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1 • Design Xubuntu (by Guido on 2020-05-04 01:03:53 GMT from Philippines)
I haven't tried it, but when I compare the default design of Xubuntu during the last years, it is getting worse with each version. I have seldom seen such an ugly desktop design. The colors are really not fitting together. Okay, you could change this detail. What do you think?
2 • Ubuntu (by mcellius on 2020-05-04 01:41:44 GMT from United States)
Wow, Jesse, what an unfortunate experience you had with Ubuntu 20.04! Nothing but problems, problems, problems!
I have installed Ubuntu 20.04 on two different computers: a Dell desktop, and a System76 laptop, and on both I enountered none - not one - of the problems you describe. Both have been stable and reliable, working very much as I hoped, and as an LTS release should work.
No slow boots, no installation problems, no network problems, no ZFS problems, etc.
However, I noticed one of the things you wrote, and perhaps that is the cause of your problems:
I decided to run the beta version of Ubuntu 20.04 earlier, wanting to know if I was going to like it or not. One of the issues I ran into, a couple weeks before the final release, was that there appeared to be some confusion about what was going on with Ubuntu Software (what you call the "software centre"). At one point it changed to include only Snap packages, and for awhile there were even two versions, but whatever was being done at Canonical was sorted out and what shipped in the actual Release was one package that did include both Snap packages as well as others in the various repositories. (I tested it out because of the earlier problems I had noticed.)
So I wonder, since you mentioned finding that the "software center" worked only with Snap packages: were you actually running one of the betas of Ubuntu rather than the finished and released version that everyone gets if they go to download it now? You also mentioned that the "software centre" showed no softwae categories, but the version released with Ubuntu 2004 does show software categories. A beta version, of course, is not to be used for "production" work, as it is expected to have problems that have not yet been fixed or corrected. It probably shouldn't be used for reviewing a product release, either.
3 • Ubuntu review (by Jesse on 2020-05-04 01:46:07 GMT from Canada)
@2: I never (unless explicitly stated in the article) review beta releases. I always wait for the final release and review it. The only exceptions to this rule have been with projects that are in on-going and persistent beta status like Haiku.
The version of Ubuntu reviewed this week was the final release of 20.04, not a beta.
4 • New LTS Release (by Bob on 2020-05-04 01:51:09 GMT from United States)
I usually wait until the first major upgrade, ie 20.04.1, before trying a new LTS.
5 • Ubuntu MATE 20.04 (by Tim on 2020-05-04 02:11:54 GMT from United States)
I can't comment on any of the bugs Jesse saw because I've got the Ubuntu MATE spin running and not the flagship but I've had zero issues. I had not planned on using this release because I was pretty happy with my mix of Mint 19.3 and Debian 10 but I threw it on one computer and it had so few annoyances I switched two others.
6 • Ubuntu - maybe a few years from now (by Andy Prough on 2020-05-04 02:42:33 GMT from United States)
I was actually thinking about trying out this version, since it is a long-term release and there was so much buzz prior to its release. Glad I waited. Maybe I'll think about it again in another 3 years. Probably by then Canonical will have thankfully given up on their bloated snaps like they gave up on mir and upstart and ubuntu-phone/convergence and ubuntu-one file hosting and the unity desktop and on and on.
7 • Xubuntu is the better Ubuntu (by Torsten on 2020-05-04 03:06:30 GMT from Germany)
Well, I have less problems with Xubuntu than with Ubuntu. In my view, Xubuntu really is the better Ubuntu, even when the design & layout could be better.
But I also don't like all the "Snap" store & stuffs. I think that I will switch to Debian or to MX Linux this weekend.
8 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Ti-Paul on 2020-05-04 03:13:47 GMT from Canada)
I would love continue using Ubuntu 20.04, it runs smoothly on my laptop with this latest Gnome version BUT too much of a headache for trying to get suspend and hibernation working... And this is vital for me...
Seems like kernel 5.x don't help since i'm on Linux Mint 18.3 with kernel 4.15.x and it works well... but if i install kernel 5.x in Mint, no more suspend/hibernate! :(
9 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Bob on 2020-05-04 03:39:13 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu was the first distro I ever tried and I have tried every major release for the last 8 years. I always want to like it, but I don't. It is always just too buggy. This time after a flawless install I rebooted and couldn't login. My password didn't do anything. I reinstalled and set it to auto-login, rebooted and got the same result. I tried it on a desktop and two laptops, same results. On the other hand Kubuntu works great on anything I put it on. No problems at all.
10 • Switching to a different distro. (by R. Cain on 2020-05-04 04:00:12 GMT from United States)
@ #7--
"... I think that I will switch to Debian or to MX Linux this weekend."
Make *absolutely* certain that if you do switch, you don't use any release later than the latest version of what was declared to be the absolute-best distribution of 2019: MX Linux MX-18 Continuum. And you should give VERY serious consideration to MX-Linux's stablemate: antiX.
From a serious reviewer of Linux distributions--
"...MX-18 Continuum delivered more than the other Xfce distros I tested, and it's better than MX-19, too..."
"... MX-19 was a nice product, with good connectivity and speed.... But then, things came undone - I noticed problems I didn't have before.... I was unreservedly happy with MX-18, but I didn't feel the same connection with the newest version...it always helps when you get a smooth, clean experience. Bugs sure don't help...its [MX-19's] worst enemy is - its earlier self [i.e., MX-18 Continuum].
11 • Ubuntu's Snaps (by Claus on 2020-05-04 04:27:24 GMT from Switzerland)
Canonical's Snap-Mania made me switch to Fedora KDE. Thanks again Canonical.
12 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by eco2geek on 2020-05-04 04:56:32 GMT from United States)
I have Ubuntu 18.04 LTS installed, which means that Ubuntu won't recommend an online upgrade to 20.04 LTS until its first point release (i.e. 20.04.1), scheduled for July 23. From what I read, they do this in order to make sure the upgrade and the distro are stable, as you'd want from an LTS. Point being, maybe Jesse can revisit Ubuntu 20.04.1 in July and see if he has a better experience.
On the other hand, if most Linux nerds had the same experience with 20.04 that Jesse did, there would be lots of yelling on the blogs that I'm not seeing.
Anyway, one good thing about Ubuntu 20.04 is its theme, Yaru, which looks very good. Cosmetically speaking, I think it looks great.
P.S. Your link to the latest elementary OS is labelled "elementaryos-5.1-stable.20200204.iso" (which is an older version) but goes to the real release, which is "elementaryos-5.1-stable.20200501.iso".
13 • Ubuntu on my machine... (by randomly generated entity on 2020-05-04 05:14:30 GMT from United States)
I had to stop and think about it...How did Ubuntu 20.04 end up on my PC?
So, no, turns out I didn't do a fresh install; I simply upgraded my 19.10 to 20.04, and in fact did that shortly after the beta was announced. I think I've done this process a few times now, at least since 18.04, and I've had zero issues. A bit surprising considering the fact that I got rid of all the Ubuntu customization and went vanilla Gnome (with some extensions) long ago. Aside from having to wait for dash-to-dock to catch up to 3.36, everything's been swell.
The only issue I have is that Gnome Software (not the snap - more on that soon) no longer lets you install/browse shell extensions. As for snaps, the mere idea of which I detest, along with flatpak, it's real easy to purge that crap - a little google-fu and you're good.
I was slightly surprised that I didn't have to remove a single snap package from my system when I double-checked just now that I had completely gotten rid of snaps. Gnome Software is a .deb, and if you turn off recommends it won't pull in snap crap, at least for now. Maybe I never had any snaps on this install. My tinkering (vanilla gnome, snapd removal) prior to upgrades may have prevented my system from becoming snap-encrusted.
Anyway, I'm not shocked that Jesse had all those issues in his testing, nor am I shocked that my experience has been smooth as silk with only minor annoyances. My aging Intel Core i7 K 875 @ 2.93GHz, Nvidia GT240 PC seems to get along insanely well with just about any distro, the Ubuntus being no exception. Guess I'm just lucky...
PS - FWIW, and one reason I was momentarily uncertain as to how Ubuntu 20.04 appeared on my machine is that I did recently do a fresh install of UbuntuDDE 20.04 (Deepin community beta respin), which also went fine for the most part. I was mainly disappointed that the older version of DDE (not what's on the recent Deepin 20 beta) was installed, with all the paper-cuts that brings, mainly the AM/PM clock thing. Seems to have issues keeping the "window effect" (transparency) setting with the Nvidia driver installed also.
But at least the proprietary driver can be installed, which is basically impossible with Deepin (the distro) itself, at leat the beta, for now. Looks promising, but I hope they opt for the newer DDE desktop at some point.
14 • Ubuntu 20.04 vs. Xubuntu (by spankmon on 2020-05-04 05:37:06 GMT from United States)
I have not tried the new Ubuntu but am surprised by Jesse's disappointment. I have been using Xubuntu 20.04 daily, since its release and am very pleased by its performance on my hardware. Pleased enough that I might abandon Mint in favor of Xubuntu, and I've been using Mint in excess of ten years.
15 • Ubuntu 20.04 and derivatives (by Wedge009 on 2020-05-04 05:38:45 GMT from Australia)
I've managed fine with Kubuntu for several years and have also been using it full-time on my primary machine since January this year. I know the upgrade option is generally only being made available from 20.04.1 onwards but I forced the upgrade from 19.10 to 20.04 (on a non-primary machine first, of course), and didn't encounter any issues (that I've noticed yet, anyway).
It sounds like the difficulties with a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 installation may be with choices specific to that environment. It also sounds like Snap is being pushed as the primary package management option there.
16 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by MDC on 2020-05-04 05:57:22 GMT from Belgium)
This version is the best version since 14.04. Until now I encountered no problems. Even snaps run well (like it or not, there's software only available as snap, like cherrytree that debian has thrown out of his repos). I run it on a 4 year old pentium and it is fast and responsive.
The new xubuntu is a bit of a disappointment however: ugly theming and colours, glitches and freezes on hardware that ran the previous version rather well (5 year old laptop with celeron processor). I'm asking myself if some problems are in fact problems with the series 5 kernel, and not with the distro per sé. Snaps are not bloat, but give you the ability to use the newest software in a LTS environment and are more secure, because containerized. They are a bigger than normal packages, but modern hard drives are big enough, aren't they?
17 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by GeekyMentat on 2020-05-04 06:33:34 GMT from Germany)
I upgraded to Ubuntu last week, and I noticed how many apps are SNAPs now.
I tried to add Flatpak support in the Ubuntu Software center, but you cannot as the Software Center is a snap. You need to uninstall the SNAP and reinstall it from DEB.
I migrated my work laptop to Linux Mint and my personal laptop to elementaryOS, to run them both for a bit and decide my new next distro of choice.
I really hope Canonical would stop this snap-mania and just use Flatpak for desktop apps and Docker for server software.
18 • Xubuntu (by Anis on 2020-05-04 06:39:06 GMT from Germany)
First of all I'd like to say Hello Linux and DW fans. Lately I've been looking for a good Distro to be my daily driver and after testing more than 10 distro I have come to the conculsion that Xubuntu is probably one of the best linux distros out there for me :) I really like that the Distro is stable, fast and everything just works out of the box. The Distro is is small, doesnt use much ram or cpu and everything you need is installed, however there are a few things that I wish that the Xubuntu team would add/change in the distro, I'd like to see something like in similar to the ubuntu mate theme settings so that a there are 3-4 themes /setting that can be changed with one mouseclick. I'd also like to see a nice default theme....*cough* matcha theme *cough* the current one just feels so outdated. And then there is Snaps, its kind of like Unity.....you either love it or hate it....
Conculsion: Its a very good distro but like with an old house it just needs a new paint job and and a few small tweak to make it feel modern again.
Have a nice day guys,
Anis
19 • About those buttons... (by eco2geek on 2020-05-04 06:51:45 GMT from United States)
From the review:
> Something I noticed early on while using the GNOME desktop is window buttons are still
> kept on the right side of windows.
That's the default in Gnome shell. Canonical didn't change it for whatever reason, but you, the end user, can move them to the left if you like. Easiest way is to download and install the "Gnome Tweaks" utility (which is highly recommended as it allows you to change several settings that the "Settings" utility doesn't).
20 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Justin R. on 2020-05-04 06:54:17 GMT from United States)
Jesse hit the nail on the head for me when he summed it up with "slow, buggy, and multiple components felt incomplete". I tried it and felt the same way. I went back to Linux Mint with Cinnamon and couldn't be happier.
21 • Too much love for Snap? (by Ennio on 2020-05-04 06:55:51 GMT from Netherlands)
According to this post ( https://jatan.blog/2020/05/02/ubuntu-snap-obsession-has-snapped-me-off-of-it/ ) the prioritization of of Snap packages over Flatpack and even .deb ones to a point resembling coercion. One paragraph as (egregious) example :
" Slow and forced Chromium snap
On the latest Ubuntu, if you try to download the .deb version of Chromium using either the Software Store or command line, it acts as an alias to installing the snap version! Essentially, Chromium snap is shoved down your throat even if you explicitly asked for the .deb version. This is not cool Ubuntu – just because Chromium may be easier to maintain as a snap app doesn’t justify this forced behavior.
Besides, a typical user doesn’t care how the app is managed in the backend, all they care about is how it works – snap apps are slow. I hate that Chromium’s snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds. Snaps are simply not fast enough to be default anything yet. "
22 • Ubuntu releases (by Here on 2020-05-04 06:58:30 GMT from Spain)
I have had problems with Ubuntu too. Tried 20.04 and "Software Center" does not have Search option, it only has various sections for choosing from, but no "Network" section. Where do I find Gftp? Then I tried:
sudo apt update - went well
sudo apt install gftp - package not found;
sudo apt-get install gftp - package not found;
........ synaptic - package not found;
........ - package not found;
........ not found
Excuse me, but it is supposed to give the user the freedom to chose what to use - deb, snap, flat...
So I quit Ubuntu.
Then I tried Lubuntu 20.04 - the first Lubuntu version with default LXQT. Surprisingly it felt much faster and beautyful than usual. I've always preferred the LXDE version but now LXQT feels quite pleasant.
Then tried PopOS! and I liked it. Do not know if I am going to use it regularly but it feels good.
Finally I am a KDE guy, not Gnome, but recently I tend to use JWM, IceWM, Qtile, so I thought the more keyboard oriented Gnome with Ubuntu 20.04 would be a good try, but nop.
23 • Kubuntu 20.04 (by Anis on 2020-05-04 07:03:50 GMT from Germany)
A lots of comments about Ubuntu and Xubuntu but not a lot of people are talking about Kubuntu. I tried Kubuntu out and I do have to say that Kubuntu is in my opinion the big STAR in the Ubuntu family.
You get a normal taskbar, normal menu, and a awesome file manager. Kde has made changing themes very simple and can be done easily within a couple of minutes. For me Kubuntu works very good out of the box, of course the Distro may not be as lightweight as Xubuntu but its almost there. My Kubuntu install uses about 550 Mb Ram ** WAIT WHAT !!?? ** which is almost like my Xubuntu install however, the CPU is used more often than in Xubuntu. I really like that Kubuntu offers the minimal install option, some people, like me, really like this option and use it. However my absolute favorite thing about Kubuntu/ Kde is that you can set your wallpapers to change everyday using Bing or Flicker wallpapers, its something that i definitely use.
Once again, Have a nice day guys,
Anis
24 • Did you enable the software repositories? (by eco2geek on 2020-05-04 07:42:34 GMT from United States)
@22 - It doesn't sound like you ran the "Software and Updates" utility to make sure all four software repositories ("Main", "Restricted", "Universe", and "Multiverse") were enabled. If they're not, you're not going to be able to download/install software like Synaptic.
(Alternatively, you can alter /etc/apt/sources.list yourself, but using "Software and Updates" is much easier.)
25 • Kubuntu 20.04 (by Gio on 2020-05-04 07:52:57 GMT from Italy)
I put this distro on two different low powered machines and apart usual problems with an ASUS Transformer (their webcam is still not working for instance, but these are ASUS problems not Kubuntu's), the system is running very fine.
I did notice anything wrong and Plasma 5.18 LTS is really a good fellow for this Kubuntu LTS too.
I am waiting for a full review from Distrwatch for this kind of Ubuntu 20.4 that, in my opinion, seems a step higher than the others from the Ubuntu family.
26 • @ Jesse Ubuntu (by OstroL on 2020-05-04 08:04:50 GMT from Poland)
Have you noticed that the Ubuntu devs, or the dev maintaining the Ubuntu Dock couldn't get the Folder icon correct to match the other default Yaru icons? It is the only icon with a "squircle" around it. (The images in the review.) The same wrong icon appears also in the AppGrid. The Folder icon is purple, but the icon on the Ubuntu Dock is blurred.
A simple matter, but not enough imagination to correct it. Or, not enough wanting to do so. I have a feeling that there's not enough developers.
27 • Ubuntu still effs us up (by Anthony on 2020-05-04 09:29:04 GMT from Austria)
Just learned that Ubuntu can't even use motd (message of the day) without phoning home. And they are sending some info home as well. Oh, and it is opt-*out* of course.
https://twitter.com/lelff/status/1210619413885575168?s=21
Checked my Linux Mint 19, it luckily lacks this "feature".
28 • Re: Ubuntu Releases (by Here on 2020-05-04 10:24:42 GMT from Spain)
@24 You are right. By default:
Ubuntu Software - No Network Category, no gftp, no wireshark , no synaptic, no ....
Software Updater - 106,8MB of updates
Software & Updates - Main and Restricted enabled, Universe an Multiverse disabled.
Enabling Universe and Multiverse gave me the software needed.
Weird defaults though. There isUbuntu Software which by default does not have any option to change the repos. And this one is on the sidebar as a favorite.
Then we have Software updates.
And finally there is Software and Updates where we can change the repos.
Intuitive?
Not to mention where they buried the netinstall mini iso.
29 • Ubuntu/Xubuntu 20.04 (by SaucyJack on 2020-05-04 10:48:46 GMT from United States)
I normally use Xubuntu, because for me it usually requires the least work after installation. Yet, with each new release, I find there's about a 60-40 chance I'll have to spend a couple afternoons fixing stuff that should have worked on installation.
Most of the problems THIS time were caused by decisions made by Canonical rather than regressions, which is usually the case. One example: my first update hung on installation of the snap-store, which I then removed. There are other examples.
For an organization as big as Canonical, their Q&A seems seriously lacking. Really guys, if I want to spend my time working on Ubuntu development, I'LL give YOU a call.
30 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Ghost Sixtyseven on 2020-05-04 10:49:45 GMT from United Kingdom)
I too saw none of the problems the reviewer had with Ubuntu 20.04. It's been a long time since I've tried any of the 'buntus on-the-metal for any reasonable duration, but for this new LTS I decided to give it another try and I will admit that I was impressed with it.
I'm not a fan of Systemd, but I've come to accept it as something that will be sticking around, I never used to like Gnome Shell at all, but having used it over a long period on Debian I have become more used to its unique way of running the desktop and I don't mind it at all now. Yes, it uses more resources than most other desktop environments, but it wasn't at all slow on my old Toshiba Satellite C-50 laptop, and there was no sluggishness in any of the programs that I like to run on a daily basis for music and video production and graphics.
Now, I'm not a fan of Snaps or containered apps in general - I don't think they're ready just yet, but I found that the horror stories of excessive drive-space use were to say the least exaggerated. Yes they do use more space than traditionally installed applications, but not to any extent that should cause panic or anger. The speed opening the snap apps was longer than traditionally installed apps too, often the first run of a snap app was prohibitively long, though subsequent runs (during the same boot) were much quicker. However, after a system reboot I did notice the first-run tardiness returned and this was a showstopper for me. The theming of some snap apps under Gnome was also 'not quite there' yet, though I belive that this can be remedied by the installation of further system libraries.
In any case, a fresh install, this time installing Synaptic from the repos via terminal, and thence my favourite apps via Synaptic gave me a very good experience indeed. Ubuntu 20.04 was solid, quick, and (I think) beautiful in appearance.
Would I wipe my daily-use Debian Buster install for Ubuntu 20.04? No, I'm too comfortable and happy with what I already have, but if that were not the case and I was looking for a replacement, Ubuntu 20.04 would certanly be very favourable option.
31 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Barna on 2020-05-04 11:00:55 GMT from France)
A long time Ubuntu user (first version I installed was 05.10), I installed 20.04 on 3 different laptops: a low-end Acer Swift1 ultrabook, my 4 year old HP 840G2 and my professional Dell.
First I tried XUbuntu beta on the Acer, and as it ran fine, so I installed (official final) Ubutu final on all three computers (using ext4).
I didn't have any serious issues on any of these computers. No problems at installation. Ubuntu starts quickly, never had bootloops. Suspend works. The system is stable. Even the NVIDIA drivers on the Dell run fine.
Regarding the interface, I replaced the ubuntu dock with a gnome panel and arc menu in the extensions. Much more usable. Otherwise like a lot the new Yaru theme.
My only issue was with the Software center which didn't load correctly the applications. Replacing it with gnome-software solved the issue. Anyway, I'm still using Synaptic and apt where possible. And by the way, the software selection is up to date. The Software center contains proprietary software too (Zoom, Skype, Discord, Teamviewer are the must haves this spring), so no more hunting for linux installers on their homepage.
I'm really pleased with this Ubuntu release, and really surprised by the bad experience Jesse was having with this release.
32 • repos and snaps and Xubuntu (by Jeff on 2020-05-04 11:03:05 GMT from United States)
@16 try MX Linux, cherrytree is in their repos as a deb, along with many other good apps, for a small team they do very well keeping up with applications their users want (and keeping them updated).
Years ago Xubuntu was my distro of choice, but it gets heavier and heavier while I become more minimalist. Lately even Lubuntu has abandoned older computers too.
33 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Angel on 2020-05-04 11:03:23 GMT from United States)
Removed all snaps and I'm writing this in Chromium installed with a .deb from a PPA , just because I'm ornery and retired, with time to fart around. Not that I have anything against snaps except they are too fat and I don't need them.
I had been running the dailies for a few months and it's been well-behaved. Deleted it to install Kubuntu for my preferred DE. Now I put Ubuntu back on a VM to check the final release. It runs crisply enough, none of the lag reported by the reviewer. I allow 2.5GB on an i5 PC. VBoxVGA on the display, with no acceleration.
The most bothersome thing at live boot was the checking file integrity bit. In some cases it would slow to a crawl and you can hit "Control+C" until you have callouses, and it still keeps merrily spitting out checksums. Installing Kubuntu I had to reboot several times. Fedora does it better, offering you a choice at boot. More civilized that way.
The store does keep pushing you onto snaps. I clicked on quite a few before I found something that wasn't. No matter, I install synaptic first thing. All in all, it works well, except it's not my desktop of choice. For anyone wanting Chromium bad enough without the snaps, here's a link: https://launchpad.net/~saiarcot895/+archive/ubuntu/chromium-dev
Read the fine print, and iif you break it, it's your problem. Frankly, I'd rather just install Chrome, or move to a Debian base or something like Manjaro.
34 • Ubuntu Releases (by Rick on 2020-05-04 11:40:35 GMT from United States)
Tried Ubuntu MATE 20.04. Still the same as all other Ubuntu releases. Bloated and buggy. They haven't had a really good release since 10.10. Stopped using Ubuntu after the nightmarish Unity came along. Have been using Mint since then but it also fell off the cliff after 17.3. My conclusion? Linux's glory days are over!
35 • Ubuntu (by César on 2020-05-04 11:41:56 GMT from Chile)
Hi!
I use Ubuntu 18.04 in my workstation for development (PHP, HTML, MariaSQL and image edit) and works well (never hangs or sluggish), but the worst is the gnome high RAM use (very very high), drinking memory like a old V8 drinking fuel. And the other, is really necessary install Synaptic and Aptitude, because is the only way to manage packages in this distro.
Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
36 • Xubuntu Core (by Anis on 2020-05-04 11:51:36 GMT from Germany)
For those of you looking for a slimmed down version of Xubuntu (818 Mb iso) here is an awesome website : https://unit193.net/xubuntu/core/
Its as basic as it gets, no games, no office, no browser, no snaps, no nothing LoL.....
- Anis
37 • Ubuntu Studio (by Ram on 2020-05-04 12:15:20 GMT from India)
I'm using a dailybuild (alfa) version of Ubuntu Studio focal. It's working fine, so I have not upgraded yet.
FYI, Ubuntu Studio is moving to Kubuntu leaving Xubuntu from the next release i.e release 20.10.
38 • Ubuntu/Xubuntu 20.04/Chromium Snap (by John on 2020-05-04 12:20:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
I am a happy Xubuntu 18.04 LTS user. I have installed Xubuntu 20.04 on my spare computer, it works fine, and I would like to upgrade my main computer as soon as possible. However at present I need Unetbootin which currently won't work on 20.04. I need this to produce a bootable USB which can have bootia32.efi written to it so that I can install distros on a baytrail processor Linx tablet (most other apps leave the USB drive as read only file system). I added bootia32.efi to the Ubuntu 20.04 iso and installed it on my Linx. As usual the cameras don't work, but everything else does. However, the system occasionally freezes, then recovers, then tells me that Ubuntu has suffered an internal error - irritating, but not bad enough to require a reboot or to lose any work.
Also just to confirm that Chromium only seems to install as a snap package, and that it takes at least twice as long to load as Firefox or Vivaldi - and I share the frustration of many others that like me would be happier with a deb!
39 • @Jesse: (by dragonmouth on 2020-05-04 12:53:40 GMT from United States)
"Perhaps the oddest decision Canonical has made with this release is to make the software centre work only with Snap packages."
Not odd at all. SNAP is a Canonical product. If they don't push it, nobody else will. Give Snap a year or two and it will follow Mir and Unity into oblivion.
40 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by fox on 2020-05-04 13:05:22 GMT from Canada)
My experience with Ubuntu 20.04 has been generally positive, and where I have found problems, they were carried over from the previous 19.10 release. The most annoying bug is with the copy/paste command, which seems to work only once every two times. This problem is particular to the Gnome desktop, and occurs on three computers. Change the desktop to Cinnamon and then I don't have it. Also, it seems to have been introduced with Gnome 3.34, as I didn't see it until Ubuntu 19.10. The most potentially serious bug only occurs on one of my three computers, a 2015 5k iMac. Booting with the new LTS kernel (5.4) takes about 3 minutes on this computer, and both waking from display sleep and shutting down take about 2 minutes. However, I carried over the 4.15 LTS kernel from Ubuntu 18.04, and this kernel doesn't have any of these problems. The two other computers, a 2011 iMac and a Dell xps 13 2-in-1, don't have this problem, so I think it may related to the AMD r9390x video card. I did extensive testing of different kernels on the affected computer, and the problem starts with the 5.3 kernel that was introduced with Ubuntu 19.10. Fortunately, the 4.15 LTS kernel gets another 3 years of support, but after that, then what?
41 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Utku B. on 2020-05-04 13:16:19 GMT from Turkey)
I use a linux-friendly laptop and I can say 20.04 is the fastest Ubuntu I have ever used. Only drawback is snap store imho. I removed Snap Store and install Synaptic and Gnome Software Center.
42 • Kubuntu (by Benevolent on 2020-05-04 14:05:09 GMT from United States)
@22, I was just getting ready to say the same thing. In my own testing, Kubuntu actually uses less RAM than Xubuntu and seems to be easier on my CPU too. I don't really understand why people seem to like the GTK desktops so much. Plasma is so much faster, comprehensive and stable in my opinion.
I think one could probably even set up Kubuntu to look like Gnome with a panel on top that shows little information, default actions that ignore typical workflows and a desktop that is for looks only. The only difference is that the Plasma Gnome experience would work better on laptops with 4GB of RAM than the actual Gnome does.
43 • Unity, Snap ,and Mir (by Jesse on 2020-05-04 14:07:34 GMT from Canada)
@39: "Give Snap a year or two and it will follow Mir and Unity into oblivion. "
Those are interesting choices for examples. Canonical still actively develops Mir and have turned it into a Wayland implementation. Unity7 has been dropped, but Unity8 is still in active development for mobile and single board computers.
44 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by bison on 2020-05-04 14:37:08 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu 20.04: I am *not* using it, and am neutral, which is not a poll choice. I briefly tried Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Studio. They seemed OK, but not interesting enough to explore further.
45 • Ubuntu (by Sam on 2020-05-04 14:40:16 GMT from United States)
I'm glad I'm not the only one who ran into bugs with the latest Ubuntu release. I ran into the super-slow-to-boot issue, realized the software center was downloading snap packages after trying to install Gnumeric was taking forever (I thought it was my wifi connection at first, then I noticed the file size and the way Gnumeric ignored my desktop theme), screen rotation (Wayland) which was just about flawless on 19.10, left open windows with a big black region that I couldn't get rid of except to exit and restart the app, and, maybe most annoying, rearranging icons in the side app bar would take up to 60 seconds to refresh (i.e. move Firefox below Thunderbird, the bar would leave the Firefox icon where it used to be, but then magically about a minute later the bar would refresh with Firefox's icon where I tried to move it).
Searching online, I found not solutions to these issues as nobody else seemed to be reporting them -- in fact, everybody was posting about how "flawless" the install went. Ugh.
46 • CS (by CS on 2020-05-04 14:58:55 GMT from United States)
@39
"Not odd at all. SNAP is a Canonical product. If they don't push it, nobody else will. Give Snap a year or two and it will follow Mir and Unity into oblivion."
Thank you for the hearty chuckle. Still can't believe what a dumpster fire Unity was and how long they kept riding that dead horse. In that vein, give Snaps at least 5 years. Canonical: "Complain all you want, we're not listening!"
@43
"Those are interesting choices for examples. Canonical still actively develops Mir and have turned it into a Wayland implementation. Unity7 has been dropped, but Unity8 is still in active development for mobile and single board computers. "
Reminds me of a Monty Python skit Unity8: "I'm getting better!" The entire world: "No you aren't you'll be stone dead in a moment."
47 • Ubuntu and Linux Mint (by bison on 2020-05-04 15:14:34 GMT from United States)
@34
This has been my experience as well. I switched from Ubuntu to Linux Mint when Unity came along, and I reluctantly "upgraded" to Mint 18, only because going back to Ubuntu wasn't any better.
I think I may try MX Linux. The default desktop configuration is a hot mess, but I can fix that in less than an hour, and I'm already using Xfce on a Debian-based distro, so the move makes sense.
48 • Software Center (by dolphin oracle on 2020-05-04 15:26:05 GMT from United States)
In my experience with ubuntu 20.04, the software store does show deb/apt packages, but it will show snaps first. For instance, ffmpeg is listed twice when I do a search. the package descriptions do show whether they are snaps or not, and a little box in the upper right appears when multiple snap channels are present.
49 • Kubuntu - no problems (by Dark Man on 2020-05-04 16:49:09 GMT from United States)
@23 @25 @42 I installed Kubuntu and had no problems. Kubuntu 20.04 is an excellent distro, quick and polished, and I look forward to several years running it as my everyday OS. Sorry that Jesse had issues with another flavor but there were none here.
50 • 20.04 (by Roy Davies on 2020-05-04 17:04:54 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have mixed feelings about the Ubuntu 20.04 suite of distros.
In my six years of using Linux, have never been a fan of the main Ubuntu distro, nor the Unity or Gnome desktop environments, however I am a fan of Xubuntu. In my opinion it is the most solid and reliable of all distros for a novice user coming from Windows. For this reason, I have happily recommended and installed it on many laptops and desktops used by former Windows users who just need a basic home or home-office computer that works with little or no hiccups.
The other Ubuntu based distros have their place, but I personally have only used Mate, Lubuntu and Budgie. I do not like the KDE desktop, so Kubuntu is a non-starter.
51 • Mixed experience so far - Xubuntu, live server (by mikef90000 on 2020-05-04 17:25:33 GMT from United States)
I didn't have any significant issues with Xubuntu 20.04 installation, although the above review refers to the Whisker Menu. AFAIK Xubuntu *still* does not install it by default!
Remembered to protect myself by 'apt purge snapd'.
OTOH 'live-server' install attempts were a disaster. On two different systems, EFI and legacy BIOS, physical and virtual, the install stopped at the partition selection screen; the contents didn't make much sense and the cursor automagically jumped around on its own.
Fortunately I had found the well hidden mini.iso which works OK for custom / minimal installs of server AND desktop. Does anyone know why Canonical has deprecated this image and Where did they discuss the decision?
52 • Xubuntu High Memory Usage (by Xfce Nation on 2020-05-04 17:37:04 GMT from United Arab Emirates)
It is possible that the high memory usage in xubuntu is caused by a window manager compositor issue.
Fix can be found here: https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=13233
53 • Ubuntu ecosystems (by vern on 2020-05-04 17:43:14 GMT from United States)
I tried and used Ubuntu, Ubuntu-budgie, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu-mate, and even the newest step-child Ubuntu-DDE. All these worked without errors of any kind. I never used XFS , only EXT4 filesystem. I did try btrfs a long time ago. I have no need for snapshots.
I also get rid of several unwanted files including snapd, Flatpak, or anything related. I use only deb.
I also update my system using terminal. No software update files
54 • @ Jesse - Ubuntu - have you noticed? (by akoy on 2020-05-04 17:50:52 GMT from Canada)
Have you noticed that Ubuntu devs still can't find a solution for the problem of longer app names getting truncated in the Gnome shell app grid? This was never a problem with Unity.
55 • Ubuntu boot times (by cykodrone on 2020-05-04 18:23:41 GMT from Germany)
THREE MINUTES?! Oh, but but, systemd, lol.
The 2 Lin's (not systemd) I have on this machine, 10-15 seconds, and that's on a slow day. Mind you, I turn a lot of unnecessary frills off. Which begs the question, what is Ubuntu booting 'under the hood'? I dumped KDE years ago for this very reason, way too many frills, and just plain bloat, much of which the user could not turn off.
Also, 'Unity' reminds me of a hilarious episode of Rick and Morty. Hive mind. :D
56 • Ubuntu (by hank on 2020-05-04 18:47:41 GMT from Austria)
Among the many distros I have used my worst ever experience. Very surprised to end up with the system behind the no 1 distro in the tables. MX is based on Antix.
Antix seemed at first a backward step, it is for sure not. Fast booting, stable running, low resource usage,
choice of desktops.
Takes a little while to setup then you realize no need for a new faster computer.
57 • I don't see a reason to use Ubuntu (by Rop75 on 2020-05-04 18:51:38 GMT from Spain)
i've got a problem, I am only intrested in distros that provide me with something special/unique.
Ubuntu used to have a desktop that was ITS desktop (Unity), you could like it or lump it (I did like it), but Unity made Ubuntu different. Now, apart from the PPAs, I don't see any practical difference between Ubuntu and mother Debian (well... there is one difference: Debian testing is more stable than any Ubuntu LTS). Now Ubuntu is just another gnome shell distro (and there are many of them)
Anyway long ago I moved to LinuxMint (I find cinnamon a very nice and bug free desktop).
58 • UBUNTU 20.04 LTS (by Mitchell on 2020-05-04 19:23:03 GMT from United States)
I had no real issues with installation - painless here. I did note the software app took a while to "find itself" though, a little wonky in the beginning. I did expect a little snappier feel, but I am currently without that satisfaction. All of those Gnome speed thrills haven't materialized here yet! No deal breaker; I am sure this will get ironed out by Summer. Am I correct in noting that the Power Off/Reboot selection process has a few extra steps? Bloat - needs an antacid for sure.
59 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by KC1DI on 2020-05-04 20:19:23 GMT from United States)
I've installed Ubuntu 20.04 on my Lenovo Think pad T450 without any of the Problems Jessie found. Only problem I had was with one windows program under wine which takes about 3 to 5 minutes to launch. This is the first ubuntu release that has had that problem. I haven't had time to try to find a solution yet. Other than that it runs smooth.
60 • I agree with #56 (by magical on 2020-05-04 20:46:51 GMT from United States)
I first installed Mandrake on New Years Day of the year 2000. Ever since then I have ran about 30 different distros. Early on I found no good thing in ubuntu to be enamered over so I take no interest in it now.
My main goto distro is PCLinuxOS running KDE. About a month ago, I went distro hopping again and found antiX19 running icewm. I like it
61 • Ubuntu -Experimental ZFS support? (by Jack on 2020-05-04 21:07:09 GMT from United States)
I'm curious if ZFS is causing some of the problems documented in the review. It is experimental after all. I recall SUSE having a number of btrfs issues in the very beginning. Same with XFS several years ago. In all these cases, issues cropped up when the mainstream distro offered "experimental" support. To me, the most unusual thing about the review is that an LTS version is offering experimental support for something as critical as the FS. It seems this should be left to the non-LTS releases.
62 • ZFS (by Jesse on 2020-05-04 21:13:39 GMT from Canada)
@61: "I'm curious if ZFS is causing some of the problems documented in the review. It is experimental after all. "
Almost certainly not, for four reasons:
1. As I mentioned in the review, I also tried ext4 and it wouldn't boot at all.
2. ZFS is an experimental feature of the installer. (That is the setup process is the experimental part, not using ZFS.) ZFS itself is not experimental. ZFS on Linux has been solid for years - I've been using it for five years on other Linux distros without any problems.
3. None of the glitches seemed to be related to filesystem issues. Performance maybe could be ZFS-related, but past releases run on Btrfs and ext4 were also slow. So it seems unlikely ZFS was to blame for anything I encountered.
4. As I mentioned in the review I used ZFS on Xubuntu 19.10 and had no problems with it. It's unlikely that ZFS support in Ubuntu's repos regressed so far in six months as to make the distro virtually unusable after it was working near-perfectly ix months ago.
63 • What's Ubuntu good for, anyway?!? (by randomly generated entity on 2020-05-04 22:06:25 GMT from United States)
Hoo boy, so much Ubuntu derision in the comments. No surprise really. It happens everywhere experienced (non-"noob") Linux users comment, and not without some good reasons (Unity, Amazon, snaps, etc.), but there are some good things about Ubuntu as well:
- Fonts! Ubuntu has always done something magical with fonts, you gotta admit. It's not just that they use their own font family either, as I always switch to Liberation and that looks better on the 'buntus than elsewhere too. Fonts are getting better in Linux across the board, finally, but Ubuntu's the king here IMO.
- Graphics drivers. Lots of folks say they're moving to Fedora because of Ubuntu's idiosyncrasies (snaps!), but I hope they know that it's much more difficult to get the proper drivers installed, for Nvidia especially. Downright impossible for owners of perfectly functional legacy hardware like mine. Ubuntu and its descendants are the gold standard with this issue, period.
- Ubiquity. Like it or not, the 'buntus are the top of the heap, meaning there's tons of support/infrastructure in place for its users. Need an obscure piece of software? If it's been packaged for anything it's been packaged for 'buntu. Questions about how to use that software on your kit? Chances are the only people talking about it are using a 'buntu. It's the opposite of security through obscurity.
That's just a smattering off the top of my head. Basically, the 'buntus are just plain simple - to install, configure, etc., and so many folks use 'em in one form or another that any question you could possibly have has been asked and answered hundreds of times over the years, making it super easy to solve problems on your own.
Look, it's been a long long time since I've use a 'buntu as daily driver, unless Neon counts (I guess it should). I've been primarily on Arch or Gentoo for years now, with occasional Debian forays when things get sticky. I don't like most of what Canonical has done over the years either. I think they've shot themselves in the foot multiple times by pushing Unity, then Gnome, while Plasma has been doing nothing but overtaking the competition in myriad ways. IMO, Canonical could have carved out a bigger piece of the Windows refugee market by going with KDE, but they chose instead to try very hard to be as different from that standard as possible. It's almost as if they're actively avoiding a larger market share! Not that Kubuntu isn't a fine distro, but let's face it, it's not the flagship.
Ubuntu's here to stay, with all the good and bad that entails. And while it's easy to dwell on the negative, I like to remind the vocal minority that there are reasons Ubuntu has remained the de facto standard in Linux. It's weathered the Unity and Gnome storms, it will weather the snapd storm and whatever their next boneheaded user-unfriendly move turns out to be. If they ever decide to focus on actual users and genuine productivity rather than new/shiny/ours they could really be something, huh?
64 • buntu 20.04 (by hotdiggettydog on 2020-05-04 23:11:41 GMT from Canada)
Tried ubuntu, lubuntu, and xubuntu in virtualbox.
Ubuntu lasted a couple of hours till I had enough. It is awful and awkward. Unity and gnome suck so bad.
Lubuntu has really went downhill. I liked it a few versions back.
Xubuntu was the keeper. Works fine. Easy to work with and does everything I ask of it.
Ubuntu would be well advised to move to xfce as their flagship product.
65 • *buntus?.. (by bobtron on 2020-05-04 23:37:27 GMT from United States)
while a fair *buntus review from Jesse and a seemingly variable and differing opinions, i think i will just take a deep breath and wait for the next point releasei prefer to take a "floor wax" debian and then trowel on the "dessert toppings" later....current system disk "commits" {dailydrivers} are MX19..MX18.3..PCLOS...Devuan MIYO...all good...and in the USB "crash-kit-toolbox"...a couple "puppies", "clonzilla", "rescatux" and "knoppix"...ahhh, the good ol' days!
cheers from Illinois land!
be well and safe everybody!
stay home! {and submit bug reports to the devs, you have all been drafted!-haha)
66 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Mr.Bob on 2020-05-05 00:05:55 GMT from Mexico)
I installed Ubuntu 20.04 on my friends Asus laptop and finally, after years of frustration the internal Mediatek MT7630e wireless adapter was found. It wasn't in 18.04 but thank god that it was added. I don't need to use a Linksys dongle anymore, everything just works...well, not the bluetooth but everything else.
First think I did after installing was completely remove Snaps. What a piece of crap software. I am happy to use Synaptic and AppImages for software. Snaps get bent.
Otherwise my impression of Ubuntu.....horrible icon theme. A real eyesore. So out with the Yaru and in with something more pleasant, not just for the icons but also for Gnome. Now i have everything set, i am fine with Ubuntu for the next 5 years.
My only irk...why can't they offer drive encryption like Fedora or Pop on install???
67 • Ubuntu again (by Angel on 2020-05-05 02:05:30 GMT from Philippines)
I recommend and sometimes install distros for others often, so I was looking at some of the problems Jesse had, and checking the comments to see if they were reproduced by anyone. So far I see opinion stuff: bloated, ugly, Gnome sucks, hate snaps, etc. I've installed both Ubuntu and Kubuntu (xt4, no ZFS) and had few if any glitches, but that doesn't mean Jesse didn't.
I don't care much for snaps (or flatpaks) either and I normally don't run Gnome, but if you are on a PC that's borderline, you probably shouldn't be using Gnome (or derivatives) anyhow. I've set up my desktop pretty much the same way since I bought an iMac many years ago. I like docks. I can set up pretty much any DE to my liking. Yes, that includes Gnome. Look at Elementary. What is Pantheon other than a gussied up Gnome with the Plank dock at the bottom? I prefer KDE because of the endless configuration options. Some times minor things, like "shutdown/logout" visible without extra clicks. But Gnome will do in a pinch. Matters of preference. What concerned me was whether people for whom I install or recommend will have substantive issues. I see nothing in the comments that says "tea" or "nay." .
@66,Mr.Bob: A Linksys dongle? Geez, you should have asked or googled. I have an Asus 300TP, and installed the driver for the MT7630 with 14.04. It's been available a long time for download and install. A couple of minutes following simple instructions.. On 18.04, one could just upgrade the kernel. The Asus is now being used by a relative, with Windows as the sole OS, but I still have the installer.
BTW: One can install a distro that doesn't have the WiFi driver by sharing a smartphone's WiFi connection. Then the driver can be downloaded if available.
68 • Survey answer (by Richard on 2020-05-05 02:37:28 GMT from New Zealand)
So I voted "I have not used it yet" as I will wait for "my" favourite distro to release their 20.04-based, but de-spudified, de-invasived release. Patience in this case is definitely a virtue and pays dividends.
69 • Ubuntu 20.04 - Issues that no one is talking about. (by Walt on 2020-05-05 02:48:23 GMT from United States)
Ubuntu 20.04 has issues that no one is talking about. I have not heard anyone address the problems with the software store. There are snap issues, and installing flatpaks requires installing the older version of the store.
It installs Nemo alongside the Nautilus file manager, after install, and without any notice. There sometimes there is a line of glitch above the top bar.
No one talks about these things, and it is annoying that no one else cares. Yet, they put Fedora down, and turn around and praise Ubuntu for its theme, but every install guide suggests installing a new theme.
I want to like Ubuntu because it is on the radar of Microsoft and Adobe, and the community is huge. It is easier to get things for Ubuntu. I have nothing against the people that make Ubuntu happen or the company that pays for it. I want to know that someone is actively addressing and solving these problems.
I will wait for the point release.
70 • Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU (by Ben Myers on 2020-05-05 03:18:11 GMT from United States)
Jesse, a dual-core 2.8GHz AMD CPU is getting a little long in the tooth. That may explain the sluggishness of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Gnome is not known for being lean and mean. As another comment stated, the system is borderline for 20.04 and Gnome.
What I think is happening here is that Canonical, like Microsoft, provides its developers with fairly new and fairly fast equipment, so they lose sight of the need to run on older gear.
71 • Xubuntu 20.04 and Firefox (by Ben Myers on 2020-05-05 03:23:35 GMT from United States)
Jeff, It is easy to blame Xubuntu for high CPU uiilization when running Firefox. But the reality is that in their STUPID race to be the fastest browsers ever, Edge, Firefox, Chrome and maybe Safari all consume outlandish resources in CPU, memory and browser cache simply to be recognized as the fastest. Been seeing this across various OS platforms for a few years now.
72 • Ubuntu 20.04 and its approved sidekicks (by Alberto on 2020-05-05 04:44:36 GMT from Uruguay)
I started my road through the linux lands with Ubuntu back in 2009 I think; then I really liked it. However, things began changing: Unity appeared (I dislike it up to this moment), later Gnome 3 was chosen for the flagship version and I couldn't understand this move. I realized that even with the Unity desktop Ubuntu was something that worked. At first -and for years- Gnome 3 was a desktop I couldn't possibly work with. But not only the desktop was a problem (The Mate version was created, Kubuntu and Xubuntu were still there), serious stability issues also appeared and all of this together alienated me from Ubuntu. I began searching for alternatives and began using multi-boot setups. I tried several Debian derivatives and so Debian itself became easier to use. I could also see that Debian and Arch-based systems were able to play certain codecs that the ...buntus could not. Even so, every time there was an Ubuntu LTS release I downloaded the Mate version, Kubuntu or Xubuntu, to see how things were going.
Now that we have the 20.04 LTS release, I downloaded the main version, the Mate one, Kubuntu (I have just downloaded Xubuntu, but not seen it yet). I have tried the three of them only on virtualbox without installing them on real hardware. With respect to the first one, the Gnome version, I saw that it had improved a lot with time (It is no longer the disaster it used to be), now it's something you can work with even though I can't stand its layout. Mate performed fairly good to me (no issues with it), whereas kubuntu didn't work in full screen.
I have not noticed a remarkable slowness on Ubuntu, but I admit that Gnome has not ever been praised for being fast and very responsive.
With regard to the Software Centers, I keep and use them occasionally but I always install the old Synaptic on all debian derivatives: in spite of not being a brand new tool it features some unrivalled characterictics: it provides you with access to low-level pieces of software, you can download packages in batches and it is relatively fast (the slowness of Discover comes to my mind now).
I have to acknowledge that this is an incomplete impression about these systems, since I have not tested them on real hardware and, except for Kubuntu perhaps, I doubt I will ever do that.
Why? Because there is something called Linux Mint which is not a mere rebranded copy of Ubuntu with a better appearance: it offers things like Mintstick and Timeshift. I incorporate these tools into every Debian or Debian derivative I like and even into the Arch derivatives.
Oh, I was forgetting to mention that the issue with the audio/video codecs has been overcome in this edition of Ubuntu.
Regards.
73 • Ubuntu/Canonical (by Cynic on 2020-05-05 05:46:53 GMT from Ghana)
@70 - I think you hit the nail on the head. Most Canonical developers seem to have lost touch with the rest of the world. Not everyone has/can afford more recent hardware. Due to the digital divide, there are many who would be in awe of the chance to own a simple Pentium 4 or AMD K6 if it meant they "actually had a computer now".
Ubuntu used to be that for me in my teenage years - getting old PCs that friends and family were replacing if I'd help them setup things. Linux brought new life into those PCs - sometimes even a Ubuntu LTS!
Sadly those days are gone - being able to run Ubuntu or any of its close derivatives on older/lower end hardware is simply a fruitless endeavor. Canonical has become like Microsoft in the Linux world - so devoted to it's own goals that the community it claims to have consists almost entirely of those who simply agree with them. If you state something contrary to what they want to do.. it'll just get ignored.
Snaps have ruined the system for many worldwide simply due to increased data costs in less developed nations. Who knows what mistake they'll make next but eventually they'll have to give in or give up. The constant assumption that someone should know they need to enable some PPA or 3rd party repository if being advertised as a "beginner friendly" distro seems a bit off point as well..
I remember the days of liking Ubuntu and even had my parents using it before.. last release I used was 6.10.. I guess "those were the days" .. :)
74 • PCLOS instead Ubuntu. (by bert on 2020-05-05 07:56:24 GMT from Netherlands)
I use Linux over 10 years in various ways. Now I have PCLOS installed and everythings works. No problems anymore about new versions or upgrades. Semi-rolling works perfect. Forme nothing else anymore!! Compliment for the makers of this rock solid distro. Also very ease for beginners!!!
75 • Ubuntu version update, flavour, Snaps (by TheTKS on 2020-05-05 11:45:29 GMT from Canada)
Staying with Xubuntu 18.04.x until 20.04.1, as I waited for 18.04.1. I use Xubuntu for things where stability is important and having the newest version immediately upon release isn’t. Xubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 have given me mostly stable operation, from first day of installation.
Not installing Ubuntu. Still don’t like GNOME.
Snaps: the only bother for me is slow opening (Chromium being a prominent example) although if they fix that then I will be fine with them if their security is at least as good as .deb versions, but I don’t know how they compare today.
Since, for productive work, I rarely use the applications that are Snaps by default in 18.04, the slowness hardly affects me. But notice I do and if packages I use most heavily go mandatory Snap and slow me down, that will be a problem.
Still install and use Synaptic.
Wayland: when I used Ubuntu 18.04 for a few months, some packages, like Synaptic, would not launch in the Ubuntu with Wayland. Does anyone know if that has been fixed yet?
Note to self: try to find good security comparison of a hardened browser, as Snap vs .deb restrained ex. by firejail.
TKS
76 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Cor on 2020-05-05 13:27:04 GMT from United States)
I also had no issues whatsoever with this new release. I am testing through Virtualbox. So far. so good. I didn't have any issues with Discovery. All of the packages I have installed on 18.04 are installable. I do not use Snap.
77 • Running GNOME (by Jesse on 2020-05-05 13:50:11 GMT from Canada)
@70: "Jesse, a dual-core 2.8GHz AMD CPU is getting a little long in the tooth. That may explain the sluggishness of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Gnome is not known for being lean and mean. As another comment stated, the system is borderline for 20.04 and Gnome."
Maybe, though I'd like to point out that the same equipment ran Ubuntu GNOME (on Wayland) beautifully a year ago. Has GNOME really gotten 20% slower/heavier in one year? If so that seems to be a big problem. Alternatively, if GNOME hasn't gotten much worse in the past year, then there is some noticeable problem in Ubuntu (maybe a driver) that is causing performance issues.
I'd like to point out that Linux Mint's Cinnamon edition runs pretty well on this same equipment and it is mostly GNOME technology under the hood. Which makes me wonder if Canonical's GNOME custommizations are an issue. I'll probably find out in a month when Mint 20 comes out and I can compare its performance to Ubuntu 20.04.
78 • Love it, with some hickup.. (by dhoni on 2020-05-05 14:41:25 GMT from Indonesia)
Im going from kde manjaro to ubuntu 20.04, well i love to do a distro hopping..
installing start at 9 Am, and im finish seting up all of my office stuff at 1 Pm, well its fast because almost all app im using is available for ubuntu. SAP gui, asbru, vnc,keepas, navicat, notepadqq, fortivpn, and some other network tool stuff installed with ease.
Booting time is good, but it seem i got some problem with jesse review. I got lot of slow down, and usualy it happen when im accesing network storage using ftp or smb. deleting 10 small jpg file from my nas take almost whole minute, wow its suck..
One more thing to mention is ubuntu software apps is buggy as hell, if not fail, it need almost 2 minute just to find some app with search feature. man i miss pamac alot.. T_T ..
Hope those problem will go away with couple of update. If its not working, then ill hoping again.. sigh..
79 • UbuntuMATE 20.04 with SDR and Tecsun PL-880. Hardware over Software. (by Roy on 2020-05-05 16:51:37 GMT from United States)
After the hail storm that did a number on my loop I tried to rebuild in the muddy area which is like a corner in the loop. I had mud head to toe on me and covered in ticks. To have a strong signal on 7490 is so cool because during the scan it has always been the first station to come up but no signal in regards to hearing the station. Some time ago I quit hearing the time signal on 2.5 MHZ but could get 5.0 MHZ time signal good. But to hear a weak signal on the 10 MHZ time signal was amazing to me since 5 MHZ time signal was coming in, too but stronger. All together I was hearing 32 stations coming in after the storm had past. I installed Windows 10 on another drive but trying to keep the two operating systems isolated except for the Grub 2 of Linux. I am having the same problem with Linux and Windows working with SDR# and HDSDR on Windows. Yup. Its the driver. Except working with Zadig is quite peculiar since RTL-SDR says to not install the driver that comes with Windows. PLSDR won't even work with the 20.04 version of UbuntuMATE. The closest I can get to have something that almost works with this Linux is CubicSDR. Maybe I can get the WCID the recognize in Windows if I keep working on it.
80 • @77 Speed of Ubuntu (by OstroL on 2020-05-05 18:44:35 GMT from Poland)
Jesse, if you have time, install Unity on the same Ubuntu 20.04, and even without uninstalling Gnome Shell, dual boot and see how fast Unity works with Ubuntu 20.04. This is after 2 and 1/2 years Ubuntu going gnome.
81 • Ubuntu 20.04 flavour Mate (by Mim Yucel on 2020-05-05 18:50:16 GMT from Turkey)
I am using Ubuntu 20.04 Mate (RedMond) and Mint (Debian) Cinnamon in dual booting in my 10 years old HP Compaq Laptop PC, and am very very satisfied with both.
(I am not IT specialist, am a stright PC user (LibreOffice, Internet etc user).
82 • Ubuntu Mate 20.04 (by Roger on 2020-05-05 22:55:47 GMT from Belgium)
I have installed Ubuntu Mate 20.04 on a Sony laptop with a Dual Core Intel.
It went without a glitch, so no problems for now.
I always have at least one Ubuntu Mate running to keep an eye on how Mate is evolving, it's my desktop of choice on Linux Mint.
If ever Mint stops with Mate I switch to Ubuntu Mate, don't like Cinnamon at al.
83 • Ubuntu (by M.Z. on 2020-05-05 23:39:46 GMT from United States)
Well the more positive review from Ars Technica & the fact that Unity/Snooping Lens has been gone for a couple of releases now gives me enough cause to give the new Ubuntu LTS a try - I think I'll stick in Between Mageia & a Fresh LMDE 4 copy sometime soonish. I'm not a fan of Gnome 3, but I've been wanting to see how they have been smoothing the rough & ugly edges at Ubuntu & it is one of the things that makes the Distro distinctive.
Some interesting points from the Ars review: a 21,000 Ubuntu user survey from Canonical indicated that 85% use the main edition, followed by Kubuntu, Xubuntu, & Ubuntu Mate which have a similar slice of users. Also exactly one of the 21K users would miss the Amazon shopping app that got removed from the sidebar - the leading theory on that being that is was Jeff Bezos : )
84 • Ubuntu 20.04 problems redux (by Angel on 2020-05-06 01:42:10 GMT from Philippines)
Could be driver problems with Ubuntu, as Jesse says, hardware specific. I'm not exactly running powerhouses here: Desktop with i5 6th gen and laptop with i3 7th gen. VMs and hardware installs are both on an external USB drive . A bit of slow boot to be expected, but otherwise running nicely. No problems installing. Still not crazy about the snaps, so probably will use Manjaro KDE as my main distro for a while, just to see.
Pretty strict lock-down here due to the COVID virus, so time on my hands to doodle and play. Decided to see just how configurable Gnome has become with time. I still prefer KDE, but it's not so bad really. Ubuntu and Elementary, side by side:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187863106@N02/
85 • Ubuntu and elementaryOS side by side, sort of (by TheTKS on 2020-05-06 11:17:50 GMT from Canada)
@84 Angel, you shown the desktops with Ubuntu GNOME modified to look similar to elementary’s, but you didn’t mention how you find the usage comparing the two, and I’m curious what you and other people think.
I used Ubuntu 18.04 for months alongside elementary, but haven’t tried 20.04. I never liked how GNOME works on 18.04 or earlier, but I have mostly gotten used to the action/workflow of Pantheon. Put another way, mostly when I encounter how something is done in GNOME or Pantheon that’s different from my how my KDE or Xfce setups do it, I usually find the Pantheon way interesting, even intriguing. I generally have found the GNOME way either unobtrusive or annoying, not much middle ground and nothing I really liked.
To each his or her own.
Do you find GNOME on 20.04 so much different from it on 18.04?
I still have 18.04 on a partition, not updated in a year. I was going to just blast it, but I might try to upgrade and see how different GNOME is from then.
TKS
86 • Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Mate (by jan on 2020-05-06 12:38:14 GMT from Poland)
I'm on Xubuntu for the last 6 years or so, and come every new version, I try other Ubuntu derivatives just to see how they compare to Xubuntu. This year I tried them out in Oracle Virtualbox All Distro version 6.1.97 r137621 (Qt5.6.1) on Xubuntu 19.10, kernel 5.6.7 on 2 PC's - a 2010 Thinkpad R500, Intel Core Duo 2,53, AMD 3400 and a 2015 Lenovo Z70-80, i7 5200 Intel 5500/NVidia GF 840M.
Well, not a single one time could I finish at all the installation of Kubuntu and U Mate. Each time I tried, the install would stall at the moment of unpacking the linux kernel headers 5.4.0-0.29.33. Either the whole Virtualbox would freeze or the whole computer(!).
I tried finally to install Mate without the internet connection and it succeeded. I was able to play with the system and check all its nice features. I then restored the wi-fi connection and tried to update the system. When all the available updates were presented, I carefully unchecked all items related to the Ubuntu Special kernel 5.4.0-0.29 - but it turned out to no avail. All of them were FORCE FED to my Mate install update regardless of my choosing otherwise.
So I stick with Xubuntu - its reliable, I know it well, I can pretty much always get the same results from the same input. However, it seems that Ubuntu distros cannot be trusted much - snaps signed by fake developer names, forced updates (exactly contrary to the user choice), I guess I smell money, but hey, pecunia non olet!
87 • last time i tried any ubs (by fonz on 2020-05-06 13:46:03 GMT from Indonesia)
was back in 16. it felt like a big let down as snaps marketed themselves as portable, cross platform whatnots, as appimages (ai) are pretty much what snaps were supposed to be. luckily im seeing a ton more ais than before. i dont think ive had any annoyances running any ais, and i honestly tend to use a puppy derivatives due to its frugality (wow, thats actually a word, its not underlined lol). even on a very different-from-the-norm system, ais work just fine here i also dont like the boot screen thing, since opensuse allowed us to remove it without issues, last i read on the ubs forum plymouth is too involved with the boot. they also double whammy themselves a long time ago announcing to drop 32bit and replacing debs with snaps -_-
to all those that like xub, id like to offer an alternative, try xub core (slimmed down xub) or go for debian testing xfce (i call it detest, an even more slimmed down xub). dont be too alarmed by the semi rolling testing branch, one can easily swap out apt sources. its actually not that scary IMHO as ive never had any system wide failures, only some minor quirks fixed quickly. easily on par with arch/majaro, ive had unlucky experiences with tumbleweed, rawhide, void and others before
i might start distro hopping again later on as im not liking where things are going, of course on a test pc before saying bye to detest, hopefully that wont happen...
88 • Ubuntu review by Jesse Smith (by denPes on 2020-05-06 14:08:20 GMT from Belgium)
I am a little bit disappointed in this Ubuntu review.
A +/- 9 year old laptop was used with a mediocre CPU, even for back then, and it is not even using a Solid State Drive. I am not saying one should use the latest hardware, but this is quite ancient.
Obviously the system will be quite sluggish, and the first impression will be negative, especially with the indexing and all that stuff going on in a modern OS.
All the other stuff mentioned were probably valid points. The issues in the Software Center could have been solved with some reading, but in all fairness, this is how Ubuntu presents it to its users, and it was the experience of the reviewer.
I am not a user of Ubuntu, but I think a big release like this deserves a better chance during a review, i.o.w. with less then a 5 year old machine with ssd/nvme.
89 • Hardware (by Jesse on 2020-05-06 14:32:01 GMT from Canada)
@88 "A +/- 9 year old laptop was used with a mediocre CPU, even for back then, and it is not even using a Solid State Drive. I am not saying one should use the latest hardware, but this is quite ancient."
Sure, the workstation is older, however, I'd like to point out that most (almost all) Linux distributions run smoothly on the same hardware. With the exceptions of Ubuntu and Fedora, pretty much every distro in the few hundred active projects we track run well on the same equipment. So, yes, the workstation is older, but I think this serves as an interesting comparison as to the performance of Ubuntu versus just about every other distro available today, including other members of the Ubuntu community editions.
Keep in mind Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu MATE all run very well on this same equipment. Which means, while older, the equipment is fine, it is just that Ubuntu's flagship distro is so much slower/heavier than the rest it managed to bring the system to a crawl.
Turn the perspective around for a second. Instead of thinking "Well sure Ubuntu runs slow, look at how old the hardware is." Look at it as "Why does Ubuntu require newer hardware when almost every other distro runs fine on a 10 year old workstation?"
90 • @88 (by Andy Prough on 2020-05-06 15:09:59 GMT from United States)
> I am not a user of Ubuntu, but I think a big release like this deserves a better chance during a review, i.o.w. with less then a 5 year old machine with ssd/nvme.
If an $800+ laptop with ssd/nvme is required to use it, Ubuntu should say so. However, here's their recommended specs from their own website - well within the specs of the system used in this review:
"Recommended system requirements:
2 GHz dual core processor or better
4 GB system memory
25 GB of free hard drive space
Either a DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
Internet access is helpful"
If it is basically non-functional on a machine that exceeds Ubuntu's own recommended specs, then the problem is with Ubuntu itself.
91 • From what I've read (comments) (by cykodrone on 2020-05-06 15:42:27 GMT from Luxembourg)
This is mostly my opinion, 'buntu has gone mostly off the rails, it's definitely no longer FOSS, and more of a hybrid of corp/foss, this makes it barrel towards proprietary, and fostering a ecosystem of its own. I am a 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' person, but it seems (especially corporate) developers have to make themselves look useful (the gang at Goggle are a good example), possibly to keep their jobs, guzzle a gallon of coffee before their shifts, and let their somewhat misguided 'creativity' take over. Also, 'buntu markets itself as 'user friendly', and if us seasoned Linux people have to 'fight' with it, I pity the poor noobs who buy in to the 'mystique'. I gave up trying it years ago, I noticed their 'train' going off the rails back then, and haven't looked back, I won't even waste the bandwidth to try it 'live'. Canonical is on a mission to take some of the enterprise Linux and Windows market, they are a corporation, but the typical user (like students, etc) are left scratching their heads. At least RH has been upfront about who and what they are, no ambiguity.
92 • Ubuntu 20.04 addendum (by fox on 2020-05-06 15:47:50 GMT from Canada)
Referring to my earlier review (@40), I may have spoken too soon. Now I'm having sound problems, which I didn't have in 19.10 or earlier versions. Especially with Zoom. Twice in the last two days I could get no sound in a Zoom conference. In both cases, I switched to a Mint 19.3 partition and had no such problems. I have always liked Ubuntu, but now I'm considering either reverting to 18.04 or using Mint as my regular driver.
93 • @89 • Hardware (by denPes on 2020-05-06 17:43:00 GMT from Belgium)
Hi Jesse, Yes it is fine to use that same equipment what was used to review other distro's as a comparison. I would have preferred that as an extra. Now I am not here to tell you how to review a distro, since you have far more experience with that then I have.
I just think that Ubuntu, Redhat/CentOS distro's are a bit in a different category, when it comes to the desktop then the majority of other distro's. These are used for productivity, flexibility, and support. (with of course the exception of those coders that can get away with using their own toolsets while running for example their arch with i3/xfce) That's why Ubuntu 20.04 is quite a big release.
Ubuntu runs Gnome, which has stuff like tracker and other stuff going on. Stuff I don't like, and why I don't run these distro's. But I know that my slackware install would not stand a chance against the flexibilty and support that Ubuntu offers for nowadays productive desktop environment.
My point is just that a release like this deserves the appropriate hardware for a review. (which imo should be at least have an SSD )
fyi, I've tested Ubuntu 20.04 on a 2011 laptop with an SSD, and the performance was fine, for a Gnome desktop.
94 • *buntus (by Cheker on 2020-05-06 18:03:30 GMT from Portugal)
I don't think very highly of the flagship Ubuntu either. It has that corporate stench that defines that Redmond company. I don't have the fervent hatred for snaps that other people seem to have though. They SHOULDN'T be pushed over the native debs but as an alternative they're inoffensive.
I do sympathize with the alternative flavors, specially Xubuntu and Ubuntu MATE. I tested the 20.04 betas a fair bit before they officially released and I like them, I still have a Ubuntu MATE partition on my laptop.
@86 That happened to me on Oracle VB with Ubuntu MATE too. I fixed it by enabling host i/o cache in the storage settings.
95 • Hardware (by Jesse on 2020-05-06 18:42:37 GMT from Canada)
@93: "My point is just that a release like this deserves the appropriate hardware for a review. (which imo should be at least have an SSD )"
It's unlikely that SSDs are going to be featured in any of my reviews in the near future. The cost/storage ratio isn't practical. Around here SSDs are about four times more expensive and don't offer much benefit. Sure they'll access random files faster, which is nice for start-up, but once a program or file is cached in memory it doesn't help.
Apart from boot times and launching applications an SSD doesn't convey any benefit, it's not going to affect desktop performance or cause programs to behave differently.
96 • MATE (by Cheker on 2020-05-06 19:15:49 GMT from Portugal)
Speaking of MATE though, it seems to have a problem not exclusive to Ubuntu. The application launchers have no icons if the installation is in Portuguese. Why is this the case? This makes it unlikely for me to recommend a MATE distro to someone who doesn't play well with English.
97 • @95 (by denPes on 2020-05-06 19:57:31 GMT from Belgium)
SSD's are more resilient then regular hard drives, especially in mobile devices. They are silent and often use less power.
Copying files is faster, boot times are faster. Loading programs is faster. The whole desktop experience with a SSD is quite a difference compared to a HHD. Pretty much everyone will tell you that the best and cheapest upgrade for an old computer is an SSD.
With modern desktops, Windows, Gnome with tracker, KDE with baloo, indexing happens behind your back regularly. This affects performance as well, and an SSD makes a big difference in performance.
Most programs indeed load into cache, and after that it doesn't matter, but bigger programs and games not always load everything into memory on the get go. They load a lot of stuff on demand during their execution. I have a few games that just can't perform well without an SSD, especially with loads of modfiles.
Long story short. Your view on SSD's must be because of a very specific user case. Because it is objectively wrong.
98 • @88, no SSD needed (by Angel on 2020-05-06 20:09:03 GMT from Philippines)
As I posted earlier, I'm running Ubuntu 20.04, both as a VM and installed on disk. It runs fine even though it's on an external USB spinning HDD. My PC is only 5 years old, but I've installed 18.04 on Intel Core Duos from 2006 with no problems. I doubt if 20.04 would be much different. If Jesse has a problem it may be his particular configuration, not the age or capability of the machine.
99 • Hardware (by Jesse on 2020-05-06 20:20:14 GMT from Canada)
@97: I've worked in IT a long time and I think your views on SSDs are, to put it mildly, optimistic. They're definitely not in line with my observations and work when switching back and forth between machines running SSDs and HDDs. You suggested I'm looking at a "very specific user case" but this just isn't the situation, if anything I'd say you have it backward.
The two situations you suggest SSDs are better are file indexing and gaming where assets can't be held in memory. I don't use desktop indexing and don't generally need to run games (or at least not ones where performance is negatively affected by hard drive type). In other words, while I agree SSDs can have benefits, storage isn't generally my bottleneck for performance. Network typically is.
As I mentioned above, I agree SSDs can assist boot performance and, in some case, initial application loading. But copying throughput and desktop performance aren't affected in most scenarios I deal with. I just don't have any heavy IO tasks that run while I'm working. Once the initial session loading is done, all my programs and most files are cached in RAM and stay that way. The underlying storage type (HDD, SDD or NAS) isn't going to affect me 90+% of the time. For the most part, people I work with are the same way. After their half dozen apps are open, applications are all running from RAM and data files are mostly pulled in over the network. The network, rather than local storage, is the biggest bottleneck.
100 • SSD (by Lupus on 2020-05-06 20:25:51 GMT from Germany)
@95 @97 Dear Jesse please just try a stupid cheap SSD as a boot drive, your eyes will water in regret not to have tried this earlier. I´m almost apalled and I´m feeling the irk of not even wanting to read here anymore because of this blunt disregard for facts even my 10 year old knows. My dear Sir when you write about snappiness of desktop experiences you seem to be clueless... what a pity
101 • @100 Lupus: (by dragonmouth on 2020-05-06 20:59:30 GMT from United States)
I tried SSDs and my eyes did water. They watered with regret about the wasted money.
Somehow I think calling a man of Jesse's experience clueless just proves that you, Sir, have a lot to learn about computers and about life.
102 • @85, TKS, G vs P (by Angel on 2020-05-06 21:01:54 GMT from Philippines)
To your questions: Pantheon is set up as I like it, top panel, bottom dock, but I'd rather use Gnome and do my own configuring, or Cinnamon. As limited as Gnome may be, it still has a lot more choices. I like that Pantheon brings up a list of shortcuts on "Super." Once memorized, the workflow is better. I like the menu. I don't like the tiny buttons on the toolbar, lack of right-click on desktop, and the placing of max-minimize and close on opposite ends. Also the crippling of just about any adjustments. I see that someone has come up with a tweak tool to at least change themes. With my failing eyes, dark theme is a must.
Nothing new or different about working with Gnome. You like the workflow or you don't. Just seems a bit snappier, and it's more configurable, with extensions and the tweak tool of course. It irks me, as in Pantheon, that one needs to mouse over to the top right, click on a small area, then down and click again, then yet a third time, just to shut down/log out. Yes, there is a shortcut, but still. . .
I like dark themes, big buttons and icons front and center and as little glare as possible. I spend a bit of time in front of the screen almost daily, and I find it less tiring. Here's my Manjaro KDE:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/187863106@N02/with/49864545232/
103 • SSDs (by Angel on 2020-05-06 21:25:32 GMT from Philippines)
@97, 100, 101- I swapped all my internal drives for SSDs, and I don't see it as wasted money. Response is much improved, and if nothing else, they make my computer use more enjoyable. Prices are no so bad unless you want lots of storage. What is not to true is that somehow one needs an SSD to properly test or run Ubuntu, or any other Linux.
104 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by Landor on 2020-05-06 23:50:01 GMT from Canada)
While I'm not a fan of (U)buntus to say the least, especially regarding their inclusion of non-free, etc, I don't feel there's really anything glaringly wrong with this current release.
The people that use this comments section are not the average GNU/Linux user by far. If the average users came here this section alone would be flooded with comments. That said, the average person using (U)buntus for their average daily uses will more than likely have absolutely no problem using it. Nor will they really care about any technical or even philosophical changes whatsoever. They definitely have their user base and it's far from disappearing.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
105 • (K)ubuntu 20.04 with severe problems (by JMB on 2020-05-07 01:13:49 GMT from Germany)
I am really astonished about so many positive experiences.
After installing both Kubuntu 18.04.4 HWE and 20.04 on an old machine to be imaged and used for a new machine which is about to arrive incl. AMD Navi 10 card, concerning the visible changes for Kubuntu all I spotted are really an improvement. Very well done!
While it is no surprise that 18.04.4 LTS is very stable without any real problem (HWE is using 5.3 like EON), this is not the case using 20.04 (using only 5.4 due to being an LTS kernel - which may not be a wise decision with a good deal of backporting necessities).
After installing a lot of packages for 20.04 (as for all of my installations), the package manager had more than hundred packages that are claimed not to be used by anything ... and are recommended for deletion.
Something is broken with package management - this happened with a former release and was fixed in a few weeks. But THIS was an STS version before final and 20.04.0 should be a final LTS release ...
A second problem was my KDE configuration resulting in the KDE logo no longer starting the main menu when clicking at it (I am new to KDE - but 18.04.4 made no problem with my configuration). As KDE of 20.04 is also LTS this is really strange ...
I removed my local configuration and did my changes a second time, with the same result.
With a third round it keeps working (so it is not the things I changed but something more subtle) - but the question is for how long (i.e. if a simple configuration change may ruin the installation again ...).
For Xubuntu it was clearly expressed:
"Users with AMD graphics may experience significant graphical issues and should consider waiting until the release of 20.04.1 later this year." (see https://xubuntu.org/news/xubuntu-20-04-released/ 1st point under `Known Issues').
I am a longtime user of XFCE but the last two releases made me thinking about using KDE instead. But I would never expect such an official statement.
After my first impression it may even be advisable not using 20.04.0 LTS now - maybe in several weeks. But 20.04.1 is announced to be released 23. July 2020 ... so waiting so long is just madness if you want to use new HW right now.
So the final release of 20.04.0 is in no way stable / functioning as one would expect ... and concerning Linux and a fresh release I think AMD support is well on top of any Linux desktop list (the only vendor of performant graphics with free and thus mainlined drivers).
This situation is really strange - and 16.04 and 18.04 did not have such extreme problems after final release ... so this is NOT a normal situation. But I hope it will be fixed in weeks - and not months as indicated hinting to 20.04.1.
106 • @104 Landor (by Verndog on 2020-05-07 01:18:15 GMT from United States)
Landor, it been ages since I last read your comments. I was thinking of you recently. Glad your back.
I've tried several several non-ubuntu OS's, but keep coming back. I tweak the heck out of them. One thing goes is snapd. I think that Arch doesn't use snap if I'm right.
107 • @102 Angel, GNOME vs Pantheon vs KDE (and a mention of Xfce and JWM) (by TheTKS on 2020-05-07 03:02:57 GMT from Canada)
Yeah, there’s no perfect DE. I have elementaryOS for specific uses, and use it for little else. For those uses, it suits me.
Some things about Pantheon I would change, too. No right click on the desktop was one of the biggest for me to get used to. I would still like to have it, but have adapted and gotten more and more comfortable with Pantheon as I’ve learned its features.
In GNOME, even as I’ve learned its features, I have found nothing it does that the other DEs I use don’t do equally well or better for me, whether KDE, Xfce or Pantheon (depending on what I’m doing) or in Puppies, JWM and their apps.
I’m happy for the choice in *nix DEs/WMs we have, including GNOME since it suits some best.
Your KDE on Manjaro is very slick!
TKS
108 • Ubuntu 20.04 (by TheTKS on 2020-05-07 03:14:20 GMT from Canada)
Upgraded the old Ubuntu 18.04 partition today and gave 20.04 a test run.
I still don’t like GNOME.
I haven’t yet run into the problems Jesse described. 18.04 ran stably and quickly enough, 20.04 has so far as well, although it’s still early, but no early bad surprises.
As I wrote earlier today, I was going to wipe my Ubuntu partition, but I will keep 20.04 on for awhile longer and try it from time to time to stay current with it.
TKS
109 • Average Linux (Ubuntu) user (by OstroL on 2020-05-07 07:40:24 GMT from Poland)
There are two types of Linux users; one who installs a Linux distro on one's computer, or one who buys a computer with Linux installed. Well, those people working in companies that has Linux computers has someone else to install them. I am not that sure these days whether the Linux user base is growing, only the oldsters and the young, who wants to experiment would install Linux on their computers.
110 • SSD Ubuntu fanboys (by curious on 2020-05-07 08:43:39 GMT from Germany)
Oh, come on, please! An SSD might make performance better, but the problems Jesse encountered in his review obviously had nothing to do with this.
And even if not having an SSD was the cause (which it isn't), requiring such expensive hardware would itself be a MAJOR drawback for what is supposed to be a universal, mainstream distro released with "long term support".
I find it odd, a little bit amusing, but mainly dissappointing, that so many people seem to think that if an experienced reviewer has had a bad experience, it MUST be the reviewer's fault - certainly, Ubuntu could not be to blame!
111 • @110; and starting at #88 and going forward...and getting more idiotic. (by R. Cain on 2020-05-07 16:12:44 GMT from United States)
"Reading comprehension is a big problem in open-source"
Updated: February 24, 2016
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-reading-comprehension.html
******************************************************************************************
"...articles that praise products never ever get any reaction from the wider community. .."
"...People [COMMENTERS] do not see technical bugs and problems - all beautifully documented with tons of words, snippets of errors and bloody screenshots - they see users and how nooby or not they might be in handling these bugs..."
“...people [REVIEWERS] usually cave in under pressure. Which means, over time, you end up with software reviewers who are too scared to discuss bad things, controversial topics or problems in products, lest they provoke the wrath of the Righteous Brigade. They go away, do something else, give up, while the technological issues remain behind. That won't do either. Nope..."
“...When people [REVIEWERS, or OTHER objective, truthful COMMENTERS] complain about technology, they are not attacking YOU [dear self-serving, non-objective, non-technically competent myopic reader]. They are attacking lousy products. They want shit done. As long as the commentary diverges into discussions about noobs, someone's ability to gstreamer their sister and such, Linux will NEVER rise mighty as a consumer product. If your first instinct is to discuss the reviewer, you should shift-delete your Internet. It's all about being able to receive constructive feedback. Once that happens, we might actually end up with some decent software. Kapish? "
112 • You folks and yer drives...sheesh (by cykodrone on 2020-05-07 17:24:54 GMT from Sweden)
PC, OS=SSD, storage=HDD (lower cost per TiB).
Laptop=SSD, all the way, SSDs laugh at g-force, and slower mobile CPUs need all the help they can get. Get a decent USB stick to move files between machines.
Not taking sides, but the diff between SSD/HDD loading of LibreOffice, etc, was quite noticeable. Money can be an issue, SSDs are a total 'burn', the phony market valuation dictates the price (much like the romantic hype behind inflated diamond prices). Then there is migration, some people do not want to lose their setups, data, etc, and don't have the tech know-how to 'ghost' over to an SSD.
I've been a speed demon nut for years, even doing a Raid 0 with 2 SSDs once, just for a laugh, averaged 1GiB per second rw.
Oh, and if you do go SSD, get a good one, lower end junk has a nasty longevity/failure rate, the extra few bucks will save some anguish. Back in the day, I dumped a distro because it didn't have HDD Raid support, now that the boot drive is SSD, I'm using it again.
113 • Sponsorship & Storage (by M.Z. on 2020-05-07 22:25:29 GMT from United States)
On the hard drive issue - the Ubuntu specs page doesn't list SSD as a requirement so logically the company should have set their distro up to use spinning HDD which are still plenty common and were common on in the days of several OSs that the specs page says Ubuntu should be able to replace. My previous SSD experience was basically 3 times faster booting, which was nice but shouldn't be a requirement especially if you list your distro as a good replacement for things like Win XP & Vista.
@91
If you think FOSS can't or shouldn't come from corporate environments you're not living in reality. Even the author of the GPL mentioned that the 'free as in speech' software he advocated would likely end up being sold & supported by some sort of companies & he intended to let it happen so long as the code remained open & belong to the users & community as much as the companies. The fact that Canonical took their code from the non-profit Debian project to create Ubuntu & in turn had dozens other community projects like Mint base their distros on Ubuntu proves that the GPL is largely working as intended.
All that being said Canonical has a history of screwing up & they did wrong their users in the Unity era, so preferring community projects is perfectly understandable. Even so corporate sponsored Linux projects get a heck of a lot done for the rest of us & are a big benefit to the community when they are well behaved & aren't doing things like the Unity 'Shopping Lens'. The world becomes a lot better place if you don't turn potential allies into enemies & even more so when you realize that your community can use rights under the GPL to rip out any offensive code & fork a project you don't like into one that you do & take back code for the community any time they feel they need to.
114 • RE: 106 & 110 (by Landor on 2020-05-07 22:39:24 GMT from Canada)
@106
I posted here about a year ago I believe, once. I've wondered about you and others as well, and thank you.
I've mainly stuck with libre distributions. My main system was the Parkes release of gNewSense and even manually updated it beyond its EOL. I didn't want to switch to their last release which was gnome 3 based. Currently I'm using Devuan Ascii stripped down (libre kernel and a few things removed) and heavily modified with either openbox or icewm, whichever I'm in the mood for that boot. I actually have pulled a lot of pieces out of a number of distributions like antiX. I still feel anti creates one of the best distributions in our community, and even surpasses the collaboration in MX. I basically just have been lurking though, here and there. I may actually join in the community at Devuan, I like how they do things over there. I still check out a lot of distributions just to see what I may personally find useful for adding to my own build(s). Actually, just recently I learned that my favourite Gentoo has a USE flag for building a free only system, something I didn't know of before, if it existed then.
@110
I'm not knocking Jesse here at all, nor am I implying that he is at fault for his review. I will say though that your belief in an experienced reviewer doesn't hold water. Car analogy coming: I've known many mechanics that were older and believed their work was flawless and their knowledge unsurpassed due to their years of experience. That has lead them argue until they were blue in the face that their work was flawless, including the diagnosis, when it wasn't. I've also seen many younger mechanics who instantly considered their methodology was wrong, or expertise. That said, anything could be a culprit, a bad burn, etc. I've found many times when I had a problem with a live system and or an install the best thing to do was check for similar issues "with my exact, or close to it, hardware". That doesn't always work either, but it's a starting point. If I haven't found anything that satisfies the reason for the issue(s) I then will normally do a fresh download and burn the new iso to a different cd/dvd or flash a usb and go from there. The latter has fixed the problem at least 90% of the time. That's just my personal experience on this topic though.
Keep your stick on the ice...
Landor
115 • Corporate FOSS (by cykodrone on 2020-05-08 01:41:10 GMT from France)
@113
Not saying corporations shouldn't dabble in FOSS, and yes, they have made some good contributions (I love gufw). My point was, Ubuntu started being a 'dog's breakfast' years ago (reminiscent of MS's Franken-OSes, bolted together Vista comes to mind), and your point about spin off distros defunking Ubuntu and slapping on a pretty, usable GUI is proof. My op-ed was a sum of the complaints, much of which I have experienced myself. Maybe Ubuntu should do like other distros have done, make a home and an enterprise version, a home version should be sans all the (enterprise) junk the typical home user would not use, or start in the OS upon booting. Hope that clears things up. I'm old school, I even dumped Debian (which I so loved) when they went systemd, and switched to Devuan (my saviors). I understand the new 'tricks', but this old dawg just don't care for them.
116 • FOSS .. Corporate (by Otis on 2020-05-08 15:01:22 GMT from United States)
@113 / @115
It's just that there is a perception that it seems to be taking over, if we tie in FOSS Corporate with systemd (as mentioned by cykodrone in @115).
117 • GPL stays open (by M.Z. on 2020-05-08 22:02:02 GMT from United States)
@116
I hear that sort of talk about 'control' reasonably often, and yet there is Devuan forked from Debian because of the init you talk about. Any honest assessment would show that GPL software that isn't liked leads to more forking & anarchy. The exact opposite of the control so often talked about. If you piss off enough of the right people you get your project forked & have not only less control, but some new potential for competition. I can't see why you would think anyone would bother trying to control something that is GPL given the obvious results.
118 • Xubuntu 20.04 (by Mark B on 2020-05-09 09:30:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
I decided not to wait until the point release in July and upgraded to 20.04. The upgrade process took quite a while but worked OK, as far as I could tell. How wrong was I?
I tried a watch a movie, stored on a samba share, from my old Seagate GoFlex media player but it would not connect. I tried changing the smb.conf file as detailed in this article: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-beaver-samba-shares.html
No joy. After some research I found there is a bug in samba, which means samba was broken in the last TWO LTS releases.
In my 10+ years of using Linux (quite happily), NOTHING has given me more trouble than samba. It's essential and a massive pain in the backside.
If, like me, you use a flavour of Ubuntu as a server, take my advice and hold off upgrading to 20.04 until samba works properly with old devices that can only use the SMBv1 protocol.
Did I mention, I hate samba?
119 • Fedora 32 (by penguinx86 on 2020-05-09 11:36:32 GMT from United States)
I'm giving Fedora 32 a try. I really don't like Gnome 3, so i tried Fedora Spins with LXDE, MATE and Cinnamon. LXDE was very fast, but kind of quirky. I'm a long time fan of MATE, but lately it seems a bit slow and hangs sometimes with both Mint and Fedora. Also MATE looks more like Gnome 2 with the Fedora distro. So, I'm giving up on MATE and switching to Cinnamon. Cinnamon seems less quirky, more stable and it's faster than MATE with both Mint and Fedora.
There's definitely a learning curve switching from Mint to Fedora. Fedora didn't offer 3rd party drivers and codecs during the installation for example. I find it necessary to use the command line more with Fedora than I did with Mint, but it's a good learning experience. Fedora uses LVM by default instead of normal disk partitions. No Synaptic package manager with Fedora either. But at least Fedora 32 included a driver for my Intel AC 7260 wifi adapter, when Mint, Ubuntu and Debian did not.
120 • 118, Experiences with Samba (by barnabyh on 2020-05-10 10:32:08 GMT from Germany)
Samba is not essential - if you don't have any Windows shares. Always found it too much of a headache. Just use an FTP server and you can stream with VLC.
121 • Wonky samba shares in (X)ubuntu 20.04 (by Mark B on 2020-05-10 12:34:47 GMT from United Kingdom)
@120 I totally agree that samba is a headache but I think you will find that millions of people will disagree with you about it being essential. If you don't need it, great, good luck to you. However, my media player does not handle FTP nor does it have VLC. The only option is SMBv1 because Seagate won't release updated firmware for an old product. For my needs, samba is utterly vital to success.
I have managed to solve my issue using the suggestions given in this article: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2432909
What worked for me was to add BOTH the following lines to the [global] section of the smb.conf file:
client min protocol = NT1
server min protocol = NT1
I rebooted as well.
122 • update (by dhoni on 2020-05-10 12:45:08 GMT from Indonesia)
@78 after several day on newest Ubuntu i cant stand the slowness and froze thing that happen when accessing samba drive. i tried 3 file manager, all of them got same issue. weird bug.
then i decide to replace it with debian 10. install and setting it up took bit longer thsn ubuntu. After that i move it to testing.. Man.. it feel like day and night, all is smooth. no slowness, froze, etc when accessing samba drive.
maybe ill pass ubuntu for now and stick to debian.
123 • Samba (by Friar Tux on 2020-05-10 13:35:04 GMT from Canada)
@121 (Mark B) I have to agree with the samba issue. The only place samba ever worked for me was with my Blackberry Playbook. It was the only way to access the files on it. Even directly connecting it to my laptop could not access the file system. Samba worked like a charm, but through the MSWindows shares (even though the laptop was Linux and I believe so was the Blackberry OS). However, so far, samba hasn't worked for anything else.
124 • Statistical Significance: sometimes "no answer" is a very good answer. (by R. Cain on 2020-05-10 14:19:48 GMT from United States)
Based on this week's survey, would you say that Ubuntu 20.04 is liked or disliked?
Consider--
First, there are ≈1425 respondents; enough of a 'population' (as the statisticians say) from which to draw some meaningful conclusions.
Secondly, ALWAYS remember that 'statistics' is the Mathematics of Large Numbers; personal opinions are completely irrelevant.
Now, to the data--
1).Almost as many say they like it (Ubuntu 20.04) as those who say they don't. (22% vs. 24%)
2) Almost half (≈ 45%) say they haven't tried it.
3) Almost 10% say they are neutral on the subject.
Conclusion? The respondents are, within a hair's breadth, of being evenly split on the subject; particularly when one considers the '10%-neutral' population.
SO--did DistroWatch waste all our time running this survey? Not at all--quite the contrary. The result is extremely valuable. It affirms and confirms the fact that there is (at the current time) no compelling reason to consider Ubuntu 20.04 as your "distro of choice", other than for strictly personal reasons.
This is a very well done survey; now you all can apply for that high-paying job as Data Scientist".
125 • "Control" (by Otis on 2020-05-10 15:38:07 GMT from United States)
@117
"..I can't see why you would think anyone would bother trying to control something that is GPL given the obvious results."
Considering the rabid proliferation of systemd distros as compared to the few non-systsemd distros, and the successes of the corporate model in our little GPL/Linux world, I'd say that the "control" mission is doing well.
Unfortunately.
Perhaps not enough people are pissed off.
126 • @117--You need to read more. A LOT more... (by R. Cain on 2020-05-10 17:22:00 GMT from United States)
"... I can't see why you would think anyone would bother trying to control something that is GPL...."
Never heard of the "Linux Foundation", have you.
You obviously are highly deficient in the area of 'control' as regards Linux. A superb beginning to rectifying your deficiencies would be to start reading everything you can find on the subject on Techrights.org, by Dr. Roy Schestowitz, et al.
And don't stop there.
Best of luck...
127 • Techrights (by cykodrone on 2020-05-10 20:49:27 GMT from Sweden)
@126
Why on Earth is Techrights.org not https? Or onion for that matter. My locked down TB also complained about the login dialogue. Love sites like that, but not very fond of the NSA, etc. Sad and disappointed.
128 • Statistics & Control (by M.Z. on 2020-05-10 21:33:42 GMT from United States)
@124
"SO--did DistroWatch waste all our time running this survey? Not at all--quite the contrary. The result is extremely valuable."
If you're talking about statistical significance, then taking about a poll done on a website & clearly composed of responses from the people who read said website & feel like responding to said poll you seem to be missing a lot about statistical significance. If you want a high quality poll you need to get at least 1000 totally random people & get all significant sub groups to respond to questions at a reasonable rate, then correct for any imbalance from what the overall average of the group studied would be if everyone had responded at the needed rate to begin with. As one example, there is a rather infamous picture of a fellow named Truman holding a paper declaring he lost an election based on incorrectly adjusted phone poll data that turned out to be completely wrong.
At any rate statistical significance if far more complicated than meeting any simple threshold & saying 'sounds good enough' & reaching conclusions form there.
@125/126
Feel free to look up the case of Gnome 3 & see what happened when someone at the Gnome organization decided that a consistent Gnome desktop that was identifiable & would have better brand identification decided to lock down Gnome 3, break extensions & generate a new desktop paradigm. There would be no Mate or Cinnamon if Gnome hadn't annoyed enough of the right people. The same could be said of Devuan & init, or of Oracle OpenOffice & LibreOffice. Feel free to continue to reach your own self assured conclusions, most people do; however, to me you truths look like barely the tip of a very big iceberg that you are ignoring the vast majority of.
129 • Huh? (by Otis on 2020-05-10 22:13:36 GMT from United States)
@128
Systemd/corporate Linux is/are, unfortunately, gradually becoming so prolific that the devs thereof don't even bother to argue about the relative merits/lack of having to do with alternatives. Look at the 100 phr here, man. Who cares who got angry in the Gnome camp and did a walling of 3. That's a pretty small portion of the overall picture that has been morphing steadily for decades and then SUDDENLY in the past 5 years into what we have now as to init takeover and corporate influence.
130 • @128--Lack of reading comprehension (by R. Cain on 2020-05-10 23:17:10 GMT from United States)
It has not escaped notice that the subject of The Linux Foundation, and its being taken to task for subverting Linux by Techrights.org, has been very adroitly ignored. Again--
"...Never heard of the "Linux Foundation", have you.
You obviously are highly deficient in the area of 'control' as regards Linux. A superb beginning to rectifying your deficiencies would be to start reading everything you can find on the subject on Techrights.org, by Dr. Roy Schestowitz, et al.
And don't stop there.
Best of luck..."
***********************************************************************
"I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence."-- William F. Buckley, Jr.
“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld
Number of Comments: 130
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