I still remember when I found out about Ubuntu 100 years ago.
It's clear to me that Ubuntu is no longer in fashion. So what is popular these days? From what I heard, I think it's Fedora or Arch (such as Omarchy), but only with some slick UI stuff like Hyprland and Caelestia.
If it's a server: Debian Stable or Rocky Linux (choose according to taste).
If the person can put in the work and doesn't need bleeding edge software: Debian Stable.
If the person can put in the work, the machine is in a secure environment, not going to serve anything and is a desktop system: Debian Testing.
If the person can't put the work and wants something working: Fedora.
If the person wants to dive deeper: Arch, Gentoo, LFS.
Note: Debian needs some work not because it doesn't work out of the box, but it doesn't do any customization on packages. So tailoring things according to your taste takes time. Then it becomes so customized it almost reads your mind and feels like home.
I've been A/B testing the desktop side of this. If the person doesn't mind reading a wiki page every now and then and has a few hours to set up the OS on the first day, Arch (without `archinstall`) works better for "wants something working."
The reason is that, people eventually need proprietary / old / unsupported software, and AUR often has it out of the box, and when it doesn't, at least the dependencies are already there. On the other hand, beginners (even some experienced but busy guys) might agree with a problematic `apt` plan and uninstall the desktop, and it goes downhill from there (can't repair the system because they never built it in the first place, or cannot go back to the original configurations, etc). For instance this can happen because the user tried to install a `deb` package for an older release.
That being said I can't remember seeing fedora fail this way, though the user might have to manually clone / build a dozen more git repositories to install the same unsupported software. This was a deal breaker two years ago (lack of AI help), but now it's just time consuming.
I'm still on Ubuntu and I'm not sure I'm dedicated enough to bother with Debian (especially on a niche laptop, I run Debian on servers), but everything I'm seeing about the new Ubuntu releases makes me want to switch to Mint once 23 (26.04 base) comes out.
The popular OS is more likely to be either directly tested by people writing software, or already have bugs filed/fixed for edge cases because more people are using it.
- Snaps.
- Replacing something battle-tested with something written in Rust, MIT licensed, with 140 CVEs and other bugs (uutils).
- Pulling rugs and replacing debs with snapswithout telling it, because "it creates positive pressur e on the snap team and drives the quality higher".
- Staggered rollout of some updates, so update is there but you can't update because the your system didn't feel like updating yet.
- Promising to open source Snap store to allow alternative stores and forgetting what they had said.
- Bullying Debian to push their changes to Debian to offload software maintenance (they wanted to make netplan the default in Debian, for example).
... etc, etc.
Note: You can disagree with this, and we can discuss this with cool heads, if you prefer.
Nope, snap is bad, but how they modify apt to slow-rollout updates and bully Debian to offload things are equally bad. They became the Microsoft of the Linux world while trying to replace it.
They are moving with self-interest, not with a collective interest. Considering what Ubuntu means, that's bitterly ironic as well.
I never used Ubuntu outside VMs to test Ubuntu-specific stuff. I used to have a colleague who installed Ubuntu as defacto server OS, but I replaced them with Debian step by step.
I can't understand the snap hate personally. Snap packages are very easy to create and i like being able to install e.g. a language toolchain in a self contained way that doesn't depend on or pollute my system libraries. And ultimately i use a distro because i trust its maintainers, i can't bring myself to get upset about what package format they choose to use
I've settled on NixOS for things I manage - servers, VPCs, laptops/pcs. Not gonna rehash its pros/cons, but it really clicks with me. Also, very useful for project dependencies and things that doesn't need to be installed just because are used once a month.
I recently revived my old gaming PC from 2015 and I wanted to install Pop!_OS cause that was the cool new-ish one everyone's been talking about. But I straight up could not get it to install on my hardware (I think my GTX 970 is too old for official support)
I left ubuntu back during the unity desktop days. It was a great desktop for beginners, but not my cup of tea. Since then they put ads in their operating system and embraced these nonsensical snap packages, so I'll never go back to ubuntu.
Instead, I'll probably move everything over to Void next.
Im on Void Linux and using X11 too. While i do a lot of my config using an LLM these days, i do find the system simple again. No SystemD, no wayland etc (This works. great for me as im on a desktop with a AMD GPU and well supported HW. If i was on a laptop i would use Wayland probably).
I personally consider Ubuntu an irresponsible choice. They hold back security updates unless you subscribe to Ubuntu Pro with the 'esm-apps'. I'd rather use a distro that doesn't apply a ransom to security updates.
Ubuntu is surely controversial but no, security updates aren't paid. ;) Well, unless you need an LTS that cannot be updated for whatever reasons for 10 years. Or for people that need an extra FIPS approval.
I agree, since that move I've migrated everything I had running on Ubuntu to Debian, with the exception of my big blue button VPS whose installation script is really tied to it.
Someone may run into some issues upgrading their one server, and decide to power through it. Enterprises create a project plan, have meetings, get QA involved, identify risks, mitigate them, need sign off from the security team, not just on the new Ubuntu version, but they may talk themselves into re-certifying the entire bla-di-blah. For them it makes economic sense (in the short term) to just pay for the support plan that keeps them "compliant" and comfortable on the current version.
And this, among other things, is why I like the agency that small companies should be able to offer you.
Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it. Also, most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic.
All applications need maintenance. Either you do it at application level to keep on top of its dependencies or you do it at OS/3rd party level. Either way, someone wants to get paid.
> Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it.
Yes, that is the entire point of what I said.
> most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic
It depends on if it's an in-house app or managed and built by a 3rd party (may void contract). Also depends on the risk of life/monetary loss if something goes sideways.
sound like FUD, ubuntu don't hold back security updates for their LTS distro , move to newer LTS one if you wanna secure your system, same goes to Debian or RedHat or Windows , who wanna maintain older Debian 9 security or Windows 7 secuity update.
Despite of the shortcomings, I'm still sticking to Ubuntu. It's boring, and occasionally break things. But at least it's not hostile.
If you use the words like "still" and "at least", there is little enthusiasm. But that's how a long-term relationship looks like I guess.
I still remember when I found out about Ubuntu 100 years ago.
It's clear to me that Ubuntu is no longer in fashion. So what is popular these days? From what I heard, I think it's Fedora or Arch (such as Omarchy), but only with some slick UI stuff like Hyprland and Caelestia.
If it's a server: Debian Stable or Rocky Linux (choose according to taste).
If the person can put in the work and doesn't need bleeding edge software: Debian Stable.
If the person can put in the work, the machine is in a secure environment, not going to serve anything and is a desktop system: Debian Testing.
If the person can't put the work and wants something working: Fedora.
If the person wants to dive deeper: Arch, Gentoo, LFS.
Note: Debian needs some work not because it doesn't work out of the box, but it doesn't do any customization on packages. So tailoring things according to your taste takes time. Then it becomes so customized it almost reads your mind and feels like home.
I've been A/B testing the desktop side of this. If the person doesn't mind reading a wiki page every now and then and has a few hours to set up the OS on the first day, Arch (without `archinstall`) works better for "wants something working."
The reason is that, people eventually need proprietary / old / unsupported software, and AUR often has it out of the box, and when it doesn't, at least the dependencies are already there. On the other hand, beginners (even some experienced but busy guys) might agree with a problematic `apt` plan and uninstall the desktop, and it goes downhill from there (can't repair the system because they never built it in the first place, or cannot go back to the original configurations, etc). For instance this can happen because the user tried to install a `deb` package for an older release.
That being said I can't remember seeing fedora fail this way, though the user might have to manually clone / build a dozen more git repositories to install the same unsupported software. This was a deal breaker two years ago (lack of AI help), but now it's just time consuming.
Debian had some nasty bugs in Rust packages because they do modify them.
I'm still on Ubuntu and I'm not sure I'm dedicated enough to bother with Debian (especially on a niche laptop, I run Debian on servers), but everything I'm seeing about the new Ubuntu releases makes me want to switch to Mint once 23 (26.04 base) comes out.
Why does fashionibility matter? It's an OS, it just needs to work well. Ubuntu still does that.
The popular OS is more likely to be either directly tested by people writing software, or already have bugs filed/fixed for edge cases because more people are using it.
Ubuntu may not be fashionable but it's still very widely deployed
> Ubuntu still does that.
Debatable.
... etc, etc.Note: You can disagree with this, and we can discuss this with cool heads, if you prefer.
I see your point is basically snap bad.
And as a software maintainer who publish to all distributions, I wholeheartedly agree.
Nope, snap is bad, but how they modify apt to slow-rollout updates and bully Debian to offload things are equally bad. They became the Microsoft of the Linux world while trying to replace it.
They are moving with self-interest, not with a collective interest. Considering what Ubuntu means, that's bitterly ironic as well.
Shame.
Snaps did it for me, that's when I moved away to plain Debian.
I never used Ubuntu outside VMs to test Ubuntu-specific stuff. I used to have a colleague who installed Ubuntu as defacto server OS, but I replaced them with Debian step by step.
I can't understand the snap hate personally. Snap packages are very easy to create and i like being able to install e.g. a language toolchain in a self contained way that doesn't depend on or pollute my system libraries. And ultimately i use a distro because i trust its maintainers, i can't bring myself to get upset about what package format they choose to use
I've settled on NixOS for things I manage - servers, VPCs, laptops/pcs. Not gonna rehash its pros/cons, but it really clicks with me. Also, very useful for project dependencies and things that doesn't need to be installed just because are used once a month.
I still like Ubuntu for a few reasons. The design. Dock on the side. The fact that it's really popular and well supported.
But of course feel free to distro hop yourself.
I recently revived my old gaming PC from 2015 and I wanted to install Pop!_OS cause that was the cool new-ish one everyone's been talking about. But I straight up could not get it to install on my hardware (I think my GTX 970 is too old for official support)
I ended up installing Mint and it's Good Enough™
I just keep using Ubuntu anyway. Servers, raspis, WSL, laptops, it's nice to just have the same system everywhere
Whatever just works.
Ubuntu used to be the Debian that just worked without tweaking.
Today I find Debian to be the one which’s works without tweaking, and Ubuntu the one where one has to undo/disable lots of Ubuntuisms.
So for me: Server is Debian. Laptop is Arch.
Seems that this release still allows for coreutils (rm, cp, etc) to come from the GNU folks in addition to the Rust-based uutils:
* https://packages.ubuntu.com/stonking/coreutils
See "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils" from last month:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49696697
Used to love Ubuntu but they dropped X11 support so I'm out
(I'm fine with Wayland for those who want it but it still breaks things I've used)
*Gnome dropped X11
Agree. My next upgrade from 24.04 will be to Debian.
I only want to know one thing: did they finally fix the main usability problems with Snap?
just upgraded an old notebook from 16.04 to 18.04 :) i’m surprised they kept the files up for such a long time.
The oldest commercially supported release at the moment is 14.04 so of course they will have the files.
There are both ISOs and apt packages all the way back to the first release here: https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/
...but why?
I left ubuntu back during the unity desktop days. It was a great desktop for beginners, but not my cup of tea. Since then they put ads in their operating system and embraced these nonsensical snap packages, so I'll never go back to ubuntu.
Instead, I'll probably move everything over to Void next.
Im on Void Linux and using X11 too. While i do a lot of my config using an LLM these days, i do find the system simple again. No SystemD, no wayland etc (This works. great for me as im on a desktop with a AMD GPU and well supported HW. If i was on a laptop i would use Wayland probably).
I personally consider Ubuntu an irresponsible choice. They hold back security updates unless you subscribe to Ubuntu Pro with the 'esm-apps'. I'd rather use a distro that doesn't apply a ransom to security updates.
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-pro-faq/34042 -- they don't do that really
Ubuntu is surely controversial but no, security updates aren't paid. ;) Well, unless you need an LTS that cannot be updated for whatever reasons for 10 years. Or for people that need an extra FIPS approval.
I agree, since that move I've migrated everything I had running on Ubuntu to Debian, with the exception of my big blue button VPS whose installation script is really tied to it.
Is Ubuntu pro just a paid extension for the LTS?
If so, why pay for that rather than upgrading? Honest question.
May not be able to easily replatform the application running on top of the 5-10yr server or VM.
LTS also only covers core OS components with security updates, not the 30k+ packages available in the repo...
Yeah I can see a niche situation where it's helpful, it's just surprising to me that it's a common enough case to make it a business line.
Someone may run into some issues upgrading their one server, and decide to power through it. Enterprises create a project plan, have meetings, get QA involved, identify risks, mitigate them, need sign off from the security team, not just on the new Ubuntu version, but they may talk themselves into re-certifying the entire bla-di-blah. For them it makes economic sense (in the short term) to just pay for the support plan that keeps them "compliant" and comfortable on the current version.
And this, among other things, is why I like the agency that small companies should be able to offer you.
Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it. Also, most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic.
All applications need maintenance. Either you do it at application level to keep on top of its dependencies or you do it at OS/3rd party level. Either way, someone wants to get paid.
> Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it.
Yes, that is the entire point of what I said.
> most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic
It depends on if it's an in-house app or managed and built by a 3rd party (may void contract). Also depends on the risk of life/monetary loss if something goes sideways.
What? Ubuntu Non-LTS, which this release is, support window is 9 months of support and LTS is 5 years free + 5 years paid.
That's well spelled out here: https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle
You can also just upgrade your LTS and continue to get support for free.
It's free for personal use on up to 5 machines
How do they compare with Debian for the same updates?
sound like FUD, ubuntu don't hold back security updates for their LTS distro , move to newer LTS one if you wanna secure your system, same goes to Debian or RedHat or Windows , who wanna maintain older Debian 9 security or Windows 7 secuity update.
> I personally consider Ubuntu an irresponsible choice
Absolutely. Injecting ads into the desktop and cli, having a package manager that runs as a root service, their decades of poor upgrade testing, etc.
I have never found them to be trustworthy when other, better options exist.
Ubuntu started doing too much weird or non-standard stuff, so I moved all my servers to Debian.
Previous releases was MIR, Upstart, Snapd… This release it’s no X11 and GNU Coreutils replaced by buggy Rust rewrites.
Debian feels more like pure FOSS and in general just better. None of that icky flavour in the back of your mouth.
Reminds me of the "Stonky Kong" meme
stonks?