So the TLDR is Ubuntu sucks. This is nothing new, there are a few people that seem to think that Ubuntu == Linux…

I get paid to work on Linux

People are paid to work on it tho.

Paying people doesn't necessarily translate to what you might want from it.

So I didn't read it either (sue me), however people are paid to work on Linux. The examples you give about RedHat and SUSE are completely incorrect - they're not there to tell people how to use Linux, they literally develop for it and are paid to make it a better product.

The "issue", of course, is that they focus their paid efforts on Enterprise and server usage, and not as a user-facing product for the most part, although it could be argued that widespread adoption by companies is how you get it into peoples' hands, since they get used to it at work or education.

Also, you're using Ubuntu LTS 20.04 which is technically out of date, as 22.04 LTS also exists, and LTS is primarily meant to be for server/company use, rather than trying to keep up with the latest software and features.

I took a look at your bullet point list too, and literally every single one of your bullet points (other than accessibility, unfortunately) is covered by my laptop running Debian 12 with KDE Plasma - seriously, try out a KDE Plasma distro, it most likely fixes all your problems.

I get your frustration but I think that's just the price you pay for doing "IT" things (meaning here more in-depth stuff than just using a browser)in the current IT landscape. I think there isn't an easy fix, not even money.

The snap rant - I'd say that's Ubuntu's fault for pushing for it. I'm not a fan and I'd advise against using snaps, but if you decide to use them and then complain that you don't like how it works ...who's fault is that? (other than arguably Ubuntu's, who have paid developers to work on that crap btw).

Virtualbox - same as above. That's not Linux doing stupid things, that's Vmware (now owned by Oracle, damn) and if you decide to use it you can blame the folks who develop it for not doing a more user-friendly job, or you can chose to work around the issues you encounter, or you can use something else. Personally I used libvirt + virt-manager in the past and while virt-manager doesn't look nice and modern it worked well for me.

For the sleep/wake up issues it might be firmware, it might be your desktop environment, it might be some software you're using, it might be several things. I'd start looking into the output of sudo systemd-inhibit --list to see what's keeping your system from sleeping if you still have issues.

If you ever decide to try Arch I'd recommend doing so for a bit and see how it feels. Their wiki is the best I've seen and really helpful with a lot of topics from gaming to setting up a web server and many others.

I personally use Firefox not Chrome, Arch not Ubuntu, native packages not snap, libvirt not virtualbox, KDE Plasma not Gnome. I try to use more "libre" stuff. Ofc you're free to use whatever you want, that's the beauty of it, but if something doesn't work the way you want, you can try something else.

And because your use cases are more complex (like webserial, virtual machines, etc) I think you'd encounter issues in other operating systems too?! I think people underestimate how hard it is to do stuff in Windows for example, because they never try doing more complex stuff in it - getting an obscure error that could mean anything. Googling for answers to only find stupid crap like "I rebooted and it works" - which ofc it never does.

tl;dr: There is no Linux "product" there are a bunch of 'em glued together. Try different tools maybe they work more to your liking.

I try to summorize your post.

You used one distro (Ubuntu) and hated it.

Me too bro. It sucks ass, thats why I don't use it. And Snap is not the default! No one who actually cares about his desktop uses snap. Its not even that compatible with Linux distros, it only supports systemd and probably gets more hardcoded into Ubuntu.

But other distros may be great. Linux Mint seems to be the only one to be paid to work as desktop with Cinnamon, literally, its their made Desktop. The other one would be System76 with Cosmic Desktop.

TLDR but after quickly reading some parts it seems like you really should try another distribution. There are better choices on the desktop.

I find when I get frustrated with something on Linux, I go try to do it on Windows. And then I go do it on Linux.

This is definitely a downvote for me.

well thankfully a couple companies like s76 are actually working and getting paid to do it

That's a lot of words for "I'm too lazy to master the most essential tool of my professional life and keep it updated to my requirements".

If you don't want to do it, feel free to pay an Ubuntu support subscription, open a ticket, and get back to work. As you said: you should be working on your problem instead of whining. Or maybe you earn more whining?

There's a saying that goes like that: "To a bad workman, there's always bad tools."

So you're mad you ran into problems that everyone including yourself knows you'd run into, which most people therefore stopped recommending Ubuntu to new users because of? If you hate Ubuntu so much just don't use Ubuntu, most of us have distro-hopped a couple times before settling into one we like.

A team is paid to make sure it’s accessible while blind, deaf, limited motion (and maybe that accessibility focus trickles down to benefit the average user too)

So, choosing to ignore all the factually inaccurate and low effort "it didn't read my mind" claims in this post, this one really bothers me. Unified DEs like KDE Plasma and Gnome could absolutely do better here even without paid devs, and I wish they did.

So... it sounds like you're struggling with Snap. In addition to others' suggestion (try a different distro without Snap, perhaps one of those distros made by a different company such as Fedora (Red Hat), an OpenSUSE variety (SUSE), or even a corporate, less Snap-reliant Ubuntu-based distro like Pop_OS (System 76)), you could also try uninstalling Snap from Ubuntu or installing another binary option like Flatpak/Flathub and installing your software that way. Frankly, the amount of money these companies make working on Linux or Linux-based products has nothing to do with your struggles. Plus, the companies you mention do, in fact, make money working on the kernel itself because they contribute to the kernel as a project. Even Microsoft and Google do the same, though Microsoft does so for the sake of WSL and Google does for Chrome OS and Android. So plenty of people make money if the Linux kernel keeps having work done on it and keeps improving. I don't see what the problem is with the kernel itself. The lack of polish, as you call it, in Linux-based OSes is not a fault at all of the kernel but in all the various other parts that go into the OS. And that level of polish can vary quite widely. As you note, Snap has been holding Ubuntu back quite a bit due to lack and reluctance of community adoption. Even just trying a different Ubuntu-based OS such as Pop_OS, Linux Mint or Neon may change your view.

iirc there are companies working on genome, and you could always fund a specific issue using rysolv (unlike in windows and mac os where you pay them money and can only hope they will fix a problem you have)

I use arch with gnome for the last year and arch for like 5 years, mint for years before that.. I have less problems than I have using windows on my work laptop. Everything works totally fine.

Using snap is your own fault. I only use it for command line applications. You use some ancient Ubuntu 20 LTS...

NixOS doesn't lose in features to Mac, and the store is actually larger, there are only like 10K apps for Mac