I don’t get why anybody uses Ubuntu. Just use Debian. It’s basically more stable and functional Ubuntu, but without snaps and you don’t need an entire distro branch for different DEs.
Because it’s a popular distro. Because when you look for “how to X in linux”, there’s a 90% chance the response will be about Ubuntu. Because your workplace said so. The list goes on.
Yeah but everything that I named would sayUbutnu. That’s important. Until you know more, you’ll already be using Ubuntu. That’s why “anybody uses Ubuntu”.
Well I would use Debian, but the last two systems I tried to install it on hung at some point in the install process. I tried multiple times, multiple downloads, multiple versions (across multiple months!), and these are two separate machines from two different vendors.
Debian is fine on my server boxes, but fuck me it’s dogshit in a consumer environment. One of those laptops has - and is an absolute necessity to have working - WWAN. I tried over a dozen distros, from ‘easy and popular’ to ‘obscure and edge-case’. Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu, I like KDE) was literally the only distro to 1) boot, 2) install, and 3) have working WWAN (after fucking with the fcc-unlock shit and filling my carrier details). Nothing, literally nothing else could do this simple task.
Linux is great, they say. It’s easy. It’s simple to install and use. It puts you in control. These are ideas that the Linux community wants to believe, that I want to believe, but it’s just not. Given the right circumstances, with the right hardware, and the right use-case, it’s good. Stray anywhere off the beaten path and unless you’re a veteran *nix sysadmin who values their time as $0, sometimes you’re just fucked. I would know, I’ve been using various distros on and off for 20 years. It’s still bad. I don’t understand how, but here we are.
I don’t like Ubuntu for a few reasons, but in my experience, the situation sucks the least when you use it. Sometimes - see above WWAN bullshit - it’s the only thing that works.
And that’s fucking bullshit, but it’s a fact. And even interested users, who like to tinker, have a limit to what they will put up with before throwing in the towel and using what works.
Ubuntu user here. Swapped away from Debian in its early days when Ubuntu made a real effort to stay current with the desktop environment (even coordinating their releases after GNOME), and back then it mattered. Nowadays my few attempts at other distros suggest that the hardware driver situation (especially proprietary) seems better on Ubuntu, for example to get everything working on fairly new laptops.
There are of course other things I’m less happy about. The snap installs via apt drives me crazy; not that I necessarily hate the technology, but sometimes I need a non-containeraized browser (for example to run inside another container), so I need to be allowed to choose what is being installed.
I don’t get why anybody uses Ubuntu. Just use Debian. It’s basically more stable and functional Ubuntu, but without snaps and you don’t need an entire distro branch for different DEs.
Because you don’t have to know what to do already if you start with Ubuntu. You have to know your way around the Linux world more if you use Debian
Because it’s a popular distro. Because when you look for “how to X in linux”, there’s a 90% chance the response will be about Ubuntu. Because your workplace said so. The list goes on.
Ubuntu is Debian with lipstick so that all still applies
Yeah but everything that I named would say Ubutnu. That’s important. Until you know more, you’ll already be using Ubuntu. That’s why “anybody uses Ubuntu”.
Rant, but not at you.
Well I would use Debian, but the last two systems I tried to install it on hung at some point in the install process. I tried multiple times, multiple downloads, multiple versions (across multiple months!), and these are two separate machines from two different vendors.
Debian is fine on my server boxes, but fuck me it’s dogshit in a consumer environment. One of those laptops has - and is an absolute necessity to have working - WWAN. I tried over a dozen distros, from ‘easy and popular’ to ‘obscure and edge-case’. Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu, I like KDE) was literally the only distro to 1) boot, 2) install, and 3) have working WWAN (after fucking with the fcc-unlock shit and filling my carrier details). Nothing, literally nothing else could do this simple task.
Linux is great, they say. It’s easy. It’s simple to install and use. It puts you in control. These are ideas that the Linux community wants to believe, that I want to believe, but it’s just not. Given the right circumstances, with the right hardware, and the right use-case, it’s good. Stray anywhere off the beaten path and unless you’re a veteran *nix sysadmin who values their time as $0, sometimes you’re just fucked. I would know, I’ve been using various distros on and off for 20 years. It’s still bad. I don’t understand how, but here we are.
I don’t like Ubuntu for a few reasons, but in my experience, the situation sucks the least when you use it. Sometimes - see above WWAN bullshit - it’s the only thing that works.
And that’s fucking bullshit, but it’s a fact. And even interested users, who like to tinker, have a limit to what they will put up with before throwing in the towel and using what works.
Ubuntu user here. Swapped away from Debian in its early days when Ubuntu made a real effort to stay current with the desktop environment (even coordinating their releases after GNOME), and back then it mattered. Nowadays my few attempts at other distros suggest that the hardware driver situation (especially proprietary) seems better on Ubuntu, for example to get everything working on fairly new laptops.
There are of course other things I’m less happy about. The snap installs via apt drives me crazy; not that I necessarily hate the technology, but sometimes I need a non-containeraized browser (for example to run inside another container), so I need to be allowed to choose what is being installed.