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159 comments

  • It's astonishing.

    Fedora introduced a whole new distro where you can't install anything with dnf anymore and people love it. People love using flatpaks instead (yes I know of all the shortcomings, but you can always choose another install method for that broken package). And ubuntu users just hate ubuntu for what they do. The difference may also be that fedora gives a choice to the user and does not directly force it

    • @babara@lemmy.ml
      The difference with Fedora Atomic, which I think you refer to, is that it's totally open. For example, people started using the OCI containers differently than Fedora intended, which resulted in uBlue and stuff like Bazzite.

      Also, no one forces you to use Flatpak. You can still use Distrobox and use Pacman/ APT/ DNF/ whatever you prefer and export your apps that way. It's just that Flatpak "won" and doesn't have many drawbacks, and is very convenient. I mostly like them.

      And, most importantly, Fedora is the fronteer of innovation.
      There were many projects and ideas that failed, but many more succedded (Wayland, image based distros, etc.), and Project Atomic is just one more "testing ground" that is well thought out imo. Therefore people are expecting to "test out" new generation Linux stuff, it's just part of Fedora. If you don't like that, use Debian instead.

      I can recommend you to give Fedora Atomic a chance, it's an extremely nice family of distros (e.g. Bluefin/ Aurora, Bazzite, etc.)!

      Edit: one more thing is that Fedora is, in contrast to Ubuntu, not controlled by a company. RedHat doesn't have nearly as much influence as people think, it's mainly community driven, and therefore choices aren't (in theory) influenced by $$$

      • And, most importantly, Fedora is the fronteer of innovation.

        What I find impressive about this is that they turn this into a stable product. Early Fedora Core was more of an experimental distribution but those times are long gone (IIRC around Fedora 19).

      • Fedora Atomic a chance, it's an extremely nice family of distros (e.g. Bluefin/ Aurora, Bazzite, etc.)!

        Can you elaborate on this? I landed on nix for my PC turned server and haven't regretted it, but I've been hesitant to go all in on my main laptop (I'm wary of my laptop iGPU and GPU switching becoming a config issue, and I'm dreading having to configure my wsl dev environments again...)

        Windows is getting blatantly terrible enough I know I'm just putting it off, maybe a cool new technology might help make it sound more fun

    • It is absolutely a different situation if it is opt-in. If Ubuntu made Snaps opt-in, people might not like them but it'd be a minor critique instead of fleeing the distro.

    • Well there is immutable, which you probably refer to with Fedoras new distro, and then there is Canonical pushing their shitty snap format, and kinda non-sideloading. Can't wait for the day when apt only ever allows to install snap packages.

    • Fedora Silverblue is in an entirely different ball game. You can't use dnf because it's an immutable image based system where you can't make direct changes to the Root system without making use of the rpm-ostree & VCS mechanisms. You're making a conscious choice by using Fedora Silverblue, and the pros out way the cons for most people making that choice.
      \ In contrast Fedora Workstation allows you to use dnf just as normal because it's not an immutable image based system.
      \ Ubuntu doesn't make use of any such system so their reliance on containerized user-space apps isn't a technical one.

    • People love using flatpaks instead (yes I know of all the shortcomings, but you can always choose another install method for that broken package).

      Not on Ubuntu nor Fedora, but yes: If a "larger" package breaks on update and there is no fix available and I use that application on a pretty much daily basis, then I remove it and install the Flatpak variant.

      Flatpaks are slower, do not work super well with Wayland (especially scaling, some applications have GIANT text, some have 5 pixels large text, but fortunately I was able to circumvent those issues for most applications I use via Flatpak), and you need to run another system for updates and updates are friggin slow.

      On the other hand, the applications provided via Flatpak just work.

      And messing with 32 bits multilib dependency hell for Steam or installing pretty much half of Kde just for Kdenlive simply isn't something I want.

      • I think they got the nvidia driver accumulation thing straightened out. On Fedora 40, I had it automatically remove a bunch of older versions and now it only lists the 64 and 32 bit versions I expect it to. 

         undefined
            
$ flatpak list | grep nvidia
nvidia-550-76	org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-550-76		1.4	system
nvidia-550-76	org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.nvidia-550-76		1.4	system

        Edit: looks like it's fixed by this.

      • I think you have a typo in your last paragraph.
        \ Flatpak should run better on Wayland compared to Snaps. Not to mention Flatpak has much better XDG Portal Integration.

    • Right. I just installed OpenSUSE MicroOS to try out, and it's the same idea. I agree with some of the anti-snap rhetoric. Closed, Canonical-centric system for profit; linking placeholder debs to download a snap. But the philosophy of all user applications come as chunky but robust packages that (almost) don't interfere with each other and the system - I think that might be the future for safer computing for non-technical users.

  • Someone being enraged about snap on behalf of Windows users was certainly a take I didn't know I needed.

  • Disappoint is a sober word here. I am actually pissed at the casual arrogance of Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical.

    I'm actually baffled that this would come as a surprise to people. Canonical has been like this for a long time and you'd have to have blinders on to not see it. They are hell-bent on doing things their way and ignoring the wider Linux community and even their users. That is, of course, their prerogative and to some degree I even welcome their attempts at differentiating their distro from others. As a user though you should be aware of their history and the apparent direction they're heading.

    I just wish they'd stop stalling and went all-in on snaps already, since that's pretty obviously where they're headed.

  • I dont mind snaps but blocking deb installs by default on file clicks is a bad look.

  • Just go Debian.

    Ubuntu used to bring a bit of spit and polish at a time when most Linux distros lacked that. Nowadays it brings nothing worthwhile to the table anymore, it's just brand recognition, but what it does bring is aggravation for experienced users.

    I had this realization a few years ago when I found myself fighting against 20.04 and I asked myself: what exactly is Ubuntu doing for me that plain Debian can't? The answer was nothing really, so I moved all my Ubuntu VMs over to Debian Bullseye and never looked back.

  • For my server I simply switched to Debian and add the packages I need on top, without all that proprietary snap crap.

    For desktop I'm tempted to switch to an atomic distro like Fedora Silverblue (Gnome) or Fedora Onyx (Budgie), and for the Steam Deck I'd go with Bazzite.

  • I was a long-time Xubuntu fan, tried Ubuntu directly from canonical for my new laptop.

    It's been a bit rocky, all things considered. I think I'm trying something else next time, maybe mint or whatever. Maybe Xubuntu, but only if this snap shit has been cut out.

  • Definitely time to just use debian, mint MX, or pop os even. I did a lot of hopping though and I've settled on Nobara KDE. Mint was great but the Bluetooth was finicky for some reason, and debian is mostly just ubuntu with some gui stuff removed. PopOS is basically just debian until COSMIC but still good too.

159 comments