Why I don't recommend Ubuntu anymore

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Turns out I missed that Ubuntu 22.04 will actually use GNOME 42. Doesn't really defeat my point, as it hasn't been current for a while now, and it still doesn't have updates to most of its apps, but mistakes need to be addressed :)

[@John7No]

nice video as always care to make a similar video or what distro to recommend for a server ? I understand that this might not be the majority of the audience but i think it would make an interesting video. Thanks!

[@grimslade0]

@SNES Nes you're*

[@schweepy_g]

@SNES Nes I've had more issues with Ubuntu than any other distro. Manjaro KDE has worked flawlessly for me. Networking on Ubuntu has always been a terrible experience and the package manager app is always flakey or just flat out broke not to mention always outdated. But your milage may vary.

[@raxelgrande]

It won't implement all the GNOME 42 features and apps, so it's still a Frankenstein!

[@sofiaknyazeva]

I'd literally fu*k off Ubuntu and Manjaro, and any kind of debian based distro. It's static release is just painful for me, and it's more issue while I'd call u Ubuntu, those users who just think Ubuntu have everything is pretty much worst idea ever. I'd more likely to go with Arch or Arch based distro.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Try OnlyOffice, the best open source office suite for Linux: www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx

[@DodoGTA]

🇱🇻 software

[@undercoverduck]

I remember installing Ubuntu (one or two versions before the introduction of Unity) on an old computer as a kid (11 or 12 yo). I was so proud of myself, because it was quite some work & lots of learning. But still, just goes to show how user-friendly it all was. The first pre-teen accessible Linux distro.

[@jerbid_]

Same, my first foray into computers more in-depth than playing Roblox was installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook in 2014 after getting frustrated with ChromeOS' limitations. It didn't quite solve all of my problems, especially since that Chromebook was already limited in hardware, but it allowed me to play Minecraft at like 5fps which was cool.

[@undercoverduck]

@@jerbid_ That's awesome. And as a first foray the sense of accomplishment at succeeding far outweighs the actual results

[@joeswheat]

Reminiscing about the good old days...sad commentary, considering Unity is circa 2020😮😂😂😂😂😂

[@kentreed2011]

​@@nickoffscriptLinux at 8? Unbelievable.

[@m0rt_s3c24]

I remember as a teen it took me 3 months to get my Arch linux installed properly, it's not like I don't know how to follow the script but their documentation got me lol, I try to tweaked everything I could lol

[@pixelpusher8986]

Glad you posted the video. I’m still a noob running LTS 20.04 and I love it. I had a 2011 iMac with SSD and 32 G ram that was unfortunately no longer supported with Mac OS 😩 so I installed Ubuntu and it was a JOY 🤩like getting a new computer.

[@ContemplativeCat]

This video wasn't just a good critique of the current state of Ubuntu, it made me think about and appreciate just how much influence Ubuntu has had over the years and how much it has changed the desktop Linux space for the better. So, even if it's no longer the king, it has changed things for the better and now that change is a permanent part of the culture in the Linux world, and that is a success story in itself.

[@marianajaldin2757]

And who would be the king now???

[@ContemplativeCat]

@@marianajaldin2757 I don't know... Whoever is on top at distrowatch? That would be MX Linux or maybe EndeavourOS. But I don't really care, I use what I like and I've been a KDE person for a long time and I like KDE Neon.

[@aquaponieee]

@@marianajaldin2757 there is no king, some distributions are good for one thing while others are good for other things and it depends on use case.

[@EnderGameZ.]

@@aquaponieee which one is the best for new users

[@Yuzuki1337]

@@EnderGameZ. Ubuntu

[@jimbroen]

From my perspective the idea that Ubuntu chooses a version of Gnome and locks in for an extended time is an advantage. Fewer changes translate into fewer problems.

[@bskull3232]

Exactly. If I want to use fresh untested code from the lab, I use Windows 11. Guaranteed fresh code. Many use Linux not just as a second OS or for toying with, nor do they have knowledge on inner workings of the OS so they can fix things. Many just want a stable OS that runs some engineering software only available on Linux, and they want to pay for a service, which is what Canonical makes money from.

[@MikkoRantalainen]

I'd actually prefer having rolling release with real QA. I think Canonical could get money from support simply by being a slightly lagging version of Debian testing where they prevent update if the update fails in QA but otherwise you would get all the software as fresh as possible. Currently the end result is that Canonical releases distros with broken apps and then they refuse to fix those because the only apply security fixes. For example, the package `virtaal` for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS crashes on boot; you can be absolutely sure that it has never seen any QA at all because otherwise that wouldn't be distributed by Canonical owned servers. As their QA process is not good enough to get even the LTS releases right, they should just accept that LTS versions would need feature updates, too. I think having different levels of stability similar to Debian stable vs Debian unstable would be pretty good but the delay to most stable version should be a couple of months at max instead of multiple years. If you just want stable software without any regard how much new features you're missing, go with Debian stable.

[@svenkarlsen2702]

@@MikkoRantalainen I prefer rolling release distributions like Arch. Try Manjaro with an LTS kernel (or similar) for fresh packages on a relatively stable system.

[@MikkoRantalainen]

@@svenkarlsen2702 Testing Manjaro has been on my to-do list for quite some time already. Perhaps I should prioritize testing it as a daily driver.

[@luckybarrel7829]

Also problems with older versions remain in place longer. It's a trade off.

[@Jacksaur_]

Kubuntu seems to avoid most of the Ubuntu drama for me, but the slow encroachment of Snaps (replacing Firefox by default is scummy!) is certainly worrying.

[@ThatLinuxDude]

To be fair, with Firefox... *Mozilla* wanted that so if you have anyone to blame it's Mozilla.

[@PavakPaul]

@@ThatLinuxDude Mozilla has been shooting themselves in their feet. But Canonical needs to fix snaps for Desktop. I'm using SSD and don't want an experience slower than hard disks.

[@Sandeepan]

I started with Kubuntu 6.06.1 LTS back in 2006

[@LinuxGamingAlchemy]

Same here :) I'm on Kubuntu since beginning... and tbh I never understood why gnome was the default for ubuntu. Also they could make the ubuntu look & feel using KDE if they wanted to..

[@BrianTafoya]

I just commented to the same. I am very happy with Kubuntu.

[@WolfRites]

Aw man, I still really, really miss Unity. Ubuntu really haven't felt the same since they dropped Unity. Like their entire focus shifted to IoT/Server, and user experience/desktop is more an afterthought these days.

[@MnemonicCarrier]

Yeah, Unity was awesome. I switched to KDE after Ubuntu dumped Unity.

[@ianphillips7778]

Unity is why many people stopped using Ubuntu. It was their first attempt at developing a desktop, and was missing many essential features for mouse users. Gnome 3 also has poor usability for mouse users.

[@Amos_Huclkeberry]

There’s a community distribution called Ubuntu Unity. It’s in maintenance mode until UnityX is released.

[@WolfRites]

@@ianphillips7778 I don't care, I loved it. ;) The point is that back then, it was clear that Canonical/Ubuntu actually had focus on the desktop, and the users. It's not so anymore. It feels like "just another corporate entity".

[@WolfRites]

@@Amos_Huclkeberry I know, I've tried it. The sad truth is that because Unity hasn't been kept up to date, it has a bunch of bugs and glitches. It just doesn't work well these days.

[@ea.charles9176]

I'm using Zorin OS as my daily driver, which is based on Ubuntu. Got introduced to Ubuntu back in 2007 in my first year "Intro to C Programming" course. This is a balanced review without question, but too many people in the Linux community are inflicted with fanboyism and elitist superiority complexes. Basically, just use whatever you are most productive on and don't feel like you have to explain. All the other stuff is just inconsequential side-issues.

[@Unethical.Dodgson]

While true for sure. I've been using Zorin for years. A little Manjaro (I've not played with it much yet to be honest) but yeah I got what he was saying about snaps. Sometimes I want a specific install from snap simply because it'll be an app with more plugins etc. already pre-installed but I've found myself having to sometimes contend with the limitations of snap installs and it's kinda annoying. It's one of those "There has to be a better way" moments. But yeah. I've never sat there and thought "this is a catastrophe!" but experiencing little problems here and there. They might add up. Fully agree with "use whatever you're most productive with" though. For me that is Zorin at the moment.

[@KiraSlith]

The command line isn't a good user experience. - The Ubuntu 9.10 Gang

[@derkjh]

@@Unethical.Dodgson Manjaro is Shite

[@aquaponieee]

i honestly disagree. sure, some people stick to distros because of fanboyism, but nothing ever happens without reason.

[@asdfghjkl-jk6mu]

zorin isnt anything special, it just comes with a few extensions and prebuilt layouts you can make yourself. that's all, although it doesn't look too shabby either

[@saurav3078]

As someone who uses Ubuntu 20.04 as daily driver... I really feel most of these issues apply to a lot of people who don't have to work with a lot of other students or engineers. If you're in a relatively green dev team, we need compatibility and machines to be as similar a possible to debug issues... Specially in pandemic times when we can't go over and see into other persons workstation. We still use ubuntu 20.04... honestly i wouldn't even bother using bleeding edge versions... Some of our workstations still use 18.04 cause of stability and support. And i don't see myself using Arch or Manjaro simply because of lack of support and troubleshooting. Ubuntu still wins for me just because of the community size and support.

[@QuantumConundrum]

In this vein, there's no shortage of forums/documentation, and this is invaluable. It's rare to be the first to run into a problem with Ubuntu. I use CentOS for work and it's very solid, but it's hard to find information sometimes. Just buried in obscure places. In a lot of ways even though it's objectively worse, working with windows is more pleasant if only because of the information flood for a given issue.

[@luckybarrel7829]

Ubuntu holding back packages is a problem. Installing latest version of R on Ubuntu is such a hassle. Much easier on Fedora, but even then there are delays, but you can expect them to be resolved in a month or two since Fedora updates its packages more rapidly.

[@saurav3078]

@@luckybarrel7829 tbh that could be an issue... I'm just used to using open source tools and build most of the package from source... So i don't get that issue. But i understand it could be a problem.

[@yoyoma2026]

I used to think the same thing but honestly I think you'll find the arch community the most active.

[@Yuzuki1337]

Have you guys considered Debian? It's basically how you're using Ubuntu and there's no workflow differences :D

[@BrianTafoya]

I am a long time Linux user (Since Slackware was on diskettes!) and have shifted around desktop distros. I am quite happy with Kubuntu at the moment, being it contains the goodness of Ubuntu without snap and the KDE Plasma desktop is quite powerful.

[@MnemonicCarrier]

You should try Arch with KDE ;)

[@wchorski]

have you tried the new Slack?

[@i1hack]

Do you have recommendations wifi dongle support ubuntu?

[@cyonnz]

KDE Neo is Ubuntu base as well u can i give it a try

[@KeithGyarmati]

Likewise, had to install rh from 32 3.5 'floppy'. Moved to mandrake for a while, then Ubuntu with warthog.

[@theena]

I will always be thankful to Canonical for making Linux ready for the masses. I don't think I'd have made the plunge if Ubuntu hadn't, for better or worse, become the flag-bearer for Linux to people outside this eco-system. 18 months into my Linux journey, I am still on my first install of Ubuntu as my daily driver. Despite teething issues, it has served me, someone who isn't technical as an average Linux user is. I've made plenty of changes to the system - from abandoning Gnome and using KDE, from setting up my KDE to look and work like a Window Manager instead of your standard implementation of the desktop metaphor. It even works out of the box with some of my more exotic hardware (a no name graphics tablet and a USB audio interface that the manufacturer said wouldn't work on Linux). Would I have had a relatively stress-free transition into Linux if it wasn't for Ubuntu? Would a Mac or Windows user have an easy transition into Linux if it wasn't for Ubuntu? The more research concious of such users would probably hear of elementaryOS or Mint or popOS, but most would either have already settled on Ubuntu or become overwhelmed with the sheer fragmentation of Linux desktop. Point is: Ubuntu serves a purpose. Its flawed and its insistence on using Gnome irritates me no end, but Gnome actually works well for newbie users from the smartphone generation. It seems intuitive to them in all the ways it annoys me (no I don't want to be reminded of using my phone when I am on my computer - the two are fundamentally different in my mind). As for some of the other issues you pointed out - slow updates and all - those only becomes issues once you fall into the rabbit hole that is open source software. Ubuntu does a very good job of making sure that people do fall into the rabbit hole. TL;DR: Ubuntu is the best gateway drug to Linux desktop that we have going. elementaryOS and EndevaourOS and Zorin are well placed to take that pole position, but they are too small to be given the spotlight just yet.

[@pascalfragnoud5393]

"Would a Mac or Windows user have an easy transition into Linux if it wasn't for Ubuntu?" Frankly, macOS is close enough to a Linux distribution that there's no need for a `gateway` between the two.

[@ActionParsnip]

You don't have to use Gnome to use Ubuntu

[@hipster1655]

Two of the three 'alternatives with more research' are based on Ubuntu

[@shoegazemusicisthebest2715]

@Theena Kumaragurunathan I installed Mandrake Linux on a PC from a CD in the year 2001. Thanks, Mandrake Linux Devs and (old) PC magazines with included software CDs.

[@ActionParsnip]

@@shoegazemusicisthebest2715 mandrake was my first distribution. So so good

[@victorynwokejiobi1762]

In my opinion I would say "no distro is the best" each come with their own flaws, and uniqueness as well. Besides, the distro you choose to install on your computer should depend on the task you intend to carry out with it. If any distro don't fit into the task you need it for, you can take it off and instal something else to fit your needs. I think I prefer that mindset rather than throwing shades at different Linux distros.

[@igorthelight]

Agree. But why choose Ubuntu vs Pop_OS? ;-) The second is just a better option with the same options. In my opinion, there are more and less useful distros. But there are no "best distro", because that depends on what user wants and values :-)

[@victorynwokejiobi1762]

@@igorthelight well I'll still agree that Ubuntu is the best for a beginner.. Secondly it's also best for a non beginner, who wants to do the normal ins and out in a computer.. Honestly, I really don't like the fact that you're shading Ubuntu.. It makes me feel bad.

[@igorthelight]

@@victorynwokejiobi1762 Understandable! They did so much for the community.

[@alankates2866]

I went to 20.02 months ago. Agree it comes down to what your needs are.

[@jeffyp2483]

the 'task' in this case, is beginner introduction to a linux based os, and it seems to me based on this video ubuntu is not the best choice for that anymore. still a good one, but no longer the best.

[@shotophop1929]

I started with Linux Mint some weeks ago and I already feel very comfortable with it. It is like using windows in a cleaner, more customizable way with the option to get into the terminal-knowledge any time (etc.!). Everything is nicely explained or windows-like and also can be very nice to look at if you customize it, which is also important for me. I find every programm I use on a daily base. I also installed windows in dual boot, (which didnt work out at first, but then, after Mint updated, it just worked for some reason - it kinda fixed itself) but never used windows yet for now, which speaks for itself... I tried Ubuntu with gnome desktop, but I didnt really like it and it also didnt feel as customizable to me. I would recommend Mint (y)

[@EnderGameZ.]

I know your comment is from six months ago, but I took your suggestion, and I got mint and ever since then I’ve been getting better and better. I love how customizable it is and how close it looks like windows. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

[@dreamtheater125]

Mint is the best distro. I spent a lot of time testing the various options and none matched so well.

[@EnderGameZ.]

@@dreamtheater125 good to hear 👍

[@andrewwigglesworth3030]

It all depends upon which desktop environment you use (or don't use in my case) with any of these distributions. You don't mention that, so your comments get bit of a *shrug* from my point of view.

[@jacksong6226]

Xubuntu is pretty good

[@mjp29]

Ubuntu's delayed release of things like the latest Gnome is on the other hand an advantage as it allows them to iron out problems.

[@idogaming3532]

It unironically causes more problems.

[@TVPInterpolation]

if they would *actually* take care of these issues, then i would agree. they dont though.

[@ushabuntu]

I tried other distros, but Ubuntu LTS versions are always leading in my book. Also, now with Flatpak, all I do is install everything as flatpak and enjoy the stable updates and everything just works.

[@KamaleshwarMorjal]

Does flatpak integrate well with the gnome desktop? Application icons, menu integration, invoking from terminal, etc? (It's been a while I used any computer except this phone ever since my linux box died)

[@orkhepaj]

and takes a lot of space and slow

[@c2lhu]

Still don't like to download almost a new virtual Linux just to run an app.. flat pack dependencies are insanely done

[@Destide]

Remember my first uni project as a sound designer was to design a full replacement for Windows system sounds. I used Ubuntu as an inspiration. I had to use Windows back for udk and max but Ubuntu really caught my imagination and I always went back to it when I didn't need those tools.

[@wallyhackenslacker]

Avoiding the encroachment of snaps in Ubuntu 20.04 pretty much got me stuck on Ubuntu Mate 18.04 until 2021 and eventually pushed me to Manjaro. On the one hand I'm very satisfied with Manjaro, but leaving Ubuntu after about 12 years of almost continuous use (my first version was 8.04) felt like betraying an old friend.

[@edstar83]

I'm still rocking Ubuntu 16.04

[@Tatar_Piano]

Debian is amazing after ubuntu

[@jvkanufan8115]

There's still much to love about Manjaro. I never really began with Ubuntu - Manjaro was pretty much my first distro.

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

Why not try Debian or Linux Mint? They both have MATE versions (although Linux Mint's is customised out of the box to look more like Cinnamon instead of the traditional two-panel layout that MATE has by default).

[@violet-kittychick]

Who betrayed who?? I don't think you let Ubuntu down.. I think Ubuntu let all of us down!!

[@krzychaczu]

I've started my Linux journey as a primary home PC OS back in 2009 with Ubuntu 9.04. Thank you Canonical and AskUbuntu community for all these years and making GNU and Linux popular!

[@marcellopisanu379]

14 years ago I switched completely from Windows to Linux. Whether PC, laptop or HTPC. My choice was Ubuntu. Actually, I am also one of those who would like to test the latest innovations first. That's why I also play with the idea of trying something different. But after 14 years of general satisfaction, it is not easy to change.

[@svinkun]

And no need. As a lazy and a bit dumb person I can say - while others complaining, I find a fix/workaround and my system flies again. P.S. On Ubuntu since 2008.

[@fteoOpty64]

Me, since 2007!. Unbuntu Mate is my daily driver. It had cpu Governor on CPU panel, temp, NwSpeed. Those are my mandatory panel items. Recent bought a cheap G3258 desktop that has Windows 10 on it. It was dog slow. Then I USB installed Ubuntu 22.04LTS. It flies and used Zfs file system. Will convert it to Synology NAS dsm 7.1 soon.

[@rossminet]

I tried many distros, starting with Mandrake (Manjaro ancestor) in the nineties. Tried Pop Os, Manjaro, Fedora and many other distros (one for hackers). I run 22.10 with bare Gnome (no extension) on Wayland. KDE had a wayland Nvidia problem.

[@mohammedsarim3916]

what would you suggest to the beginners trying to switch from windows to another OS

[@hardbrocklife]

@@mohammedsarim3916 linux mint Cinnamon DE

[@PKM1010]

Linux pros keep dissing Ubuntu but even when I switched to pop os I had some problems, a lot less than on other distributions like Mint, but still. I haven't had any major ones on Ubuntu and the stuff pros talk about is not something that has an impact on my usage of the system. I'll keep using it and recommending it to other noobs.

[@ruddock7]

Totally agree. I find Ubuntu impish really fast, smooth and polished!!

[@thebdr7826]

@@ruddock7 my ubuntu impish stuck at boot logo. help please??

[@TheSulross]

I use Ubuntu but I've switched every app possible over to using flatpak and it is much better. I had snap apps that were too slow to launch. Plus am finding flatpak better supported for app vareity and keeping app versions at their latest stable versions. I clearly see Snap now as a defeated dead-end and I don't want to get stuck on distro that is wedded to Snap and will keep trying to foist it on the unsuspecting newbies. The rason to start the Ubuntu abandonment now is because of this clear, wrong-headed trajectory that they are on. All Linux desktop distros concentrating on flatpak will be a huge unifier (and simplifier for app publishers). It is finally the kind of standardization that Linux desktop has been waiting for. It is greatly succeeding and is very clear now that Snap has abjectly failed. Ubuntu tied their desktop fate to Snap and is one more case of where they made a bet-the-company maneuver that hasn't worked out. Maybe server and IoT will be their long term future

[@stephencoles5991]

Agreed. The problems listed aren't even considerations for a beginner. I don't disagree with the points themselves, but they are advanced concepts

[@ruddock7]

@@thebdr7826 Hmmm, i'm not sure why that is to be honest.

[@legomovieman2]

Hey Nick, I've been distro hopping for a while and with my last issue on Linux being resolved (GNOME removing GNOME-Screenshot in Gnome 42 which doesn't cause me issues with my epilepsy) I can finally say I've switched to EndeavourOS! Thanks for all the great videos on Linux!

[@cmaxz817]

Yeah, me too. After looking for the right Linux to settle on, I came by EndeavourOS and I suddenly fell in love with that project. It follows the mainstream Arch repo (unlike Manjaro), every fresh install of EOS is basically an empty canvas ready to be painted, it lets people thinker while giving them clues, either through their forum or Arch wiki. Basically, an empty canvas with quick setup to get it working. I have been maining EOS on 2 of my machines using KDE and I'm loving it.

[@Sandeepan]

I strongly suggest to go with Pop It's the only mainstream distro that I know to have a livedisk recovery environment built in. I also recommend to use LUKS2 and LVM2 if you are using systemd as init

[@grimslade0]

I heard the same thing in the form of "Endeavour OS is basically a friendly way to install Arch and some very likely drivers you'd need", and yeah, it was really great. Personally, without it forcing me to use the terminal I wouldn't have learnt so much so quickly. Couldn't recommend it enough either. :) ... -Eventually I broke it by not understanding how linked directories worked whilst trying to do a system BACKUP!... The irony hurt more than losing my files :'( At that point I was confident enough to just install base Arch.. which I use BTW. Fortunately I haven't screwed it up since and it's been over a year... I shake in my booties everyday waiting for my PC to explode or something... But yeah, I'm glad Endeavour OS is so high on the charts. Everyone's becoming absolute legends thanks to it. 🥂

[@foxtro484]

@@cmaxz817 huh, I got into linux a few months ago, and started with mint. Now I'm really curious to use arch or arch based distro, but I don't get why does almost everyone hate manjaro?

[@cmaxz817]

@@foxtro484 because it doesn't follow the mainstream arch repo which means that if you are trying to install something via AUR, it might have a chance to basically break your entire system. As explained in the video, Manjaro sometimes can be a mismatch libraries hell (because Manjaro decided to be "stable" by delaying some updates) and ended up breaking.

[@Jacob6853]

I started off with Linux Mint 7... Wow that feels like an eternity ago. I haven't used Ubuntu on a desktop since 10.04 but still run an install as my main container server. Server edition is dependable enough.

[@calorifierentertaiment6407]

What do you use now?

[@obsessedcultist3012]

10.04 Lucid Lynx was the starting point of my linux journey... I'm feeling nostalgic.

[@Jacob6853]

@@calorifierentertaiment6407 I currently use Manjaro KDE for desktop and Ubuntu 20.04 for the server. I used to use centos on server until they changed the support for long-term releases.

[@calorifierentertaiment6407]

@@Jacob6853 Good💪 I use Arch linux with bspwm it is looking good you should try bspwm if you want, but u need to customize it

[@baardkopperud]

Slackware, version (don't remember) - around 1997. Installed whole distro - including KDE using Qt 1.44 - downloaded at my college and using 3.5" floppies to get it home... took about a week.

[@RAZR_Channel]

I have 0-Zero problem with them looking to make money on this… but the use of force into an inferior/start up type elements such as snaps… Is no different than forced Windows updates. In my control panel I can see them pushing a premium whatever… And snaps updates are looking pretty forceful while at the same time taking away functionaliy that was previously there…

[@arvetemecha]

Just my opinion: on my workstation I tend to choose some kind of compromise between usability/stability/productivity: install a LTS rather than a rolling release, and choose a "light" desktop like xfce or lxde (or whatever suits your preferences). I've been using GNU/Linux distributions of all kinds since 1996. At that time I discovered Slackware (the whole distrib took a few 3.5" floppies), no desktop (unable to run Xfree86 on my old AMD K6 for a while), plain old terminal, and a bit later RedHat 4 (the one that came with the book, a boot floppy and a CD, "simple" text/ncurses installer which could detect quite well my SoundBlaster audio device and guess the X11 server configuration). We used to spend days/weeks to learn how to build a usable kernel, just configuring a point-to-point connection to my first internet provider was a challenge using a serial 28KBauds modem. First browser: text mode lynx and then NCSA Mosaic. Loading the simplest HTML web pages could take almost a minute. But I was so fed up by the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" of MS Windows when I had to learn to code in C/C++ that I never wanted to reinstall MS Win95 and successors on my PCs. I spent my fair share of nights and days trying out any distributions (Debian, RH, Mandrake, Gentoo, Suse...) and was more attracted to tweaking and fiddling with them than being productive. Now I just need something reliable, no need to support some fancy hardware but rather working out of the box on a 4 year old mid-range PC. And XUbuntu 20.04 simply does the job (as many others would do), even if it's far from perfect, it can run my rather bloated "corporate" IDE, a bunch of text/graphic/audio applications, scanner/printer, allow me to connect easily to lots of electronic devices/microcontrollers (Arduino, BluePills, RP2040, ESP32, etc.) and have fun with lots of home automation projects.

[@stevengill1736]

I'd totally forgotten Lynx came before Mosaic - a trip down memory lane indeed. Even Gopher is a fading memory, but it was quite awhile ago... ;*[}

[@marufbepary100]

I just recommend Zorin OS to beginners. It's not the most up-to-date or bleeding edge distro but it's simple, reliable and familiar. On Ubuntu, I would go and remove their crappy store and install the Gnome Store and then I would install Flatpak and add Flathub, none of this is remotely beginner friendly. Ubuntu is pushing their own implementations at the expense of the user experience. I like Ubuntu as a base for other distros but absolutely hate it as a distro. I feel like Ubuntu is the opposite of what they were in the 2000s, instead of pushing Linux, now they are a bottleneck holding Linux back. Ubuntu is the largest Linux distribution, them not shipping with Flatpak means that no all devs use Flatpaks hurting it and Linux app packaging in general.

[@marufbepary100]

@Audio Freak just because Ubuntu is the most popular doesn't mean it's good. By that logic, Windows must be good because most people use that. And Zorin OS is not hyped.

[@slim_2280]

Do Flatpaks work? As when I tried last and that was a few years ago, they would not run properly.

I installed ZorinOS on couple of my childrens laptops as it is pretty much foolproof and easy to use.

[@coytus94]

@Darth Vader Zorin isn't bleeding edge, but from my experience with it it is definitely one of the better distros I've used. It is based off of Ubuntu and GNOME, but it is modified in a way to where it's not quite the same. I feel that it responds better than Ubuntu does, and the UI is much more customizable. The bootup process looks much more smooth as well, and is more appealing to the eye of the average user.

[@thibautmodrzyk6215]

It doesnt come with Flatpak but what's the big deal with that ? Just sudo apt install flatpak and woosh it works. I've only used Ubuntu and Manjaro and to be honest Ubuntu is much more convenient, basically if I want a package, I know it's available easily, be it with apt, snap, flatpak, etc. I don't see the issue with their store either. It's just more convenient for absolute beginners. Could you elaborate as to why it's a bad thing ?

[@HansJLarsen]

Comment to the sponsor: Onlyoffice is fine if you work and speak one of the major languages. However, it falls significantly behind libraoffice when it comes to minor languages. Menus are not translated, date and time can not be set to my local settings, currency can not be set correctly. In addition, I now lost two important spreadsheets within the 10 minutes I tested the program just because they were on a webDAV server. The program looks great, Libraoffice is just more mature.

[@ffqqz]

onlyoffice doesn't have rtl support so i can't use it

[@ruanaur]

What is rtl

[@Dosenwerfer]

@@ruanaur right-to-left languages like Arabic

[@theodiscusgaming3909]

Ironic, as OnlyOffice is made by a Latvian company

[@polocatfan]

oh boy onlyoffice is racist

[@jojodicus]

That OnlyOffice sponsor was a lifesaver at just the right time! Just recently switched to Linux, but a colleague wanted me to reformat a word document today. Neither LibreOffice nor Word Online (yikes?) could display it properly. With OnlyOffice i got it done in a few minutes, partially because the UI feels very familiar when coming from Windows.

[@worldhello1234]

Libre Office works just as good is FOSS and free of charge.

[@theodiscusgaming3909]

@@worldhello1234 Onlyoffice is FOSS too.

[@jojodicus]

@@worldhello1234 but LibreOffice can't open docx files without messing up the formatting

[@umamifan]

@@worldhello1234 why are you shilling when they're both foss programs that run on Linux my guy?

[@rfdiego777]

Ubuntu for me remains one of the favourite distros because I never had any hardware compatibility problem with it and because of the immense forum support. For certain aspects maybe I prefer some derivatives, but in the end the Gnome desktop for me is the most appealing one (and in the end I just don't really care about having the latest features immediately, but that's just me)

[@jsebean]

Kubuntu 100% is what I recommend. If plasma was the flagship desktop of Ubuntu itself, it would be hands down the best. Especially 22.04 with all the wayland improvements.

[@jacksong6226]

What about Xubuntu

[@Foxikaze]

​@@jacksong6226 I've been using Xubuntu in a VM for a while. I enjoy the customizability it offers, but something that confuses me is the audio sounds totally wack when watching KZbin videos. When I use Mint XFCE, those issues are non existant.

[@stephencoles5991]

The software and security update tool on Ubuntu remains superior to anything I have seen. It autoprompts in your face rather than having to notice a tiny system tray icon change and it's only a 2 click process that can generally run happily in the background while I do my tasks. For some reason the distros based on Ubuntu seem to use the old 2010 era updater tool, which is nowhere near as easy or quick to use. It's the reason I remain on Ubuntu and the reason why I'd continue to recommend it for a Linux beginner. I can easily live without the pretty features of other distros and installing applications from the command line is a simple workaround to the snap problem. Switching to Kubuntu would probably solve the pretty features issue if I cared. A computer (and it's OS) are merely tools to me. The easier it is to work with those tools, the better. In my world that logic also applies to a beginner.

[@AgroAce]

....if you want tools easier to work with then use Windows? It's actually compatible with all the programs businesses use and you don't have to go into command line just to install something.

[@Slada1]

@@AgroAce Some tools just work better on Linux (like "talking" directly to hardware). But dualbooting Windows is still a must :(

[@AngelaTheSephira]

Or, and this is simple: no autoupdates. No update checking. If you want updates, you tell it to do so. Ubuntu's seemingly forced autoupdates have broken my system more than once, and it's a 50/50 chance of my system bricking itself just because I turned it on, due to the autoupdates. If the update tools actually installed the right things automatically, it'd be fine, but it seems to think my GPU supports 470... it does not, the final update is 390, and Ubuntu refuses to believe this, and so it tends to delete my GPU drivers on it's own randomly, leading to 2-4 days of tinkering to get it to work again, just to break again if I reboot the machine.

[@stephencoles5991]

@@AngelaTheSephirait doesn't Auto update, I don't even think there's a capability for it to do so? It will prompt you to update, but you can choose what will be updated, same as most Distro's, but it's a pop up, not an tiny icon change. You can prefer the icon change option, but for a beginner, they're unlikely to notice the change and therefore would be unlikely to apply any updates.

[@AngelaTheSephira]

@@stephencoles5991 No, it does driver updates on it's own.

[@grimslade0]

Cheers for the interesting video 🥂 It's funny. After hearing Nick say it at the beginning and reading the comments, it reminded me that (whilst I feel detached) Ubuntu was my introduction to Linux and fiddling l around with it too. Coincidentally in 2006 as well, when I was ~14. haha, I even remember setting up a Live USB on my parents PC when their Window's HDD failed, and when scammers called them and tried to get access to their system, they would say something like: "there is no Internet Explorer, what? I use Chromium on Linux or something apparently" and the scammer would immediately hang up. Amusing memories. A few years back, I decided to give Linux a go again when on Windows I was having to run extra software overlays over the inbuilt interface to change it (god damn bloatware!! REEE).. the extra 2% CPU usage was pissing me off so I thought I'd be like the cool kids and install Debian.. AFTER THAT HASSLE and using it for a few months, I found out that the new mad lads on the block use Arch, so I switched and now I use Arch BTW... I guess my story is not dissimilar to all the other hectic legends that started off with Ubuntu... I guess we do owe the Can some thanks, too bad they're PWA scrubs (... Sorry. No offense to anyone who likes them... actually they're terrible, git gud.. I mean no, they are, yes..) TL;DR: I use Arch BTW. 👁️👄👁️

[@jaafaralawieh]

Honestly, Zorin OS with a macOS style disappearing dock has been my go-to. It's been lovely and minimal. I also use a simple window manager for beginners inside gnome extensions where pressing a shortcut allows u to assign window layouts to the keyboard. I feel like i wouldnt change a thing about it as it does what its supposed to and doesnt get in my way

[@rikugo1]

Which extension?

[@SomeRandomPiggo]

i would like zorin if it wasn't for the pro version. paying for free software preinstalled just feels wrong to me

[@gtPacheko]

I'd use that, but it's paid, so it's a no for me. I'm waiting for Elementary to have in-place updates.

[@ivyy8221]

@@SomeRandomPiggo well, you pay for support too and it's the main reason to pay, I think it's not that bad and it's completely optional, any configuration or software included can be obtainable manually.

[@Abhinav-Bhat]

Even I started Linux with Zorin OS

[@sequri]

I have fond memories of Ubuntu going back at least as far as Feisty Fawn. It really made Linux accessible and useful as a daily driver desktop, rather than experimental and somewhat nerdy before that (with other distros). A few years ago, tiring of the Ubuntu desktop environment, I was looking around for a suitable alternative and tried several, and was about to plump for Linux Mint when I saw a glowing article about MX Linux and decided to give it a try. I was blown away by how comprehensive, and slick, and Windows-like, the desktop environment is. Conky has customised the desktop beautifully also (system info displayed in transparent layers over the incredibly beautiful supplied desktop artwork). I’m still heavily into Windows 7/10/11 but love using MX Linux on a daily basis too.

[@AbhinavKulshreshtha]

The main reason I recommend fedora over ubuntu, to my students, was because yum/dnf has better experience than apt-get for the first timers. Of course once the student is comfortable with command line package management, they are free to switch to any distro they like.

[@douglaidlaw740]

Having recently run Fedora, I agree that it is "Windows for Linux users." I tried Debian a few times before it got a GUI installer. It was a mess. They still use the apt-get command to remove a package, as if black=white. I chose Mandrake, and now run its successor, Mageia. At almost 80, I find it very difficult to change.

[@AbhinavKulshreshtha]

@@douglaidlaw740 I tried Mageia for few months during my distro-hopping phase. Liked it a lot.

[@PenguinRevolution]

@@ps5hasnogames55 You Again? with your stupid rants about systemd, nobody cares! Also Fedora doesn't force you to reboot after updates.

[@loc4725]

@@douglaidlaw740 I wondered what happened to Mandrake / Mandriva. I still have the stickers & dead tree manual from the 7.1 boxed release. 🙂 Actually reading the manual makes me think some things have gone backwards; the design was simpler and more modular in the past.

[@vicca4671]

Running Fedora KDE as main drive here has been a bless. Stable and constantly updated, but I agree with Nick about the installer being awful. If they ever change that installer I'll recommend it over mint, specially since it doesn't depend on any upstream.

[@Thanatos2996]

I miss Unity, I was one of the probably dozens of users who liked it. It remains my favorite non-tiling graphical environment to date (DWM wins overall); the only problem with it was that it pretty much only worked on Ubuntu, which was extremely buggy after 10.10.

[@recarsion]

Ubuntu 16.04 was my first ever Linux distro and I loved Unity. I still miss it from time to time.

[@CFalcon030]

I started with 11.10. I stayed with Ubuntu for many years, but after they moved to gnome I moved to mint and cinnamon. What really annoyed me was the backlash they got for pushing unity and everything else. I think it has now become painfully obvious that you can't make gnome behave like unity.

[@kelvinleigh]

I like Ubuntu's update schedule because their updates always work for me. Sadly that was not the same for me with Fedora (although that was many years ago and they could be much better today). I don't see the performance hit with SNAP packages, but then you can still use Flatpacks. I'll stick with Ubuntu for now.

[@djkazaz]

I feel this a slight exaggeration though I do understand the frustration. In my opinion however it comes down to user choices: 1) stable or rolling? Stable means you must accept not having the latest software, rolling means you accept breakage. 2) if stable, then Ubuntu is the most modern frequently updated distro. Better alternatives do exist, like Zorin, PopOS, mint or Debian, but all are at least 6 months or more behind Ubuntu. So the choice really is about Stability and Ease of use vs newer software and more maintenance. All other criticisms of canonical are valid, but as I said, its a choice.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Good input, as it's a big distinction

[@tusk6400]

Bro I have a very bad experience with debian

[@dimitriskazazoglou-skouras3942]

@@tusk6400 Every user's needs and experience is different, so I can certainly understand that. Debian (stable) it is notorious for stability so I'm suprised, but maybe its the wrong fit for your needs. Ubuntu is a bit more polished and the other distros mentioned are more polished still. What problems did you have out of curiosity?

[@tusk6400]

@@dimitriskazazoglou-skouras3942 wifi, Bluetooth problems, random freezing ( I fixed it after some hours ), when I downloaded something from terminal, it disappeared whereas in distros like linux lite it appeared whenever I searched for them, I also accidently downloaded a file to archive manager and it was gone, so I always save my files and extract them

[@dimitriskazazoglou-skouras3942]

@@tusk6400 interesting. I never encountered anything remotely like this in Debian (stable or testing versions). Not that it should make a difference but can I ask what DE you use? I’ve used Debian with gnome and plasma and had good experiences.

[@elduderino7767]

i absolutely love zorin, it's was the only linux distribution that was polished enough for me to drop windows i can finally see linux being a mainstream desktop, especially with all the great work steam/valve have done

[@sup8429]

was? Did you switch back to windows

[@elduderino7767]

@@sup8429 nope, but did try a few other linux distributions since and they didn't feel as polished as zorin to me I ended up switching my lounge/media pc to zorin as well - the only downside is the lack of HD support amazon prime has for linux but if they can't be assed to support their users than i can't be assed to pay for their sub-standard service what surprised me is how easy zorin was to setup in the lounge room, the mini pc there only has 2 displayports, i need 1 for audio and another for video to hook up to two separate devices and windows was giving me issues with this setup, zorin had no issue - it just worked i do still have 1 window box left but that's for a dedicated VR system which uses an oculus rift s - not supported on linux, this system also doubles us as a gaming machine via steam remote play but any game that requires mouse/keyboard I'll just use the zorin desktop, if the game doesn't support windows then steams inbuilt proton windows emulation solution always works, at worst I've had to pick the right version of proton to get it working

[@chlorobyte_projects]

I've had nothing but problems with Snaps. Flatpak on the other hand, I might actually consider on a future install just for the sandboxing. Don't necessarily have a need since on Arch btw, everything is in the repos or the AUR and run perfectly fine (aside from some exceptions in the AUR), but hey, if it works but isn't optimal, why not improve it?

[@OzzyTheGiant]

Just to clarify, the issues talked about are just on desktop settings correct? I use Ubuntu mostly for web development and don't particularly care much for desktop configuration so I just wanted to make sure there weren't any system issues I wasn't aware of

[@ebrelus7687]

@Jean-Simon Chénard does it still work normally without snap Gates-made hell?

[@matheusfantinel7970]

Agree with all your points (though it does look like 22.04 will ship with GNOME 42). I've always used Ubuntu-based distros because of, well, the Ubuntu base since most packages target it, but really looking into changing bases as soon as Fedora 36 releases.

[@phukhue289]

I'm perfectly happy with Ubuntu and recommending it to newbies. After having soooo many compatibility issues with manjaro arch, I just went back to Ubuntu, not a single issue since (except for fingerprint unlock which didn't work on arch anyway)

[@outofahat9363]

@@phukhue289 lol tell me about it. Just yesterday I had to update my Manjaro and Ubuntu install for the first time in a month. Ubuntu did it no problemo, Manjaro broke (something about Nvidia drivers not compatible with the kernel version) and now I only have a command line. To me this level of constant maintenance that arch based distros require is really not acceptable, it doesn't even sound that hard to fix it's just that I don't want the possibility for this to happen. I don't even care it broke since i installed on my "test" ssd to check it out because it is the closest thing to steam os (KDE as a de) so I had nothing of value on it (I have three ssds one for windows 10, one for Ubuntu which I both use and one to try out distros).

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

@@phukhue289 well... you moved to Manjaro. You can't expect a rolling distro to give you the most user-friendly experience.

[@benandersen42]

I'm still on Ubuntu 18.04 and I don't miss anything. I use Ubuntu both professionally and for private use. What I like with Ubuntu is the stability and reliance. Who knows if some other new distro will be around in a year or two. Ubuntu has served us well in many years. That could change but until it does, I'm a happy Ubuntu user!

[@YashOswalYO]

In my 2 years of history working with Ubuntu 21 and 22, I have never used snap or software centre as apt exists

[@taputechnic]

I didn't realize Synaptic was a problem. I haven't liked my distro's default package manager if it isn't Synaptic, and install Synaptic separately. Not only do I not care about being 6 months behind, I *only* install LTS versions. Incompatibilities during upgrades often break something small or not-so-small, and this isn't conducive to getting things done. I often experiment with other distros (typically when I get a new computer at home, less so at work), but when I get stuck, I end up reverting to the Ubuntu family. While I'm not using stock Ubuntu, I use rather one of the XFCE varieties: Linux Lite for the last several years. I cannot understate how often I find solutions to my problems in Ubuntu forums.

[@tiaoraitbg2347]

I honestly miss the Unity desktop, the HUD was one of the most useful tools I had made use of on a linux desktop, I believe there are programs you can use in its place, but never seem to do it as well

[@Alkajatomota]

Ubuntu 14.04 was the first Linux I used. Using Unity was the only reason I saw to use Ubuntu after trying out other distros such as Fedora, Manjaro, Elementary OS, etc--so once they ditched Unity I see it as a mostly pointless distribution now.

[@ptzzz]

I have to agree with you. My first time using Ubuntu (13.04 in my case), I liked Unity but GNOME made it unusable (i.e. slow, buggy, and generally unresponsive) for me and I'd rather use a distro like Mint or MX Linux now.

[@coytus94]

Try out Zorin OS 16. I absolutely love it

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

Ubuntu 12.04 for me, also with Unity :P I've made peace with GNOME these days though. GNOME is awesome on laptops. I run KDE on my desktop though :P

[@albertmagician8613]

​@@ptzzzI really hate gnome. I have several consoles 13:36 open and switching is a nightmare. If you rearrange terminal windows it suddenly occupies the whole screen etc. I'm a compiler developer and I just have no time to waste on gratitious MS-like changes to the user interface.

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

It's a shame to see how backwards Canonical have gone with Ubuntu for the desktop. Ubuntu 12.04 was my first Linux experience - can't believe that was 10 years ago - I loved the Unity desktop.

[@scifisurfer8879]

I checked out of Ubuntu (in the direct use sense) when they dropped Gnome 2.x. In the almost 20 years since, Linux Mint has turned into an incredible distro for most folk. That's what I recommend to people.

[@andrewwigglesworth3030]

Gnome 3 came out in April 2011.

[@guykibler255]

Ubuntu was the first distro I ever used! I got introduced to Ubuntu/Linux through a defensive cybersecurity competition called CyberPatriot; one of the virtual machines we had to secure was an Ubuntu system. I don't currently use it, but it introduced me to Linux and a whole new world in computers.

[@youzernejm]

Ubuntu with Gnome 2 - ah, the memories! Although, I've liked the orange 8.04 better, I have more nostalgia for it. However, I was a very unfriendly user towards Unity and Gnome 3. I've tried Mint because sometimes needs must and was completely shocked how it just worked - it remained my distro of choice to this day. While Ubuntu 8.04 and later were stable and user friendly, some things didn't work nearly as well for me.

[@ThirdEyeGoat369]

Ubuntu 10.04 introduced me to Linux and I loved it, but definitely agree with you regarding today's Ubuntu 😔 I'm now running Fedora and enjoying it. Just don't recommend upgrading right when the next release comes out. Wait a few months for them to iron out the issues.

[@slim_2280]

10.04 was my starting point refresh after Karmic Koala. Loved Lucid Lynx, after getting the right resolution, usually 1024x768 resolution. Don't get me started on NVIDIA Drivers.

[@EmilyRose0]

You make a good point AGAINST Fodora. I keep coming back to Ubuntu, it's the most polished and stable distro out there. I last used open USE Tumbleweed, and it was a pain to have to update 1000+ packages every few days, well I did not "have to" but I was just doing it out of boredom. They also do not provide any automatic security updates AFAIK or separate security updates from regular ones. I need a Virtualbox machine for work, and it broke like every update and asked me to allow the insecure USB pass though every single start. I imagine Arch is similar. So rolling release it for sure not for me. The entire distro was buggy. I used KDE because I thought for years that I liked it better, used Kubuntu a lot, but the cutting edge version was buggy and quirky and not published. I do not use most features anyway, and Gnome got features like right click "always on top" now that KDE does not even have, and putting an extra button on the app bars caused it to bug out. I really do not give a fuck if me DE or apps are 6 months "outdated". Browser apps are not, and you can just use a PPA or snap for every app you need the latest version on. For me, there is no reason to use any other Ubuntu derivative. I played around more than enough with different distros over the years, Ubuntu's installer supports a ZFS setup now that is basically one reason I went with SUSE because of the BTRFS default setup. But now I can even have snapshots perfectly integrated and the probably even better file system on Ubuntu.

[@afborro]

Having used Linux since 1993, I just realised while watching this I never ran Ubuntu as my daily driver .. ever, nothing against them, but that's how it is :). Ran it in VMs for testing/compiling code on occasion, but nothing else. I see POP_OS is the new Ubuntu, the only one I am aware of shipping NVidia/AMD ready installers, that can save beginners a lot of hassle. For instance, to this day the open source Nvidia driver does not play with my fancy monitor, so I got to do all that no modeset kernel stuff and then cement in NVIdia afterwords. That would be a no go for beginners, unless they use POP which doesn't have that issue by having the driver ready to go. Cheers, good video Nick.

[@afborro]

@@dougtilaran3496 The good old days. I recall building Linux the first time, just before Slackware, and the kernel was literally 1.0.. Compiling pretty much most of it from source, to get a running X compiled took about 2 days on a 486, before one could admire Xeyes :)

[@DIEmicrosoft]

@@afborro My first linux was redhat 5.2 I think, aug '98. 386dx with 16mb's ram and 256 mb hard drive. Minimal install was too big so had to go custom. No idea what I needed so just started clicking boxes till I got a workable install. Must've had over 30 attempts. Compiling the kernel took 5 or 6 cups of coffee and two late night horror movies, that was IF you got it right the first time. Didn't bother me because windows 98 was the alternative. Tried em all, on my 19th year with slackware.

[@ONoesBird]

I am still using ubuntu 20.04. Happy with it.

[@lunakittyyy]

I've tried a lot of the distros listed here, Ubuntu always did better in terms of ease of use. All my selfbuilts did not have video drivers out of the box when using Mint, while most other ubuntu based distros like Pop did. I don't like Zorin because of their cookie-cutter 'pro' edition which just has some preinstalled already free software, but with a price. Fedora worked fine, but OBS refused to record any of my audio. Arch-based distros worked for the most part, but it still has a lot of weird packaging quirks and I've had way more general issues with them. At the end of the day, Ubuntu has always gotten these fine for me. What average beginner is going to care about what GNOME version they have under the hood? If it runs and it works better than the competition, why should it matter to me?

[@FlorinArjocu]

It is exactly the stability and conservatory way of Ubuntu which makes it so good for new users and for companies. And the long term support it essential in a corporate environment. Imagine having Fedora during the pandemic with at least one online conference per day and Zoom would not work properly /and /or without sound. Pardon my French, but I could not care less about the latest Gnome (except for removing features and adding some bling, the differences are minor between versions; it took 10 years to copy some Unity features amd some are still missing like finding an app in the search even if you misspell it) if one essential app does not work properly because of some "modern" package it comes with by default (pipewire). It has problems even now. Regular users don't want to tinker, they want it to work. And snap just works for us; for the extra security it brings, the speed of the new(er) compression, the possibility to not include dependencies and not duplicate resources as the system knows if a library is in memory and does not run it twice, the extra capabilities flatpack misses, I welcome them. From what I see here, not that many are simple users, so for this audience, any distro would probably work just fine.

[@Alexander-is9jo]

Ubuntu is perfect for people that just want to use apps on their OS. No hassles

[@FlorinArjocu]

@@Alexander-is9jo Inwas curious and I tried for short periods some other distributions, but always came back to Ubuntu. Some bling does not help when you need a system for work, production. For me it is simply more dependable, reliable, with a huge userbase and pretty much every software there is for linux is available for Ubuntu.

[@jvkanufan8115]

Fedora has been my daily work driver and I generally love it, but the sound issues in Skype-for-Business have been a pain I do have to admit.

[@FlorinArjocu]

@@jvkanufan8115 Yes, my point exactly. Forgot about skype. For work, having the latest uncooked technologies is not an advantage.

[@jvkanufan8115]

@@FlorinArjocu I've installed Debian along side for just that reason, and it may replace the Fedora partition. Been thinking of using Fedora on a more powerful desktop box to host VMs tailored for various purposes. In my limited experience, Ubuntu has been a bit less stable relative to Fedora, Manjaro and Debian for me.

[@JacoBecker]

Ubuntu brought order to chaos many years ago. It is sad that it has devolved into the current state. Excellent commentary thank you ! Zorin is fantastic in the Education space and the Edu bundle is a great collection.

[@andrewwigglesworth3030]

"Ubuntu brought order to chaos" ... what on Earth are you going on about?

[@Redeem195]

Couldn't agree more. My father refers to any distro as a "type of Ubuntu" which almost seems worse than knowing nothing.

[@CB-bo3tm]

I have been using Ubuntu for the past 15+ years. What I do not like is Snap.

[@azrael-labs]

Personnally i use the MATE desktop for Linux Mint 21.1 Vera now. (bcz i'm a developer, i modified the base kernel to a kernel fully compatible with Threadrippers and AMD radeon PRO latest gpus with the maximum performance)

[@barriewood9336]

Its fashionable to knock Ubuntu. I'm neither in the fanboy or hater camp. For me it is stable, usable, and the Budgie edition and its themes / layouts are superb. I use OpenSuSE, Fedora, U/Budgie and Mabox - all have their strengths, weaknesses, best use cases. Linux is about choice and variety and these distros ( and others) give it to you amply. No bad choices, no best distro for noob or experienced user alike- just something YOUlike / works for YOU. That can be Ubuntu or something else entirely!!

[@ricardomlp]

Totally agree!

[@DarkGT]

I used 20.04 for over a year! This things is rock solid daily driver. It broke on me because likely I broke it. The 20.10 and 21.10 of the Ubuntu and Pop had issues with my configuration so I went with Fedora, which turns to be the worst experience I could have. Random high cpu load, nvidia driver issues, screen flickering and slow boot. After few days I went back to Ubuntu based distro. Ubuntu have Long Term realizes for a reason and I prefer the stable, tested and supported versions of Ubuntu over the more bleeding edge disroes. Yes I hate Snaps and I like Flatpak, yes I prefer newer software, but I can live with what I got. If I can get to spend some time I can make the 22.04 more likeable OS.

[@neffscape6353]

Well... it's true that ubuntu is not anymore leading the way in Linux desktop. And as you said, everything changed after Shuttleworth decided to drop Unity and Canonical convergence strategy. Ubuntu decided to become one of the many linux distros, focusing on other easier, more lucrative businesses. What it's not true however is that ubuntu is lacking behind other distros. They have their strategy, and it's a different one from fedora.They decided that GNOME 42 and libadwaita wasn't ready yet for an LTS, and I agree with their decision. People don't install LTS distros looking for a bleeding edge experience. They want something stable and well tested. They also decided to stay consistent with their Desktop branding an layout, and that's a good thing. In addition, I personally find Yaru one of the best themes out there and I think that Ubuntu looks amazing. What it's seriously making it difficult to recommend it to newbies is their decision to force snaps down users' throat. I wouldn't care that much if snaps performances were good, but snaps really have problems on the desktop, and those issues are absent with flatpaks. What really makes my blood boil is that Zorin, Mint and other popular Linux distros are actually using Canonical work and create better distros just by patching and adding cherries on top of ubuntu: like zorin that enables flatpaks, snaps and debs out of the box. IMHO ubuntu should drop interim releases and focus on LTS releases only, with an always updated, rolling distro to fill the void between releases. They should ship apps as flatpaks only. Or greatly improve snaps to the point snaps and debs perform equally.

[@Slitnical]

I think manjaro is a pretty good beginniner distribution, it is based on the hardest and not so beginniner friendly distribution Arch Linux. But gives Arch Linux a fresh coat of paint to make it good for beginniners.

[@derkjh]

It is not

[@1Maklak]

Linux Mint with Cinamon is pretty good. The GUI even works a lot like Windows 7 or XP. Just choose classical taskbar in the welcome screen.

[@kaylenm]

Ubuntu may go in any direction they want, I'll forever be grateful to it for introducing me into Linux, both on the desktop and, later on, on my server. As always, great video with well made points, I really enjoyed watching it!

[@philzeo]

Man I love only office. It's my one and only office suite where I can use it and I'm glad they've sponsored you! Thanks for another great video sir!

[@jonumand]

I feel like Fedora has become the "standard" Gnome distro and Fedoras Spins can be considered the most stable versions of the DEs. Nobara, the Glorious Eggroll version of Fedora Workstation and Fedora KDE, is super stable and very easy for beginners to use

[@onibon1990]

Somehow anything non-Debian seems to be more difficult to get into and get support for extensively. Great for experienced Linux users though

[@oraclejmt]

@@onibon1990 Not anymore. Fedora and OpenSUSE has actually catched up in this field in recent years.

[@xheralt]

Even a decade ago, I always found 'buntu to be noticeably slower on the (low end) hardware I had than other distros. Especially the Unity DE. But their hardware recognition was unmatched, and I had to fall back to Lubuntu for one particular netbook whose wifi chipset was not only Broadcom, but an uncommon Broadcom, at a time when other distros were phasing out such support. So, "never say never".

[@danielx555]

Lubuntu was the first distro that I was basically super happy with. I have some fun feelings for it still.

[@sarowarhosen003]

I hope @ubuntu team notice this issues. It's very important for Ubuntu future

[@mr.anirbangoswami]

My first taste of Linux was Ubuntu 12.04. Yes, the word LTS attracted me xD. I remember staring at my screen in awe just thinking about the fact that there was something other than windows. I couldn't believe it. So I burned it on a cd and live booted it. I was amazed by the glassy look and the universal menu bar. This was when I was 14. So yeah, it's the DE that drew me to a distro. And i didn't know either of those words back then xD

[@ruelsmith]

I've know this for years. Ubuntu has tried to go its own way time and time again and adoption of their projects have went nowhere. I used Ubuntu/Kubuntu through 3 releases and had enough. Linux Mint for beginners, then let them explore their options once they feel comfortable. Mint is great as a daily for any skill level. I've bounced all over since 1998, and I'm sort of back where I started. I started with Red Hat 5.0, and I'm on Fedora 35 as a daily. I've come full circle.

[@fatbeard8072]

Agree, it is still usable but not like how average GNU/Linux users use their favorite flavored Distro. Ubuntu back in 2012/13 is were I started and after a year stopped and went back to Windows due to lack of knowledge on my side and lack of usability on Ubuntu's side. I am a LM distro user since 2019 when Win 7 stopped being supported and I have tried other Distro's for the fun of it but keep coming back to LM. I heard this is a reason why LMDE has been made just in case Ubuntu just stops being supported. One day LMDE will be good enough on it's own though*fingers crossed*.

[@pfranklin]

For myself, I never liked the Unity desktop but it was simple to add the XFCE desktop and to keep the support of a large Ubuntu following.

[@HikingFeral]

I really like Ubuntu and with the right key-bind changes and tiling windows etc, it can be as casual or superuser as you want it to be, What I love the most about Ubuntu is how stable and compatible it is when it comes to gaming. I will probably change to Mint for a while when 23.09 stops receiving updates but Ubuntu is always an exceptional choice not only for beginners but also for people who just want their gaming PC to work at all times with 0 problems.

[@MyReviews_karkan]

There is a freeze after suspend on Ubuntu that's been happening for the last 3 or 4 years that they still haven't fixed until today. You can tell they don't really care much about the desktop that much anymore.

[@Watchandlearn91]

Ubuntu on Unity was my favorite operating system ever. It's how I got started with Linux and it's what I used for two years in college and loved it. When they killed Unity, I went somewhere else and always wished they had continued. I understand why they didn't though. I also know you can still get unity but it isn't the same now.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Unity was so cool

[@jothain]

I hated Unity.

[@Watchandlearn91]

@@jothain The consensus seems to be that people either loved or hated it. I loved it but I know a lot of older developers that hated it.

[@ZonyaZeraora]

Audacity simply has its own theme system separate from the os, even when you're not using snaps, you must change the program's settings manually. It is possible however, that another distribution will modify the configuration automatically.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

No, in Fedora, it follows the theme automatically

[@karlingtonbanks898]

@@TheLinuxEXP He's actually right. I compile audacity and by default it doesn't use the system theme. The Fedora package maintainer must preconfigure it do so.

[@woobilicious.]

@@TheLinuxEXP audacity uses wxWidgets, even on windows it looks a bit wonky.

[@extenos]

0:25 really pulled a linus there didn’t you

[@jellurabo]

I started using Linux in 1998 when I purchased Turbolinux and eventually moved on to Mandrake. Downloaded Mandrake over a 56k connection. Took about 12 hours and I had to learn how to compile the kernel to support my Cyrix processor. The Linux distros I cut my teeth on were Model-Ts compared to the current state of Linux which are more akin to Teslas. You can't go wrong with any of the current popular choices. I transitioned away from rpm based distros to Debian stable and didn't look back for years. I'm not a fan of snaps but everything works for me with zero need for fiddling under the hood.

[@PavakPaul]

BTW in my opinion, the desktop is alright as you've mentioned at the end that it just works, and without issues or inferior vanilla gnome experience. Other applications can be managed with PPAs and flatpaks (or even snaps, they are very useful for CLI applications). The main issue in my opinion is old kernels. Yes the security updates get backported to the kernel but think about latest hardware and drivers. There is no easy way to install and maintain an up to date kernel in Ubuntu and this sucks the most along with snaps.

[@davidc.890]

After installing Ubuntu 22.04 last week and being forced to use the Firefox snap instead of a native package, I finally switched to Fedora. Better flatpak integration, more recent gnome apps - the overall experience is way better. The only drawback is tab autocompletion taking forever when using dnf.

[@igorthelight]

Why not Pop_OS tho? :-) That's literally "a better Ubuntu".

[@davidc.890]

@@igorthelight Pop shares many problems with Ubuntu: delayed Updates, even more flavored version of GNOME etc.

[@davidc.890]

@@turanamo Why? It's great if you don't know the exakt name of a package (“gnome-tweaker”? “gnome-tweak-center”? “gnome-tweaks”!) or if you are to lazy to type a long name (“golang-github-opencontainers-selinux-devel”). Since I switched to fish as my default shell, tab autocompletion is no longer a problem.

[@davidc.890]

@@turanamo Konsole is just a terminal emulator (=the GUI), whereas fish is a shell (the command-line interpreter, the most common one is bash). So Konsole should work fine with fish, because it just replaces bash.

[@igorthelight]

@@davidc.890 True-true. All Ubuntu-based distros do.

[@ozrencupac]

It got me into linux as well But it does almost everything wrong It uses gnome which isnt the fastest or the most customizable It uses snaps that nobody likes It has a ton of useless services at boot that make it boot slow... Thats why i think linux mint is better for beginners

[@TazerXI]

Agree with most, but with gnome. I think gnome is heading towards being a great, all around user friendly, and consistent user experience, great for a beginner. But Ubuntu is the only distro I know to actively push snaps (Manjaro supports them, but doesn't promote them), they are slow, and just not as good as a flatpak. I will always choose to promote an ubuntu based distro, than ubuntu itself. There is no advantage in comparison to other like linux mint, pop os, zorin os, etc.

[@richterman3962]

@tazer Say that if you will, but gnome developers hate feedback and actively remove features

[@ozrencupac]

@@TazerXI gnome is good But the way ubuntu implemented it is not The side dock is great but has lots of issues with the gnome animations And its slower on ubuntu that on other distros(i have no clue how)

[@TazerXI]

@@ozrencupac oh yea, the gnome implementation isn't good. I don't like the side Dock, and how it takes up all the screen, at that point just add it to another panel to save space

[@CasperLabuschagne]

In 2004, I ditched my NT-4 workstation for Ubuntu 1.04 and never looked back. However I abandoned the Ubuntu desktop over a decade ago, preferring to do a minimal Ubuntu server install with i3-wm on top of that. Lately I simply install LX-Qt with I3-wm on top of that. I am seriously considering Manjaro as the OS on a future Linux workstation over Ubuntu. I have to replace my now obsolete iPad and since what I use the iPad for is browsing the web and viewing KZbin, the logical replacement is an HP Chromebook that allows me also running the core Linux software I use. I use a large number of snaps on Ubuntu and am now somewhat dependent on that format.

[@anthonyjackson280]

I have always found that Linux Mint, both Cinnamon and Mate (for lower spec machines), has the best out of box performance. I seldom have to install drivers or codecs. I periodically try Fedora, SUSE with KDE or whatever GNOME is offering. They have never been as smooth as Mint. APT package management is so well refined and always has much quicker update and install times than RPM or whatever RH currently uses. I disagree about Synapatic. I always install it, it may not look pretty bit it is efficient and minimalist. That said for applications I know by name command line "apt-get install can't be beaten. For clean installs a simple script using it installs all the applications I need routinely.

[@Ekyllier]

I use to stand out in recommending openSUSE as the best distro for a number of reasons that I won't make an essay out of here rn but, interestingly I have changed that stand to now something like Manjaro solely because of Valve's SteamOS 3.0. MANY many people will now be unknowingly using arch and if even 5% of those new Linux users decide to tinker, they are going to need to learn arch. For this reason (just as flatpak as beaten snap), I have accepted arch as the new head of Linux. I'll want to play with SteamOS when it is released but for now I'll stick Tumbleweed.

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

Manjaro and Arch are not the same thing. SteamOS is closer to vanilla while Manjaro is... Manjaro.

[@narwhal4304]

@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 True, but Manjaro also has a GUI for installing apps, updating the system, and is overall a better recommendation for new users than vanilla Arch IMO.

[@bittokazi249]

I used a lot of distro and eventually came back to Ubuntu. It's the most reliable out there period. Highly recommend.

[@senselessinductor7921]

After Arch, I could never go back.

[@bittokazi249]

@@senselessinductor7921 nice bro, I respect your choice and distro. we both use linux BTW.

[@usrbinluna]

Ubuntu has only gone downhill since the snap integration, and the switch to GNOME in my opinion.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Agreed!

[@ultraderek]

I’ve been using popos 20.04. I think it’s ok. I’m thinking about using Ubuntu Budgie for 22.04 this next time around. Should I try a different Distro?

[@thomasmaule6067]

I never liked the gui on ubuntu, gnome or unity. Kubuntu feels good though and It's my daily driver

[@michaellacock]

Ubuntu 16.04 was the golden age of Ubuntu in my opinion. I used to daily drive Ubuntu at that point in time.

[@aDumbHorse]

I've tried almost every "main" distro out there on my laptop and Ubuntu 20.04 is still the one that runs flawlessly. Tried Fedora (my second favorite distro) and my poor laptop would randomly freeze and the fans going full force, the same would also apply to the majority of distro. Ubuntu might get the middle finger of part of the community (and pretty much is the punching bag of the linux "evangelists" as some would label them) for the last 4 years or so and get complains about it not being up to date (if I want that, I would just install Arch), but it's always the one distro that works out of the box for me. I hope things stay like this for the next LTS

[@paulstubbs7678]

I have been using Ubuntu for years, as a secondary environment to Windows, (I keep hoping for better Windows soft integration so I can drop windows) However it seems to be slowly getting dumbed down with every version. It seems to do less and less, a very slow slide, but a slide nevertheless.

[@mucklus]

Ubuntu is simple, straightforward and you can start using your computer ten minutes after installation. Gnome, of course, is a very ugly shell. Why to have a pseudo-smartphone interface on the desktop is not very clear to me.

[@TheSpamMuncher]

I used Zorin OS, it is based off Ubuntu 20.4, but is fast.

[@GregoryMcCarthy123]

I think you brought up a lot of good points, especially about the dreaded snap. However, if you are an open source developer, I would recommend Ubuntu, mainly because literally everything will run on it for development. You can find installations for everything. Also, if you want to do machine learning with gpu acceleration it is fantastic. I think the UI leaves a lot to be desired. But yeah if you’re an open source developer, chances are a lot of your production apps will be run on Ubuntu, and I try to develop on the OS which is closest to the production environment my apps eventually get deployed to. Anyways you brought up really good points and it’s a great video in my opinion

[@calberto]

I'm an open source developer and OSX has been fantastic, I don't really miss Linux (any from Debian/Mandrake/Suse/Redhat/Ubuntu). OSX runs basically everything just fine, with the exception of specific components.

[@rstcologne]

For me the top 5 reasons against Ubuntu are snaps, snaps, snaps, snaps and snaps. Everything else you mentioned is a matter of perspective. Ubuntu adopted a middle ground between very conservative distros like Debian and bleeding edge distros. This is just a tradeoff between stability and early feature availability. In the end it doesn‘t really matter (to me). But the snaps are just painful, slow, resource hogs and they have numerous issues. I certainly prefer native apps and as they continue to add more and more packages to snap format, I‘m about to leave.

[@TransparentGlass1]

Interesting, after having a 4 year leave of linux world, the only thing that now interests me to try the new Ubuntu is actually the snaps.

[@rstcologne]

@@TransparentGlass1 Give them a shot. I do think that such app bundles are generally a good idea. However purely from a user experience I don't like the way Canonical did them for Ubuntu. They cause problems and they are slow. Chromium as a snap for example is horribly slow to start in comparison to traditionally installed chromium.

[@TransparentGlass1]

@@rstcologne I will give them a shot for sure. Very probably the Ubuntu Studio as it was my last linux version that almost worked well out of the box. The best linux distro with usable tools and good configuration out of the box imo. Btw. I like how Canonical is making a decision here regardless of backlashes amd hope they continue to do so. Desktop linux versions have been a 1000 part picture puzzle with all unfitting parts. One can never get a full picture from this. And this was the first firm step to unify some stuff. I am a software developer myself and if they continue listening to the minor "loud community", linux will continue to fail grabbing market share. What normal people need is something like an andriod version of desktop linux where everything works without the need to even launching terminal once.

[@MohamedBadawiEgypt]

@@TransparentGlass1 Well said!

[@kittikajorns1811]

@@TransparentGlass1 And so.. it will become next M$ Windows.

[@agnaysrivastava]

When I installed 20.04 lts last year as my first distro, the lack of applications I saw before me staggered me. Now having used arch and finally settling on bedrock running on top of endeavour i just don't understand the entire headache with Deb and apt repositories. The aur is 5x simpler to use and with something like pamac even noobs can actually install up-to-date software in a matter of seconds instead of running around like a headless chicken adding repos or fucking around with snaps, etc. Would never recommend anything other than arch based distros to any new user. It gives you insight into linux while still being user friendly.

[@anthonyfmoss]

That Agnay is an excellent point

[@armeddeafboi7276]

Lmao I just got on ubuntu as my first linux os experience and i never really got the adding repos crap and it never really tells you what you have to do to get what youre possibly trying to get done, done.

[@harleyspeedthrust4013]

ubuntu desktop may not be so hot but ubuntu server is fantastic. use it for all my server needs

[@eccololo]

Great video. What is the best Linux Distribution for beginners in 2024?

[@lakeborne5514]

Ubuntu 23.10.1 This video is almost 2 years old. Don't depend on it too much.

[@eccololo]

@@lakeborne5514 thank you very much for your answer and have a wonderful day 🙂.

[@euphoriccatface9441]

While I have moved on to Arch (btw!) and Mint, I respect how Ubuntu is still managing to be the go-to distro for newcomers. HOWEVER, I have one definite reason to dislike Ubuntu's direction: diverging the effort of the F/OSS community as whole. That's what I really feel bitter about Ubuntu - since Unity and since Mir. I very much welcome experimentalism as an Arch user (nudge nudge wink wink). But, why start Mir, when Wayland was just starting to shine its light? Why start Unity, when Gnome3 has just arrived? or even why not any other alternatives like Mate, Cinnamon, or Enlightenment (not to mention the ones of the siblings)? I remember Compiz which was the coolest thing ever, and also was half my excuse to start Ubuntu. That project was under Ubuntu, when it was pushing forward F/OSS hard aligned with the community.