this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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Hello everyone! I would like to know why there seems to be some dislike toward Ubuntu within the Linux community. I would like you to share your reasons for why you like Ubuntu or, on the contrary, why you don't. Thanks πŸ™‡

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Snaps and how they tried to ram it down my throat with firefox lol. Pure shit

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

The name. Sounds dumb.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Apparently I have fewer problems with it than some. It's snap. Maybe I could come up with some other minor complaints, but nothing big really. It's mostly just snap. That is what prevents me using or recommending Ubuntu any more.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

It's a corporate distro whose company's actions are against the linux philosophy.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Ubuntu is like all other Linux distributions, they add to fragmentation.

Everyone should run Arch Linux

I use arch linux btw

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I use Ubuntu every day. I'm part of the Linux community. And i believe that Ubuntu helped to make the Linux desktop easy and available and sort-of cool.

There's no hate, but i could live without snap, unity and oversimplification. Actually that's my biggest issue. Give me settings, give me choice. Hibernate works fine on my machine, don't hide it.

Apt/deb is a fine package manager, flatpak and docker can supplement it when you want something not packaged as deb. The way Ubuntu updates browser over snap is a small improvement, but it's not worth deviating from the rest of the Linux world.

I don't hate Ubuntu. I think they are wasting their time on stuff no one needs. Missing the chance to improve Linux for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Seems you might be a more sophisticated user than the ones targeted by Ubuntu. That is: Windows normies who find the whole concept of Linux deeply foreboding, but bravely take the leap anyway. As usual, most people in this discussion are neglecting this crucial fact.

Ubuntu is trying to make things easy and secure. I don't much like Snaps either, but the security paradigm is better than APT, and they are nothing if not easy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Actually that’s my biggest issue. Give me settings, give me choice

That's an GNOME issue mostly I think. It has this least possible settings and oversimplification approach, because GNOME thinks people can't handle it. Ubuntu modified the configuration of GNOME that it looks and behave somewhat similar to previous Unity versions.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

I use arch, btw

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

It uses gnome. That's why I use Kubuntu instead.

Other people have issues with snap packages, however I'm quite the opposite and actually tend to prefer snaps over other means of getting apps.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

Most of the criticism I have seen online stems from how Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) plays fast and loose with the FLOSS ethos. The earliest controversy I can recall was the inclusion of the β€˜Amazon shopping lens’ in its Unity desktop environment. There may have been earlier issues, but this one made mainstream headlines in the early 2010s. More recently, the push for Snap (its application bundle format), which relies on proprietary server-side components, which invited criticism.

That said, I still find the OS ideal for most users. It has been (and still is) a gateway OS for many Windows and macOS refugees, thanks to its strong community. It was for me nearly two decades ago, and I prefer to remember Ubuntu for the good it has done for the community.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Snap is the biggest issue.

The developers say they are awesome and the fans say they are awesome.

It doesn't change the fact that they kinda suck, the forced updates kinda suck, and the tone-deafness of the fans kinda sucks.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 4 months ago (7 children)

The general philosophy behind it.
Ubuntu started out as Debian with some improvements.
Once they were established as the primary Linux distro, they pivoted to an MS-like approach. They tried to invent and implement their own solutions for things that an agreed-upon solution already existed, and was in need of manpower to iron out the kinks (best example is developing Mir instead of throwing their weight behind Wayland, or creating Unity instead of improving Gnome).
They also tried again and again to monetize their OS, which they built on top of millions of volunteer work hours from the Debian project.

All of these efforts failed so far. Their current "we can do it better" project is Snaps, which again duplicates volunteer work instead of contributing to Flatpak which was there before.
I'm willing to admit this one does make sense, since their goal is to make an OS where everything except the kernel and the init system is a snap, something which you can't do with flatpak.
But I'm also pretty sure that'll fail again.

If they simply built an OS with a Debian base, newer packages, 2 releases per year, an LTS every 2 years, and a GUI selector for Gnome or KDE in the installer, they'd be the perfect beginner distro. On the other hand, then they wouldn't make any money.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Here we go again... Some historical reasons, and some technical. Here are a few (strong points) that comes to my mind:

Ubuntu has a track record to do their own thing and splitting community or the entire Linux eco system, such as with Unity, Mir and Snaps. Unity was badly implemented desktop environment in the beginning and lot of people didn't like it. Although I think it was a great DE over time, it was just another fuel in the fire. More serious problem was Mir. Mir was an alternative to Wayland, because Canonical was not happy with Wayland and they didn't want to implement what Ubuntu tried to do on phones. But that meant the programs and protocols to support was now X11, Wayland and Mir. And related to it, the focus of mobile user interface on desktop (Mir+Unity) was something lot of desktop fans didn't like at that time. Canonical gave up on Mir and Unity (and smartphones entirely).

Snaps were very slow at the beginning, some people does not like that it fills the device loops, and not many apps were available as snaps. Snap is a similar but alternative technology to Flatpak. Again, because Canonical was not happy with Flatpak and Snap truly has some advantages over it. But it means splitting the eco system once again. But what made it really upsetting for many is, that not only Snap is pushed by Canonical a lot, but also when installing a native package, the package manager would silently install the snap version instead. That is sneaky. And not only that. The Snap repository from Canonical is proprietary. And if you want support Snap, you have to use that repo or use your own repo. Unlike Flatpak, you cannot have multiple repositories. That means in Snap you can only use Canonicals proprietary Snap repository, because otherwise you would not have all the apps in it.

There was some Amazon related datas send to Amazon with an app, every time you searched in the search bar of Unity. Even though this is gone for long time, it still is something people (me included) remember. Some say it was spyware... which is kind of was, but is up to debate.

Also some do not like that Canonical is a corporation. I personally don't have a problem with that (and used it for 13 years exclusively), but its something to mention what problems have with. Also Ubuntu is used in Windows too, so people have conspiracies too or do not like their cooperation. I'm fine with that and actually like that Linux gets more exposure this way. But again, some people don't like it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Oh yes, these are indeed serious reasons to reconsider one's view of Ubuntu.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Snaps predate flatpaks (though not by very long - months I think, but not years).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But its not about just how it started. Snap was more focused on phones and servers, not on desktop in the beginning. And there were not much, because Snap was usable over the following years (like Flatpak). Canonical could see how the entire rest of the Linux communities and distributions adopted Flatpak and could have switched to it. But contrary to it, Canonical was very pushy about Snap. So my argument is, Canonical should have dropped Snap early when they still could (just like they did with Mir in example). But they didn't.

Obviously now its a different situation, but you were talking about the beginning in this reply.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

You said Snap is a similar but alternative to Flatpak, implying that it was developed in response to Flatpak, which simply isn't the case.

Snap predates Flatpak, and it's clearly a big money maker for Canonical with their commercial customers who want things like confined but upgradable services in an airgapped environment. By the time Flatpak was making enough headway to be considered feasible to use, snaps were already pretty widely used and had several fairly big names like JetBrains, ROS and CircleCI publishing on snapcraft.io.

Flatpak cannot and was never intended to do all the things snap can, such as setting up system services or distributing kernels. So even if the assertion that snaps for desktop apps were a response to Flatpak were true (it's not), it doesn't make sense for Canonical to stop developing snap regardless, as desktop apps are only a tiny part of what snaps do.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ubuntu has a track record to do their own thing and splitting community

See also Canonical's upstart init system, when most embraced systemd.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Upstart predated systemd by quite a while. In fact, RHEL 6 used upstart.

If anything, systemd is an example of Red Hat NIHing upstart.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

You spend a lot of time fighting snaps. I wanted to install GrapheneOS which needs direct access to USB from the browser. Snaps can't do that, so I had to hunt for a chromium .deb on the web. Might as well use windows if I'm doing to Google "$software installer"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

As well as what has already been mentioned, when I used it, it crashed a lot.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Corporate ownership, but you can have that and still be generally accepted in the community. Like both Fedora when controlled by Red Hat and Suse when controlled by Novell.
One of the real problem is their dual license policy for their open source projects, that grant Ubuntu full license and the power to close in an Open source Project if they want. This is decidedly against the GPL spirit, but can be done with dual licensing.
Another problem is the "not made here" mentality, which undermined Wayland for instance.
Ultimately the problem is I guess, that Ubuntu is (was?) trying to make Ubuntu exclusive to Linux, with Canonical controlling key technologies. Seemingly an effort to reduce other Linux distros to second rate players.
Another example of that (apart from dual license and Mir) is their new package system Snap, which is open source on the client side, but proprietary on the server side.
Obviously it's not a good idea for Linux to use proprietary package systems.

These are of course ideological issues, if you don't give a shit about those, I suppose Ubuntu is mostly OK. Except minor annoyances like media not working out of the box. And that the PPA system sucks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Does it have problems? I mean, some may prefer other distros to Ubuntu or may not like some stuff that come with Ubuntu, that doesn't mean Ubuntu has any issue ;)

I don't like bananas, no issue at all with bananas. I prefer Debian (on which is based Ubuntu) and I prefer Mint (based on... ubuntu) because they suit me much better, that's all. At least for me. edit: one thing I don't like for example are snaps, me not liking them does not mean they're necessarily bad.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 4 months ago (3 children)

In my personal opinion: 1- Snap packages. Dont like them for their closed source backend, dont lime them for how canonical has been sneaking then into the system of users who have been originally trying to install a deb.

2- Modern Ubuntu simply has no real benefit compared to other Distros. Nowadays it's just another Gnome and Debian-based distro, I see no reason to use it over Debian itself, or Fedora, Solus, or any other Ubuntu derivative that simply does better than "vanilla" Ubuntu, such as Pop!_OS or Linux Mint.

I don't hate Ubuntu, and I recognize it's importance for Linux as a desktop in it's early days, but Canonical really lost track of themselves.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)
  1. Pretty sure it's not closed source? https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/snap_without_ubuntu_tools/

  2. Isn't that the purpose though of Ubuntu though? They made it easy, everything is open source, and then people/companies/orgs that want to do things different can just fork it and do their own thing. If they make a better product according to even 1 person, great. Job done. Plenty of people are happy with vanilla Ubuntu.

I don't even use Ubuntu but I sure appreciate the amount of work they've done over the years and I feel they get a lot of stick about it for no good reason.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago
  1. my issue lies with it being hardcoded to work with Canonical servers. Yeah, technically you could host your own snap store, but it's simply not what it's meant for, so in my views the openess is harmed by this design choice.

  2. yeah, I dont disagree with Ubuntu being easy to use, and as I said, I aknowledge its importance for our ecosystem. Also I never said I had issues with peoe who enjoyed "vanilla" Ubuntu, I'm actually happy to see people enjoying Linux as a whole.

But as previously stated, my personal opinion is that modern Ubuntu adds nothing compared to other desktop distros, ot's DE is just Gnome with extensions bult in. The Snap store is not very well optimized and there was no reason to have it as default over gnome-software, which is more feature-complete. Nowadays, for my use, I only see Ubuntu as Debian with a more modern installer.

But these complaints are in parts because I'm a flatpak > snap guy, and a vanilla gnome > whatever Canonical did guy which are personal tastes.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that the purpose though of Ubuntu though?

No, because back in the day when Ubuntu was "Linux for human beings" you could literally feel that in almost every aspect of it, from the ease of its installation to its icon theme and system sounds to its help pages. It was their "selling" point - it made Linux friendly and reachable for many people, as it did for you and me.

It's been more than 15 years since I used Ubuntu but from that point I really could feel that what @[email protected] says is true - it no longer offered any real benefit compared to Fedora, Solus, Mint or whatever distro targeted at people getting into Linux. You won't find many people saying that Ubuntu really stands out from their similars about something. It just became another option, forgot what was "Ubuntu" about (remember the Amazon ads scandal?) and seem to be really stubborn into impose to the community their way of doing things (snaps, mir...). Or tell me with a serious face how the snap thing makes the life easier of someone wanting to install a deb.

It's correct what you say - as many other distros, they have done a great amount of work over the years and most of us are grateful to it because we could get into Linux thanks to it, nobody can deny that. It's just that said work no longer seems the case nor they seem really interested about that.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago (5 children)

their β€œselling” point

Here's one place to begin. They're not selling it, it's literally free. Speaking for myself but I just cannot bring myself to criticize a free product which is not a monopoly. And this clearly isn't a monopoly. It just feels entitled.

Amazon ads

The tiny flaw in the above logic. Reminiscent of similar scandalettes involving Mozilla. But these sponsorship deals have always been easy to disable, even before they get dropped like a hot potato because of the backlash. I always come back to the same thought: how much are we actually paying for this product that is apparently valuable because we're using it and concerned about its flaws? We're paying nothing.

Or tell me with a serious face how the snap thing makes the life easier of someone wanting to install a deb.

The typical Ubuntu user will not know what a deb is, and should not be expected to. That's the point. It's meant to be easy. Whatever else they are, Snaps are definitely easy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They’re not selling it

Yes they are selling it with help desk subscriptions. But mostly to professionals.
https://ubuntu.com/desktop/contact-us

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I don't really agree about no benefit. It's still the biggest, most well-supported distro, the desktop is really polished, the font rendering is lightyears ahead of others, etc.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The well-supported thing is in great part only thanks to Debian. And about the desktop, cmon, it's just Gnome with built in extensions. No issue with that and totally valid to enjoy it, but it's certainly not "lightyears" ahead of anything.

But if your experience with Ubuntu is good, then great, I'm happy that you enjoy the Linux ecosystem, and I truly believe the best distro is the one that fits best for your personal needs, and if Ubuntu does that, then it's great 😁

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I use it, and I like it. As a casual computer user, it suits every need.

It also feels a lot more stable thanks to being maintained by a professional corporation, rather than some neckbeard in a basement.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Those "neckbeards in the basement" created the very thing Canonical is trying to make its own. It's just another corporation trying to profit off the back of FOSS developer labor.

Maybe have a bit more respect for hardworking programmers that are keeping the world spinning, with many doing it for no compensation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Canonical's initial hiring strategy was "hey, you maintain Debian packages. Wanna get paid for that?"

They still employ quite a few Debian maintainers, and I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that Debian wouldn't be as good as it is today if Canonical weren't paying a bunch of people in part to do Debian develops. Their employee roll includes one of the developers of apt, amongst other people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm also talking about people like this that almost never get recognition until something huge we all depend on becomes a huge problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's kind of a non sequitur. Canonical hires a lot of community members to maintain stuff for the community. They also have roughly 1000 employees according to Wikipedia. SUSE also depends on things like xz and has twice as many employees. Red Hat has 19,000 employees. Google depends on xz and has over 180,000 employees.

So if you're blaming Canonical for not hiring the maintainers of under recognised community projects that don't have corporate backing, then surely SUSE gets twice the blame, Red Hat gets 19 times the blame and Google gets 180 times the blame? (Not to mention Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA, etc.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

surely SUSE gets twice the blame, Red Hat gets 19 times the blame and Google gets 180 times the blame? (Not to mention Amazon, Meta, NVIDIA, etc.

Well...yeah?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

And how do you quantify their reduced blame for hiring community members already? As I've already pointed out, Canonical has many Debian developers and maintainers on their payroll. While we're unlikely to ever get real numbers for it, if it turned out that Canonical had a bigger portion of their payrolls devoted to ensuring that community developers got paid than the other companies mentioned, wouldn't that say that they're even less to blame?

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