Ubuntu has long suffered from NIH syndrome, constantly inventing its own non-standard components (snaps, Unity, etc) and trying to make them āwinā by forcing them on their own users. Reminds me of Microsoft with its non-standard Internet Explorer, its own non-standard version of Java and others.
The lesson is to use a Community distro, not a Corporate distro. When the distroās goals align with its communityās, even a distro based on Ubuntu will usually be better than straight Ubuntu. For example Mint keeps the good things about Ubuntu (in Mintās opinion of course), removes the bad things like Snaps, and adds other features that the community wants that Ubuntu wonāt (like built-in Flatpak support among other things).
This is why I moved to Linux Mint. Then, when I got tired of having to reinstall the entire OS every time thereās a new version I moved again. Spare a thought for the poor saps who feel stuck with an OS from a single vendor. And sometimes even paying for the privilege. That being said fund open source. Freedom isnāt free.
Mint has an auto-upgrade tool so you donāt have to reinstall each time. It used to be only for minor version upgrades but now you can auto-upgrade to a new major version as well. In any case there are plenty of great distros to choose from.
And yes! whatever distro (and other FLOSS software) you use, support them with a donation if you can! When you consider the value you are getting for free vs. what youād be spending on proprietary software, itās not so hard to do and feels good too.
Alsoā¦ the amount of money Iāve saved by being able to revive old hardware! I havenāt bought a new computer in 11 years. My computer before that (and still working) was a gift in 2006ā¦ that bitch is old enough to vote.
I have other computers that people have given to me because they were ājust too old,ā but for me, it was an upgrade. I revived a windows 98-era HP a few years ago, just so I could use the 9-pin connection to fix my bricked OG Xbox that I was modding.
Granted, I donāt game on PC or require heavy lifting (though I am saving for a personal build, because thereās some hobbies I just canāt do without a good desktop), but for everyday use, I have more than enough.
I currently have 4 āworkingā computers. Two of them are my main, one still needs to be āreinvigoratedā (itās 18 years old), and one is my server.
I have a 5th desktop that was given to me (because it was too slow/old), and it just recently crapped out on me (either because of windows bullshit, or a bad hdd. But I have my hunches). So itās about to be revived when I have time.
Hardest part was getting my wife onboard with switching to Linux, instead of buying a new computer. But now sheās getting ready to switch her Mac to Linux because itās been struggling. And I think sheās starting to realize that a brand-new computer isnāt really ānecessaryā, if all youāre doing is email, browsing web, and editing docs. Shit, our phones can handle most of that; you donāt need a $1k+ computer for that, or pay for windows software that will barely work on the hardware you have.
So yeahā¦ end rant. Absolutely love how much Linux has breathed new life into my old hardware. Has saved me time and time again, as well as a bunch of money. I definitely need to throw a donation at a distro, cause they have saved me more than just money at this point
The lesson is to use a Community distro, not a Corporate distro.
Okay, but you donāt see these kinds of complaints with Fedora or SUSE. While I donāt necessarily disagree with your core point (community is better), this doesnāt seem like an issue with corporations so much as an issue strictly with Canonical.
Been running KDE on fedora for the last 6 years after giving up on everything Ubuntu based back then. Havenāt thought to look elsewhere since as its been just fine
I went through something similar 2 years ago. I was sold in PopOS, mainly because Debian based distros were easier to find help for. Almost 2 years ago I started using Fedora on my PC while still having PopOS on my laptop. Within 3 weeks I was setting my laptop up with Fedora as well, and Iāve never looked back (other than the regular distro-hopping bursts, lol).
Youāre being purposefully obtuse. Corporate distro means āby and for companiesā which rolling releases are not
Okay? OpenSUSE Leap is a point release by and for companies. While Fedora isnāt necessarily a server distro, it IS a point release designed with enterprise use in mind.
If we look at both of their strictly enterprise counterparts, Iāve never heard of any complaints about SUSE and any complaints with RHEL Iāve heard are with source availability. Neither of them have the mega amounts of bad publicity of Canonical.
