I’ve been using Linux Mint since forever. I’ve never felt a reason to change. But I’m interested in what persuaded others to move.

  • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
    151·
    1 year ago

    Every couple of years I think to myself “You know, I can’t actually remember why I don’t like Ubuntu. It must have just been some weird one-off thing that soured me on it last time. Besides, I’ve got N more years of Linux experience under my belt, so I know how to avoid sticky situations with apt, and they’ve had N more years to make their OS more user friendly! I pride myself on not holding grudges, and if this distro still gets recommended to newbies, how bad can it possibly be, especially for someone with my level of expertise?”

    And then I download Ubuntu.

    And then I remember.

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        Admittedly, it’s been a few years and I’m coming due, but let’s see what I can remember…

        • apt will brick itself if it gets interrupted mid transaction with no clear recourse apart from a total reinstall, so try not to get greedy and Ctrl+C if it looks like dpkg is hung
        • trying to install any software that isn’t already packaged explicitly for Ubuntu is a nightmare because there is no equivalent of the AUR for people to push build steps to and you’re quite often left guessing what dependencies you need to install to get something to compile
        • snapcraft, need I say more? Firefox takes several minutes to start up, we don’t talk about disk usage, installing a package with apt will sometimes install the snap version anyway requiring a Windows-registry-edit-esque hack to disable, and the last time I checked in, the loop devices it creates didn’t even get hidden in the file manager.
        • I’ve also definitely encountered my fair share of bugs and broken packages which are always fun to fix
        • mwguy@infosec.pub
          2·
          1 year ago
          • trying to install any software that isn’t already packaged explicitly for Ubuntu is a nightmare because there is no equivalent of the AUR for people to push build steps to and you’re quite often left guessing what dependencies you need to install to get something to compile

          In fairness it does have the PPA system which predates the AUR and does provide a good job of providing third party amd semi-third party software.

          But you’re right that Ubuntu has sold out on building snaps for software instead of ppas.

        • ditty@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 year ago

          That Ubuntu would install the snap version of certain apps when I installed them directly in the terminal was the main reason I left Ubuntu after a few years. So annoying!

    • UprisingVoltage@feddit.it
      32·
      1 year ago

      Recommending ubuntu to newbies is the product of either incompetence or malice when Mint, zorin and nobara exist

      • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
        01·
        1 year ago

        i don’t like how Ubuntu feels (gui) so idk about cli issues

        it’s not a problem with Gnome btw, it’s just the colours are yuck vomit and snap 🗿