Canonical deserves most of the critics they get.
Ubuntu users on the other hand don't deserve even the slight amount of critic they get for just.. Using Ubuntu. like, at least they use Linux, we should be encouraging them to keep using it.
I have my own criticism of Canonical, but most of what I hear from the anti-Ubuntu crowd isn't even grounded in reality.
My favourite one recently was that upstart was Canonical NIHing systemd.
NIHing?
Not Invented Here. Basically, reinventing the wheel just so they can have full control of a project.
Q: what does apt install firefox do? Surely it uses apt to install Firefox, right????
A: The command gets highjacked by snap, which promptly crashed and hangs.
Ran into this just a few hours ago, made the mistake of suggesting Ubuntu as a sane default (instead of debian or something else), never making that mistake again hopefully.
Mint fixes that. Based on Ubuntu, it intentionally disables Snap, and all apt commands actually use apt.
Or yes, just straight up use Debian if you don't mind older apps outside Flatpaks.
What does apt install firefox do in Debian?
package »firefox« has no installation candidate
Firefox isn't in Debian's repository, cause it moves too fast for Debian's release cycle and is too complicated for their security team.
Debian instead offers firefox-esr
Ubuntu instead offers firefox snap
Yeah, I don't get the hate and intentional division being sowed there.
I'm not a fan of Ubuntu since they went all Thanos Snap (the final straw was replacing deb packages in apt with snap stubs), but I can applaud that they're using Linux.
Just seems like low effort, pointless gatekeeping to me.
Yeah I never understood the hate but today I did read a comment saying Canonical (the company that develops Ubuntu) had injected some amazon telemetry into one of the search functionalities, that and using Snap is what makes some people shit on it. I didn't verify the telemetry thing FYI.
I can definitely understand people being upset at telemetry injections.
The above is to say I don't think it's exclusively people gate keeping, dome people have legitimate issues with it.I haven't seen people shit on mint a lot and it's an easy distro. Honestly most people are super supportive of mint. That being said there is definitely some amount of gatekeeping.
That was the point where I stopped using it.
They included a global search function which in a default installation sent your search terms to Amazon and returned search results from them.
It also sent them to a web search (with real time results while you typed, including image previews). So it was possible to get shown NSFW images accidentally inside your OS, without opening a browser.
It was just really bad design, and a heavy-handed attempt of monetizing their OS.
Of course that could all be removed with a bash one-liner, but it showed where Canonical was headed,
i started with Ubuntu. i think it's fair to respect the distro that works towards getting any rando started
Stock Ubuntu is not the only and possibly not the most sane choice for newbies. An uncomfortably different UI with relatively complicated customization, a lot of catches, myriad of package sources, and little progress in general usability make it only preferable in terms of binaries selection and amount of accumulated knowledge specifically on Ubuntu.
Linux Mint is the most sane pick for an average newbie, though mileage will vary and other distros can be better entry points for some. For example, what clicked with me against all warnings was Manjaro, and if not for that, I could still be sitting on Windows today.
Nowadays, I use Fedora KDE Spin, though if a sane Arch-based alternative arises (think Manjaro done right), I would consider going back.
It's better than Windows at least.
that's a pretty low bar tbh. i think a programmable calculator would beat windows
I get the annoyance around tribalism/elitism, some people in other posts pointed out the fact that silly dramas and bad/dumb linux takes scares out new users but tbh I feel more confortable with a vocal community, even a silly one. Feels healthier and more alive to me than a mute and apathetic one.
If something goes wrong, if something displeases someone we will hear about it, people will get angry, at the worst we get a nice entertainment to watch and a good laugh, at the very best it leads us to some nice changes.
It's something I grew to like about Linux, even the silliness of it all, even how you can't really tell if people are dead serious or not about the stupidest things.
Amen brother. I'm really hoping a lot of these gotchas get ironed out in some way as more people start choosing Linux over windows. I would be really happy to see some smoother experiences in the coming year or years. Don't get me wrong, things are a bajillion times better than ten years ago, but there's still a ways to go yet.
Well Ubuntu os not that bad if you just stick to the ecosystem. I mean... Not everyone... Pffft... Wants to... HmmHMpf... Babysit... Ahahahah I can't...
Just install Mint
I use Kubuntu. No complaints here. Im also not super well versed in linux and my husband installed it for me so that I had something that was well supported for gaming and streaming/vtubing.
(I dont remember what he uses, he switches it weekly)
I like Ubuntu, use it as my main laptop os, and main server's os for a production system that's been upgraded through 3 LTS versions without issue. Three.
I don't think windows can do that, at all.
there's just no reason to start using it when mint exists
Configuring Kubuntu for my liking is way easier than configuring mint for my liking, and some of that mint configuration is going out of the way to undo things the mint maintainers did intentionally.
Yeah no it does suck it made me think the Linux experience was at least 3x worse before I tried another distro.
And not just a DE thing, every part of the distro feels like it was slapped on without actually thinking of the consequences.
You can find forums and docs from as old as Fedora 11 that's still relevant yet Ubuntu utterly fails to keep consistency across a single version update because they changed something that's only mentioned in the changelog.
Every downstream of Ubuntu is essentially focused on removing all the BS the upstream has so you can use your computer without something breaking like it's ~~Arch~~ an overused meme about Arch.
There is no right answer to the correct distro, only a wrong answer, and that is Ubuntu because practically anything else including its downstreams like LM are better for you as a user.
without something breaking like its arch
I have had seven full-system failures across the last two decades using Ubuntu that could not easily be troubleshooted and fixed.
I have had exactly zero with Arch.
Take that as you will.
My experience with Ubuntu was filled with bugs and i hated snaps, suggested it to a friend and installed it for him and he kept getting errors and bugs everywhere for some reason, he had the impression that linux is a buggy mess. I'm not suggesting ubuntu to a new user ever again, fedora is the way to go, i just wished they had nvidia drivers in their repos it would have made it easier for new users
Why would you need 5 distros?
Different use cases! One each for: my desktop, my laptop, my home theater PC, my tablet, and my gaming handheld.
(This is a joke. But, I do use a different distro for my tablet [due to the touchscreen] and my gaming handheld.)
for me it's snaps and the release model that suck. Also, apparently, arch-based distros are more noob-friendly, thanks to ArchWiki
I don't care what some distro snob thinks.. I use ubuntu and have few problems. I replace the snaps and move on. I've been using Linux longer than most of them have been alive. They can pretend that makes me behind the times but somehow I always seem to be ahead of them. Having made my stance clear.
I don't care what distro they use. Why would I?
I use (K?)Ubuntu (I installed KDE on Ubuntu so now it thinks it's Kubuntu? Weird) and I don't get the hate. I worked with raspberry pis and such on Linux for a bit so when I got a new computer, I decided to main Linux on desktop as well, since I felt confident enough in it and I went with Ubuntu as I felt it was an obvious choice.
I heard of Linux Mint, but I hate mints and didn't want to live with a distro named after them.
Only regret is that I didn't fresh install Kubuntu as I have some gnome ghouls left behind, but eh, if I really wanted to I think I can get rid of them. Just don't want to risk deleting other preinstalled stuff.
Ubuntu works just fine, the problematic part about it is how it shoves its proprietary app store down everyone's throats, which is very much against Linux ethos, both in terms of proprietary software and user freedom.
If you don't mind that and are comfortable with Ubuntu in other ways, hooray, you've just found your distro.
I got my parents' computer on KDE neon, with "brand new Plasma 5" years ago when Win 7 was going out of support, it had been solid as a rock and relatively problem-free over the years. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS was out of date for over a year, and Netflix stopped working, so I bought a new drive, upgraded from 4GB to 16GB RAM and clean installed KDE Neon with Plasma 6!
This is a 12 year old Toshiba Satellite laptop that is still going strong. (As an email, websurfing and video watching machine).
I've used Gentoo on my main desktop for decades.
Anything else in the house gets Kubuntu on it, 'cause ain't nobody got time for that.
I don't use Ubuntu personally, but it was great to automate for deployment in a corporate setting.
Yes, Debian has some agnostic unattended install, but writing basically cloud-init is just so much better.
Ubutu sucks really bad. I installed it checks notes 17 years ago and I didn't even get internet running out of the box. Fedora 41 is just so much better and I can't see how anyone can argue with that.
Yes, Fedora 41 is undoubtedly better than a 17 year old version of Ubuntu.
Hint: :q!
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