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People still use ubuntu when Debian and Mint exist?

by sehw 17d ago

LtWorf 17d ago
The power of marketing… Ubuntu does offer some certifications but only for paying customers, so everyone else should really steer clear.
pjmlp 17d ago
Yes, proprietary hardware support out of the box, and pre-installed option by the few OEMs that sell GNU/Linux computers.
- PunchyHamster 17d ago
  My nvidia GPU worked just fine. Debian has non-free repo you know...
  - pjmlp 17d ago
    I know how well it has worked in practice since the Walnut Creek CDROMs were a thing.
  - LtWorf 17d ago
    Nowadays the non-free-firmware repo is active by default, so the normal official debian image actually works. It used to be the case that the normal download from the homepage was often useless because it didn't support most networking hardware, but this is no longer the case now.
    - spider-mario 17d ago
      How long ago was that? I tried Debian about 15-20 years ago and I don’t recall encountering that issue. (The issue I do remember encountering was random kernel panics that I didn’t have with Ubuntu on the same machine.)
      - monegator 17d ago
        as soon as wifi became a widespread thing, you had to add the required package to the installer. It stopped being an issue with bookworm
    - LtWorf 17d ago
      Got to love this website :D Downvoted for completely true information with no ideological spin :D :D :D
Brendinooo 17d ago
Why would I switch off of Ubuntu? It's what came with my system.
jcarrano 17d ago
Debian packages are ancient, unless you use "testing", which will be broken. That being said, Ubuntu is horrible too. The problem comes when you have to use proprietary software made by incompetent vendors, and that only works in Ubuntu.
- jillesvangurp 17d ago
  Ubuntu is basically a packages imported/synced from debian (I think they mostly cherry pick unstable) + ubuntu specific stuff. Debian Testing is pretty much what many Debian users use on a daily basis. They pretty much invented the notion of rolling releases. Debian stable is of course not cut that often. Ubuntu has a higher frequency of updates. But still, their LTS releases are spaced two years apart. 26.10 follows the recent LTS 26.04 release, so that gives them a good 1.5 years to work on stabilizing this. I've been using Ubuntu server LTS releases for the last ten years or so with generally no major issues. There are always some minor headaches between updates but generally nothing that worries me. The main criticism here seems to be that these packages need a bit more work or are still lacking certain important features. Getting them out in a non LTS release like this is how they get packages to be ready for LTS releases. If you need LTS now, 26.04 is what you should be using. By 28.04, this should be rock solid. For me what's risky here is deviating from what other distros are doing. Including Debian. Ubuntu has a history of being opinionated not everything they push through being adopted with great enthusiasm (e.g. Snap). You could make the point here that waiting for Debian to pick this up would be nicer. But you could also make the point that waiting for that is a very slow process.
- monegator 17d ago
  > Debian packages are ancient ever used backports? no need to go to sid. Flatpack/Appimage/Compile from source for the rest (on my debian machine it's just kicad that is not installed from APT, well and the couple of softwares that don't do deb) Firmwares, that's another story, i have fedora on the laptop for that. > The problem comes when you have to use proprietary software made by incompetent vendors, and that only works in Ubuntu If i want to do FPGA development, either ubuntu or a distro old enough to package JDK 11 (sigh) and X. not XWayland. Debian 11 was the last one to have JDK 11 i think (talk about ancient..) Needless to say FPGA is done on the windows machine these days.
pessimizer 17d ago
Mint is downstream from Ubuntu still afaik. They had/have LMDE as an escape hatch, maybe they should pull the ripcord (to mix metaphors.) Need a wider variety of people protecting Debian anyway, governance there is getting weird.

People still use ubuntu when Debian and Mint exist?

by sehw 17d ago

People still use ubuntu when Debian and Mint exist?

The power of marketing… Ubuntu does offer some certifications but only for paying customers, so everyone else should really steer clear.

pjmlp 17d ago

Yes, proprietary hardware support out of the box, and pre-installed option by the few OEMs that sell GNU/Linux computers.

PunchyHamster 17d ago
My nvidia GPU worked just fine. Debian has non-free repo you know...
- pjmlp 17d ago
  I know how well it has worked in practice since the Walnut Creek CDROMs were a thing.
- LtWorf 17d ago
  Nowadays the non-free-firmware repo is active by default, so the normal official debian image actually works. It used to be the case that the normal download from the homepage was often useless because it didn't support most networking hardware, but this is no longer the case now.
  - spider-mario 17d ago
    How long ago was that? I tried Debian about 15-20 years ago and I don’t recall encountering that issue. (The issue I do remember encountering was random kernel panics that I didn’t have with Ubuntu on the same machine.)
    - monegator 17d ago
      as soon as wifi became a widespread thing, you had to add the required package to the installer. It stopped being an issue with bookworm
  - LtWorf 17d ago
    Got to love this website :D Downvoted for completely true information with no ideological spin :D :D :D

Brendinooo 17d ago

Why would I switch off of Ubuntu? It's what came with my system.

jcarrano 17d ago

Debian packages are ancient, unless you use "testing", which will be broken. That being said, Ubuntu is horrible too. The problem comes when you have to use proprietary software made by incompetent vendors, and that only works in Ubuntu.

jillesvangurp 17d ago
Ubuntu is basically a packages imported/synced from debian (I think they mostly cherry pick unstable) + ubuntu specific stuff. Debian Testing is pretty much what many Debian users use on a daily basis. They pretty much invented the notion of rolling releases. Debian stable is of course not cut that often. Ubuntu has a higher frequency of updates. But still, their LTS releases are spaced two years apart. 26.10 follows the recent LTS 26.04 release, so that gives them a good 1.5 years to work on stabilizing this. I've been using Ubuntu server LTS releases for the last ten years or so with generally no major issues. There are always some minor headaches between updates but generally nothing that worries me. The main criticism here seems to be that these packages need a bit more work or are still lacking certain important features. Getting them out in a non LTS release like this is how they get packages to be ready for LTS releases. If you need LTS now, 26.04 is what you should be using. By 28.04, this should be rock solid. For me what's risky here is deviating from what other distros are doing. Including Debian. Ubuntu has a history of being opinionated not everything they push through being adopted with great enthusiasm (e.g. Snap). You could make the point here that waiting for Debian to pick this up would be nicer. But you could also make the point that waiting for that is a very slow process.
monegator 17d ago
> Debian packages are ancient ever used backports? no need to go to sid. Flatpack/Appimage/Compile from source for the rest (on my debian machine it's just kicad that is not installed from APT, well and the couple of softwares that don't do deb) Firmwares, that's another story, i have fedora on the laptop for that. > The problem comes when you have to use proprietary software made by incompetent vendors, and that only works in Ubuntu If i want to do FPGA development, either ubuntu or a distro old enough to package JDK 11 (sigh) and X. not XWayland. Debian 11 was the last one to have JDK 11 i think (talk about ancient..) Needless to say FPGA is done on the windows machine these days.

pessimizer 17d ago

Mint is downstream from Ubuntu still afaik. They had/have LMDE as an escape hatch, maybe they should pull the ripcord (to mix metaphors.) Need a wider variety of people protecting Debian anyway, governance there is getting weird.