Gregory's ServerNote: I assume that I will get responses to these posts (okay, I was GOING to say that, but I have got two such responses so far, I didn't even get to finish typing the thread) saying I wouldn't have problems if I didn't use Ubuntu. *I don't believe you!* Using a different distro means yanking an arm on a slot machine. MAYBE I get a functioning system. MAYBE it gets worse! And the cost of *trying* is a few days of intensive work and maybe screwing up my daily-use computer.
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77 comments
 @mcc only one of those issues is a ubuntu problem anyway. then there's a few wayland ones, and i guess the last one is just firefox being broken. it's certainly a game of choose your broken, or perhaps roll the dice and have the broken chosen for you. @mcc the "popups opening in the background" is an xwayland issue, unless there's a specific bonus problem with your configuration, hurray for a rare dice roll. the firefox attachment one is because you're using snap indeed (which is arguably a ubuntu thing because snap is ubuntu only madness).   @dotstdy @mcc yep, the forced snapification of everything (and especially firefox) is the main reason why I won't be installing Ubuntu anywhere anymore. Fool me once and all that. Pity because it used to be the distro I could put on machine I didn't want to get handsy with. Oh well, back to Debian 12 even for non-power users it seems.  @mcc Heh, I was going to say "try Ubuntu, it's worked pretty seemlessly on my laptop". the struggle is real though Someday Cosmic DE will get released, and I will switch to Pop!_OS, and then all the problems on my laptop will be because Cosmic DE is an unfinished product rather than because GNOME is a finished product which made design decisions I disagree with, and I will be Happy because the problems with my laptop will be happening for the correct reasons   Note: I don't mind Snap. I'd rather my OS be using Flatpak, but I mostly use Snap on purpose and I don't specifically object to my applications being installed as Snap. I just want Snap/Flatpak to like… work right.  @mcc I agree that as an end user you shouldn't have to care about the philosophy of native v/s namespace v/s whatever snap does, you should just be able to trust the OS default to JustWork(tm). but this is kind of why I have been against this whole snap and flatpak business. I trust my distro, and by extension, the native packages the maintainers have put in the repos to work well in concert with each other. @double_a_runi Well, my experience is that the distro maintainers are very, very conservative and always have very old versions of things, and that Homebrew is very high quality and always has new versions of things, so I'm in principle interested in a software distribution system that looks more like Homebrew than apt @mcc wait we have brew on Linux? anyway yeah, you are describing why I slowly moved from ubuntu -> mint -> arch . ubuntu got annoying, and mint packages were always old. I know arch is a meme, but its been working for me, and I will move to something else when it stops working for me? @double_a_runi I was using OS X locally and linux only on servers until quite recently! Then I rapidly abandoned Mac for Windows and then rapidly abandoned Windows for Linux. But also, yeah, you can use Homebrew on Linux, if you're feeling adventurous… https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-on-Linux @mcc curl to bash to install, looks promising. sorry I have nothing useful to reply, I've used brew to install lima on macos, so I can have linux in there, but not beyond that. I don't know how it works, and what kind of conflicts it can have. @mcc if you prefer newer versions, you may want to try Arch (or Endeavour OS, which is basically Arch, but with a more user-friendly installation process, and even more shiny new things). In the last couple of years, I barely did any maintenance to make it work for me, and I'm on Wayland and all. Also, in my experience, KDE is much more sensible than Gnome. I love it. It's still nice even when compared to OS X, and a lot better than Windows 11.  @RAOF Or create problems for users that they otherwise wouldn't have, like no longer being able to upload files from where they happen to be stored. @mcc I try not to use snap because got tired of path and config issues, and that there's no easy way to remove cache or old installs, it can quickly fill a drive. My experience with Linux desktop is similar to windows nowadays in terms of time invested in removing bloat and configure tools, and cursing the system due to crashes (I don't have access to freshly new hardware so whatever I get has some years of testing and fixes on top) @mcc are you attached to gnome, because if not, I would suggest a more consistent DE? (I know I just apologized for replies like this, but gnome is especially pesky in my experience. I have to deal with gnome on my office workstation, and I hate it) @double_a_runi I am very picky about margins on interface elements and IMO the ones in GNOME are Good and the ones in KDE and FVWM are Bad . Despite this I may switch to KDE at some point simply because I very much like Qt. My current plan is to shelter in place until Cosmic lands (see post elsewhere in thread) and if I'm already doing that then switching to Kubuntu only to quickly tear it down again is not a good use of time.  @mcc @double_a_runi You can install multiple DE/WM and swap between them to try them out without installing a new OS. This command offers the basic options, but there are more: sudo tasksel At the login prompt when booting up, there is probably a drop-down somewhere to choose which of the installed options you want to boot into this time.  @mcc I've been using Ubuntu version whichever is recent for years now and I guess I got used to it. These days I mostly switch between a full screen Web browser and a full screen terminal on different workspaces. Gnome3 has been especially painful so far, trying to fix its gestures that nobody asked for @mcc That's fair. I use Ubuntu because I wanted deb. I didn't want Snaps. It says there's an update then can't find it. I lose things a lot. I certainly don't want help with that.  @mcc I didn't see it in the thread, but what laptop are you using? (Not that it's relevant to your case, but I've used Ubuntu on Thinkpads -- never, ever the latest model, however -- for a long time with good results.) @dangillmor @mcc I'm running Linux on a Lenovo Carbon X1 and maybe one time out of five if I sleep it when not connected to external power/monitor, it won't wake up and I have to power-cycle. I've been assuming it's a Lenovo problem; I've been happily using desktop/laptop Linux for a quarter century (though not with gnome or wayland) and all the non-Lenovo machines could wake up reliably. @akkana @dangillmor There was a regression in the 6.8.x kernel series somewhere around April and that's what's causing me problems now. @akkana @dangillmor But ofc sleep/wake problems can have lots of causes and show up in a lot of OSes/configurations, some people seem to have problems with this even on Windows. I have learned the root problem is something called "S0ix", but apparently S0ix chipsets are all you can buy now @dangillmor Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 (AMD). I specifically selected this machine for Linux compatibiliy… >_> I think that my most serious problems stem from: - Using newest versions of Ubuntu instead of 22.04 @mcc @dangillmor I was also surprised at how volatile Ubuntu 24.04 seemed to me on Framework 16. It feels like LTS really needs to age for a year or two before its fully stable :D @levlaz @dangillmor Yeah. I … didn't expect this to be the case. "Well of course you don't install LTS until it hits .1" is apparently common knowledge in the Linux desktop community but was not common knowledge to me. LTS: "Long term support but NOT short term support"???  @mcc @levlaz @dangillmor Funny enough this is outright baked in at the *upgrade* level, LTS installs don't get upgrade notifications or even offers until the .1
Which really raises the question of why the general public is encouraged to install it fresh before then!  @mcc@mastodon.social @dangillmor@mastodon.social I wonder if Fedora is any better (I officially gave up on Linux as a workstation OS a couple years ago) @mcc Yeah, I'm cautious about using the latest OS if I have a choice. I'll probably wait for 24.04.2 before I upgrade Ubuntu on my primary machine (and will do a clean install). Also yeah re screen resolution stuff, not ideal (though I mostly use the machine in clamshell mode with big external monitor). I like/hate Snaps and Flatpacks and even .deb but wish the ecosystem would settle on something and stick with it. If you ever have to use the command line, an OS is not for "regular" folks.  @dangillmor @mcc Yeah the Linux community knows that, and always hand-wave it away (afaict.) I run Fedora (with Gnome+Wayland) on a somewhat older ThinkPad X1 and it DOES NOT have the same problems you're listing here. I really think your problem is either Ubuntu or Snap.  @astrojuanlu I think that my sleep problem MIGHT be fixed in a top of tree kernel but the information about which kernel I'd need to get or how to do it without disrupting my existing Linux system is… inadequate  @mcc I have never once heard the advice to switch distros come from somebody who wanted to make any effort whatsoever to understand and solve a problem, only from people who want to say they don't have your problem. I have had success forcibly disabling touchscreens by adding the appropriate module - "usbtouchscreen" I think? to /etc/modules.d/blacklist, but you're I think right to consider this an indignity. @mcc @mhoye I've distro dabbled and was annoyed with lots of Mint crashes, so had a go with OpenSUSE (ok) & Fedora (nope) too. Turns out it was bad RAM. I need a reinstall to upgrade Mint from 20 to 22 (my fault tinkering) so tried them all again. Sticking with Mint—best no-fuss driver support for nvidia and for software. @mcc 👋 I switched to Mint Debian edition (LMDE) on my framework 13 laptop, and after about a month of semi-daily use I like it a lot. Been feeling like I should do a serious tryout of NixOS but haven't made time for it yet. (Ubuntu switched my Firefox to snap, *despite* being carefullly configured to never use snap's FF ever, which meant an old FF version, which made my profile unusable. grrr... no more Ubuntu.)   @mcc@mastodon.social Yeah, my experience is that changing distros can fix some problems while introducing new ones. Like I went from Debian to Ubuntu and it improved hardware support while causing a number of other issues. @mcc Hear Hear. I've stuck with Linux Mint MATE ("Gnome 2") _because_ I know it works and I don't want to pull the multi-arm bandit to see what else breaks on other distros or window managers (or how bad the UI is). It works wonderfully on my Lenovo Yoga 730 (15" touchscreen) and Thinkpad P1 Gen 5 (no touchscreen). Videos playing in Firefox no longer prevent screen lock, but easily fixed by an applet toggle. I had issues with the P1 Gen 3 touchpad tap timing after awakening but .... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  @mcc Some of those issues are Ubuntu issues, but a lot of them sound like Gnome issues and it's hard to get away from that. As I've said before, the terrible thing about the equality of the desktops is that, instead of Linux desktop getting better to match old Windows and Apple, Win/Apple got worse to match Linux. @mcc I've given up on giving any kind of advice by now because I know it usually doesn't help and is usually annoying, so nowadays I just sort of watch and be sad whenever something is wrong on the computer somewhere I mean I know these things wouldn't happen if the computer was originally designed for use with linux, and if canonical didn't keep on doing their BS, and a million other things, but instead we got a world that's on fire and where people are only used to windows's weird bugs @mcc I was going to answer exacly that. To be fair, Ubuntu is a terrible system that should only be recommended if you want to traumatize the user. In my experience, having to deal with Windows machines from colleagues and offices is a far more cumbersome experience. It is so enerving that I always end up cussing and wanting to pull my hair off. On the other hand, reinstalling a GNU distribution is so easy that I've literally done over hundred times happily. Far from physically painful. @mcc@mastodon.social I use :arch: Arch Linux as my daily driver, but since you're using Ubuntu, the good news is that you have dozens of kernel that optimized for certain set of hardware to choose from, perhaps a kernel that suites modern AMD works for your hardware issue. |
@mcc Fedora live image. No install just try and see. YMMV of course.