Some of the more advanced linux users are dismissive of it, like, "it's just appearance updates". Would like to hear the communities thoughts. Should I be embarrassed that I like it more than 20.04?
:shrug-outta-hecks:
imo there are so many windows users to bully that distro sectarianism is clearly a waste of time
But if I don't watch you all fight about it I'd have to try them all to decide what to use
People who use accessibility focused distros don't tend to install new ones very often, they just use whatever they heard was good and keep using it unless it does something really dumb. Ubuntu did exactly that, like a decade ago. And since their target audience isn't the type who constantly install new distros just to see what's new, none of us (I'm totally one of them) are actively checking back on Ubuntu to see if it's good again.
The people who do install new distros just for fun, on the other hand, are the kinds of people for whom Linux is also their hobby. So naturally a newbies-and-accessibility distro like Ubuntu is not going to appeal to them at all.
In conclusion, I have no idea whether Ubuntu is any good at the moment, and if it's doing what you like, that's great.
I'm only doing basic shit on my home laptop and using my home pc for a plex server. I'm open to checking out other distributions, as well, if you'd like to recommend any to someone who is not necessarily new to linux, or at the very least willing to invest some time on the front end for set-ups, and relies pretty heavily on documentation and command line guides. Either way, thank you
Haha, I'm firmly in the "just use whatever they heard was good and keep using it unless it does something really dumb" camp, so I wouldn't have recommendations.
Manjaro is my favorite. It’s Arch based, but it makes the install much easier and package updates a little safer.
Nah don’t be embarrassed at all. Fuck the haters. I’m using Fedora 36 myself.
When I tried Ubuntu I was coming from Debian (Ubuntu is a commercial fork of Debian). At the time (2011/2012), Gnome Shell was very new and going through some growing pains, and Canonical decided to make their own user interface instead called Unity. I absolutely fucking hated Unity, so I never ended up installing it on any of my personal machines. In 2017, Canonical switched back to Gnome Shell as the default user interface.
The underlying distribution infrastructure, such as the Apt Package Manager is solid. Debian is one of the most widely ported operating systems in existence, and has a massive package repository which Ubuntu directly benefits from. Ubuntu also has PPAs (basically user repositories) which are very convenient (but could also cause problems if you're careless). Finally, online support and documentation is easier to find than almost all other distributions due to its popularity. It is also the primary target for proprietary consumer applications (while some enterprise applications may target Red Hat instead).
I'm curious what distribution you might use or recommend. The only other one i've used is mint, and I didn't spend much time or give it as much of a chance as maybe I should have
TL;DR: Ubuntu is fine. Spend some time using it instead of installing dozens of different OSes which will be 95% composed of the same software. Most of the things you learn will carry over anyway as you gain more familiarity with what you like. I also highly recommend Fedora, but not to the degree where I'd say to wipe what you've got and switch. Over the years, I probably spent the longest time on Debian. I still really like Debian, but it isn't very great for showcasing the state of the art. It's much better for throwing on a server or a tertiary machine that doesn't get used frequently.
I've been using Gentoo for several years, but I've been fooling around with this stuff for nearly 20 years now and am very opinionated about what software I want to use and how I want it to be set up. Distributions like Arch or Gentoo are kinda like that. They're great if you know exactly what you want, but not very great for simply discovering what's out there or what's possible or effortless maintainence. Over the years I have tried many different distributions. Debian, Fedora, NixOS, Arch, Mint, Ubuntu Studio (back when it was an independent fork of Ubuntu), Slackware, CentOS.
Each distribution has its own sort of thing that it's known for. Debian and Fedora ship free software exclusively by default, but have very different development processes. Debian tends to be a more community operated project focused on stability. Releases come at a glacial pace (once every 2-3 years) but run on a wide variety of CPU architectures and are renowned for their stability. They even had to fork Firefox at one point because Mozilla didn't support their releases for that long. Fedora on the other hand tends to be a showcase for the latest shiny technology coming out of Red Hat. Releases are much more frequent, up to date, and polished. Red Hat itself was the original "enterprise" distribution which had a subscription model for commercial support, but because it was free software it is also distributed de-branded as CentOS.
Canonical adopted a similar model years later with the release of Ubuntu, based on Debian. Canonical however didn't require a subscription just to obtain a copy (in fact, at one point they'd mail you CDs for free). With Ubuntu, they aimed to make things more practical, scrapping free software exclusivity in the interest of user convenience. This made it so you can install proprietary drivers (like the Nvidia graphics driver, for instance) as a simple point-and-click operation, and also made it easier to install proprietary software from an app store-like interface, which, for better or worse, enticed further commercial development for Linux. Ubuntu Studio was (then) a third-party spin-off of Ubuntu focused on pro-audio. It included a customized realtime kernel and a glut of experimental audio software which was hard to find in most other distribution package repositories at the time, and hard to configure even if it was packaged.
Mint was an interesting mix taking things from both Debian and Ubuntu. It was a lot more up-to-date than stable Debian, but less of a commercial product than Ubuntu. It is known for rolling out the Cinnamon user interface as an alternative to Gnome 3 or Unity, which maintained a lot of the look and feel of Gnome 2. It was kind of in a weird place though as far as stability goes trying to bridge the gap between both distros, and easy to screw up by following advice meant specifically for Debian or Ubuntu. I think this situation has gotten much better over the years though.
Slackware is silly and should have stayed in the 90s.
NixOS (along with Guix, and to a much lesser degree, Gentoo) are what I'd describe as "meta-distributions." The idea with NixOS and Guix is that you can describe your entire system configuration with a text file, and use that text file to re-build your system from scratch deterministically. They're very cool (especially for automated deployment), but very complex to get working smoothly. If you want to set up a web server on NixOS, not only do you need to be familiar with the web server and the OS, but you also need to figure out how to automate them using a niche scripting language and solve problems caused by this very unusual use case. You need to read at least three different manuals from cover to cover to set up anything.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I've picked up bits and pieces of the history of various distributions, but not in a concise and digestible form as this. Again, much appreciated.
No reason to be embarrassed, it probably has a much newer kernel and supports your hardware a lot better.
22.04 is when I switched to Kubuntu with KDE Plasma. It's great! Disappointed that Wayland is not supported by default though.
Any literature you can link to? This seems to be a much shared sentiment
You should never be embarrassed if you like one version of Linux more than another. I've been a Linux user for 15 years and I still barely know what I'm talking about beyond the surface level. I just know when I like something and when it feels more stable. It's an opinionated community for sure, but the best thing about Linux is doing what you want.
gotta be honest i havent actually noticed the difference except a different wallpaper? but im on kubuntu so maybe its mostly gnome stuff?
on the other hand i pay very little attention
Honestly I was using 20.04 for a while and I wasn't happy, crash reports kept popping up for some random shit, the kernel version was too old for my hardware, they keep pushing Snap for everything etc.
I jumped ship to Manjaro and didn't look back. The user experience is equally polished if not moreso, there's very little tinkering involved, and all the packages are brand new. Also I get easy access to AUR in case I don't find something in the official repos.
Ubuntu isn't terrible but I just don't see the reason to keep it installed on my machine.
