, at the (rather mild) behest of Canonical. So while you're right, GP cited an article perhaps incorrectly, it does raise a new question of "OK but why did Canonical think this was appropriate".
  - croutonwagon 4y ago
    I started using it on 6.06 (I think 2008 is when they moved to the April/October schedule). All the Linux distros were rough around the edges. Especially if you elected to use certain hardware (like a graphics card, or non-dell/thinkpad setups etc). Its really come a long way. And Canonical doesn’t do a terrible job of keeping some legacy stuff in. For example I still have a habit of checking /etc/init.d and using service xxxx yyy to manage services etc despite them being on systemd for like a decade or something. Heck even the systems at work (and home) I can semi reliably run a do-release-upgrade and most things work, both on my laptop and several of the servers. Hell even on my laptop Ubuntu is by far the easiest to get my egpu to function as a dock. Its not PnP and requires a reboot to dock/undock but it works.
    - lproven 4y ago
fhars 4y ago
It's the firefox snap, nobody needs to pay for that campaign.
- selivanovp 4y ago
  I'm using firefox snap for many months without issues. What's your problem with it?
  - avhception 4y ago
    Snaps broke Gnome window tracking for my employer's custom webapp launcher. Snapd places a folder at ~/snap that's owned by the user. My dad deleted it, "What's that? I don't need that." Users in my workplace deleted it. Messes snaps up real good. Sometimes they lost data. It's been reported as a bug since... let me check... 2016. But instead of fixing it, Canonical decided to shove Snapd down my throat by packaging all relevant webbrowsers and their own LXD daemon through snap and snap only. The DEB versions of said software are shims for the snaps. I'm moving my whole employer's infrastructure and my family members to RockyLinux.
ace2358 4y ago
It sort of reminds me of the posts that John Gruber has been making pointing out the differences in laptop review between pcs and macs. They get reviewed on entirely different scales. Here’s a quote from the verge: “For one, I only averaged three hours and 35 minutes of battery life, which would be a big problem even if everything else about this device was incredible. But even while on power, I could feel the thing chugging toward the higher end of my workload. For example, while I was operating a second screen over Thunderbolt, loading some files from external drives, running a few downloads, and trying to work over that in 20-ish Chrome tabs, the Latitude had visible slowdown. I don’t see this as an unrealistic office workload, so that’s concerning.” It’s like what year is this that a laptop like that doesn’t get a 0/10 review?
- GoldenRacer 4y ago
  How is that review an example that PCs and Macs are reviewed on a different scale? She gave the latitude a score of 4/10 which on her scale is considered "mediocre - has multiple outstanding issues" which sounds accurate (0/10 isn't an option on her scale so it literally couldn't have received that). Meanwhile she gave the MacBook pro a score of 9.5/10 halfway between "nearly perfect" and "the best of the best". Sounds like she used the same scale to me.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  Macs have almost always been reviewed higher than PC.
LightFog 4y ago
Good for you that snap is working well - for me it continues to be a user experience mess, for example the long reported issue with refresh pop-ups in Firefox. Fedora don’t need to pay me to complain about that.
- selivanovp 4y ago
  Refresh pop-ups are confusing and a bad UX, that's true, but besides that everything works fine. Not to mention that you can install firefox as a flatpak or deb, or even just a self updating package from Mozilla if you don't want to learn how to deal with a pop-up that tells you that you need to close firefox for it to be updated.
  - LightFog 4y ago
    So besides one of the core ux functions of a package manager being functionally broken it is working fine, yes.
- rubatuga 4y ago
  Don't chromium snaps have an issue with PWAs and updating
mixmastamyk 4y ago
> (I'm writing it from snapped firefox and it works perfectly and faster that .deb and flatpak alternatives) That's impossible, the snap runs through a loop back image. Which makes the other claims suspect. Yes, snap spamed my mounts, runs a daemon, forces ~/snap... probably other things I'd like to forget. I got tired of cleaning that up every time and finally decamped to Mint last year after ~15 years of using Ubuntu. The experience was so bad with snap I'm actually afraid to try flatpak and so far haven't. So far just download/untar an archive if in a pinch. Also odd, because I'm open to the need for adhoc installs.
- selivanovp 4y ago
  Just check yourself. Canonical and Mozilla spent a lot of time optimizing snaps and firefox inside specifically. The last time I run tests was about two months ago and snapped ff performed better than flatpak and deb versions. The main reason for that is more optimal compilation flags they were able to use in a snapped environment.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Not able to because my main machine is Mint now. But, even on the Ubuntu box, running the deb version is not (generally) possible any more? Also, I see no reason a compilation flags could be used inside a snap but not out of it, other than a policy choice. Finally, what about every other program that uses snaps? This doesn't solve any of the other poor design issues. Like I said, I used Windows for years and ad-hoc is how software is installed there. But even on Windows, installing a program doesn't involve bullshit like spamming Explorer with disk images.
treve 4y ago
Hey! I'm the author. A real person, not a shill. You can find other articles on the same domain going back 17 years. Wild to be accused of this, but I'm not offended. It's kind of hilarious.
- crispinb 4y ago
  > I'm not offended You probably should be. If not personally, then for offences against standards of decency. Cowardly accusations hiding behind 'feels' shouldn't be acceptable public discourse.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Ad hominims aren't acceptable for public discourse either, bud
    - crispinb 4y ago
      Criticising an actual comment is very precisely the opposite of ad hominem.
crispinb 4y ago
> It really feels like This is a really nasty locution, enabling an unscrupulous user to make an accusation without being pinned down to facts, because it's all a matter of their feels. Either you have evidence that someone was bribed to make a blog post, or you don't. What you claim to 'feel' is irrelevant to anyone other than your family and psychotherapist. To make an accusation of corruption, you absolutely must have evidence. Out with it, or STFU.
- selivanovp 4y ago
  The guy’s article is full of feels how Fedora is better, while if you read his own facts he had to work hard to make Fedora experience close to what Ubuntu provides out of the box. His own words about benefits of switch results in having a more fresh Gnome version and a ‘feeling that Fedora is more solid’ (no actual confirmation of that). As to my own feelings, it’s just a result of actively participating in /r/Ubuntu and helping people with their problems for years. For quite some months I observe users coming with the same old arguments about how Amazon deal was awful, how snaps are abomination and has to be replaced with flatpaks, how everyone should switch to Fedora or Arch or PopOs, whatever. And I also regularly observe how such users are getting wiped out from reddit, because they’re bots I suppose. The last such case happened just yesterday, when the strange user with strange arguments got deleted by reddit. So, obviously, not everyone who says something negative about Ubuntu is a paid shill, but it definitely looks like a campaign of trashing Canonical and their products in media. And no, obviously, I have no proves of this, it’s just anomalies that I observe.
  - crispinb 4y ago
    I started to write a reply, but realised it's futile arguing with someone with such low ethical standards. So I've blocked you.
rurban 4y ago
I'm using both. Ubuntu and Windows 10 in the company, Fedora and Debian at home. Debian and esp. Ubuntu are a joke compared to Fedora. Ubuntu constantly crashes when listening streams on vlc, Docker vs podman, snap. Skype nor teams video works. The only good thing on Ubuntu are the glibc headers for embedded work. The rest is only marginally better than Windows.
rcarmo 4y ago
Like other folk pointed out, snaps (and moving Firefox into a snap) was the one single reason I also moved to Fedora. I now have five machines (three physical, two virtual) running it instead of Ubuntu, and although I a not a fan of flatpak (the amount of wasted storage and various quirks make running apps inside it a chore, so the only thing I run in flatpak is Blender), I concede it is better than snap. I am also not keen on GNOME’s “our way or the highway” approach to customization, but as long as they still support user themes (which I use to make GNOME look like macOS — because I find it helps me find stuff when I’m fatigued), I’m OK with it.
plaguepilled 4y ago
I was going to argue, because I am part of the "fedora good :)!" crowd. Surely, fedora good? But considering the nonsensical arguments I've seen elsewhere around a certain OS whenever it is merely mentioned, I am starting to think you're right.

blibble 4y ago

> Flatpak and Flathub are nice for him, but what stopped him using both in Ubuntu? https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ > In the last few months it really looks like someone payed for a web campaign against Canonical/Ubuntu. maybe canonical's bullshit have caused enough people to hit the tipping point? I had a similar moment with microsoft with the 2015 windows 10 release

selivanovp 4y ago
> Flatpak and Flathub are nice for him, but what stopped him using both in Ubuntu? >https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/927262/6adb2350e2b0d2ce/ Have you tried to read what's in the article you posted? Ubuntu never had flatpak installed by default. But you can install and use it if you want. I personally use both flatpak and snaps in Ubuntu. >maybe canonical's bullshit have caused enough people to hit the tipping point? I don't think so, as I've been using Ubuntu since 8.04 and there were horrendous releases like 11.04 and 11.10 that was full of nasty bugs, 13.04 was also a shit show. But lately here or in /r/Ubuntu there're lots of people with the same really strange arguments about snaps and how everyone have to uninstall it immediately and/or ditch Ubuntu for a better distro. I've heard that Canonical is hoping for IPO this year though, there may be the answer.
- plaguepilled 4y ago
  The community DE versions DID change though, at the (rather mild) behest of Canonical. So while you're right, GP cited an article perhaps incorrectly, it does raise a new question of "OK but why did Canonical think this was appropriate".
- croutonwagon 4y ago
  I started using it on 6.06 (I think 2008 is when they moved to the April/October schedule). All the Linux distros were rough around the edges. Especially if you elected to use certain hardware (like a graphics card, or non-dell/thinkpad setups etc). Its really come a long way. And Canonical doesn’t do a terrible job of keeping some legacy stuff in. For example I still have a habit of checking /etc/init.d and using service xxxx yyy to manage services etc despite them being on systemd for like a decade or something. Heck even the systems at work (and home) I can semi reliably run a do-release-upgrade and most things work, both on my laptop and several of the servers. Hell even on my laptop Ubuntu is by far the easiest to get my egpu to function as a dock. Its not PnP and requires a reboot to dock/undock but it works.
  - lproven 4y ago

fhars 4y ago

It's the firefox snap, nobody needs to pay for that campaign.

selivanovp 4y ago
I'm using firefox snap for many months without issues. What's your problem with it?
- avhception 4y ago
  Snaps broke Gnome window tracking for my employer's custom webapp launcher. Snapd places a folder at ~/snap that's owned by the user. My dad deleted it, "What's that? I don't need that." Users in my workplace deleted it. Messes snaps up real good. Sometimes they lost data. It's been reported as a bug since... let me check... 2016. But instead of fixing it, Canonical decided to shove Snapd down my throat by packaging all relevant webbrowsers and their own LXD daemon through snap and snap only. The DEB versions of said software are shims for the snaps. I'm moving my whole employer's infrastructure and my family members to RockyLinux.

ace2358 4y ago

It sort of reminds me of the posts that John Gruber has been making pointing out the differences in laptop review between pcs and macs. They get reviewed on entirely different scales. Here’s a quote from the verge: “For one, I only averaged three hours and 35 minutes of battery life, which would be a big problem even if everything else about this device was incredible. But even while on power, I could feel the thing chugging toward the higher end of my workload. For example, while I was operating a second screen over Thunderbolt, loading some files from external drives, running a few downloads, and trying to work over that in 20-ish Chrome tabs, the Latitude had visible slowdown. I don’t see this as an unrealistic office workload, so that’s concerning.” It’s like what year is this that a laptop like that doesn’t get a 0/10 review?

GoldenRacer 4y ago
How is that review an example that PCs and Macs are reviewed on a different scale? She gave the latitude a score of 4/10 which on her scale is considered "mediocre - has multiple outstanding issues" which sounds accurate (0/10 isn't an option on her scale so it literally couldn't have received that). Meanwhile she gave the MacBook pro a score of 9.5/10 halfway between "nearly perfect" and "the best of the best". Sounds like she used the same scale to me.
deafpolygon 4y ago
Macs have almost always been reviewed higher than PC.

LightFog 4y ago

Good for you that snap is working well - for me it continues to be a user experience mess, for example the long reported issue with refresh pop-ups in Firefox. Fedora don’t need to pay me to complain about that.

selivanovp 4y ago
Refresh pop-ups are confusing and a bad UX, that's true, but besides that everything works fine. Not to mention that you can install firefox as a flatpak or deb, or even just a self updating package from Mozilla if you don't want to learn how to deal with a pop-up that tells you that you need to close firefox for it to be updated.
- LightFog 4y ago
  So besides one of the core ux functions of a package manager being functionally broken it is working fine, yes.
rubatuga 4y ago
Don't chromium snaps have an issue with PWAs and updating

mixmastamyk 4y ago

> (I'm writing it from snapped firefox and it works perfectly and faster that .deb and flatpak alternatives) That's impossible, the snap runs through a loop back image. Which makes the other claims suspect. Yes, snap spamed my mounts, runs a daemon, forces ~/snap... probably other things I'd like to forget. I got tired of cleaning that up every time and finally decamped to Mint last year after ~15 years of using Ubuntu. The experience was so bad with snap I'm actually afraid to try flatpak and so far haven't. So far just download/untar an archive if in a pinch. Also odd, because I'm open to the need for adhoc installs.

selivanovp 4y ago
Just check yourself. Canonical and Mozilla spent a lot of time optimizing snaps and firefox inside specifically. The last time I run tests was about two months ago and snapped ff performed better than flatpak and deb versions. The main reason for that is more optimal compilation flags they were able to use in a snapped environment.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Not able to because my main machine is Mint now. But, even on the Ubuntu box, running the deb version is not (generally) possible any more? Also, I see no reason a compilation flags could be used inside a snap but not out of it, other than a policy choice. Finally, what about every other program that uses snaps? This doesn't solve any of the other poor design issues. Like I said, I used Windows for years and ad-hoc is how software is installed there. But even on Windows, installing a program doesn't involve bullshit like spamming Explorer with disk images.

treve 4y ago

Hey! I'm the author. A real person, not a shill. You can find other articles on the same domain going back 17 years. Wild to be accused of this, but I'm not offended. It's kind of hilarious.

crispinb 4y ago
> I'm not offended You probably should be. If not personally, then for offences against standards of decency. Cowardly accusations hiding behind 'feels' shouldn't be acceptable public discourse.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Ad hominims aren't acceptable for public discourse either, bud
  - crispinb 4y ago
    Criticising an actual comment is very precisely the opposite of ad hominem.

crispinb 4y ago

> It really feels like This is a really nasty locution, enabling an unscrupulous user to make an accusation without being pinned down to facts, because it's all a matter of their feels. Either you have evidence that someone was bribed to make a blog post, or you don't. What you claim to 'feel' is irrelevant to anyone other than your family and psychotherapist. To make an accusation of corruption, you absolutely must have evidence. Out with it, or STFU.

selivanovp 4y ago
The guy’s article is full of feels how Fedora is better, while if you read his own facts he had to work hard to make Fedora experience close to what Ubuntu provides out of the box. His own words about benefits of switch results in having a more fresh Gnome version and a ‘feeling that Fedora is more solid’ (no actual confirmation of that). As to my own feelings, it’s just a result of actively participating in /r/Ubuntu and helping people with their problems for years. For quite some months I observe users coming with the same old arguments about how Amazon deal was awful, how snaps are abomination and has to be replaced with flatpaks, how everyone should switch to Fedora or Arch or PopOs, whatever. And I also regularly observe how such users are getting wiped out from reddit, because they’re bots I suppose. The last such case happened just yesterday, when the strange user with strange arguments got deleted by reddit. So, obviously, not everyone who says something negative about Ubuntu is a paid shill, but it definitely looks like a campaign of trashing Canonical and their products in media. And no, obviously, I have no proves of this, it’s just anomalies that I observe.
- crispinb 4y ago
  I started to write a reply, but realised it's futile arguing with someone with such low ethical standards. So I've blocked you.

rurban 4y ago

I'm using both. Ubuntu and Windows 10 in the company, Fedora and Debian at home. Debian and esp. Ubuntu are a joke compared to Fedora. Ubuntu constantly crashes when listening streams on vlc, Docker vs podman, snap. Skype nor teams video works. The only good thing on Ubuntu are the glibc headers for embedded work. The rest is only marginally better than Windows.

rcarmo 4y ago

Like other folk pointed out, snaps (and moving Firefox into a snap) was the one single reason I also moved to Fedora. I now have five machines (three physical, two virtual) running it instead of Ubuntu, and although I a not a fan of flatpak (the amount of wasted storage and various quirks make running apps inside it a chore, so the only thing I run in flatpak is Blender), I concede it is better than snap. I am also not keen on GNOME’s “our way or the highway” approach to customization, but as long as they still support user themes (which I use to make GNOME look like macOS — because I find it helps me find stuff when I’m fatigued), I’m OK with it.

plaguepilled 4y ago

I was going to argue, because I am part of the "fedora good :)!" crowd. Surely, fedora good? But considering the nonsensical arguments I've seen elsewhere around a certain OS whenever it is merely mentioned, I am starting to think you're right.