2024 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop, at least for my boyfriend. He's running Windows 7 right now, so I'll be switching him to Ubuntu in a few days. Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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All these people saying "use this or use that distro instead" is why Windows users don't go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners because that's a distro with a lot of tutorials online if not the most.
There's a lot of people out there that hate to hear this, but ubuntu is probably the best gateway to Linux we have at the moment. Go ahead, let them come in on the distro that's pretty well supported, preconfigured with everything on and newbie friendly, then once they've cut their teeth, let they have the option to move to something that's a little more tweaked.
I've used Ubuntu for 10 years. I love it for stability, ease, and simplicity If i need to do anything there are plenty of guides. I learned how to do a lot of cool stuff on linux but I don't really need or want to do any of it.
Mostly I just pirate movies, use a vpn, torrent, listen to music, write. My career doesn't require much computer stuff. Why should I try something different?
I'm not working with a huge amount of interest in or energy for complicated customization. I just wanna turn it on and have it work.
Power to you, friend. But with current snap store out of the box it's really hard to recommend Ubuntu to anyone. Linux Mint seems such a better choice to newbies.
At the end of the day it's not really a big deal, people should just use whatever feels best.
What is wrong with the snap store? It's not something I'm aware of.
I go to terminal. I sudo apt-get
I get Firefox, I get my VPN, I get deluge, I get my audio player.
I use those things. I sleep well at night.
If you use apt-get you aren't using snaps, you are unaffected.
Snap is a format created by Canonical which has a really funky proprietary back end. The default application store in Ubuntu uses this format and has been plagued with an impersonation problem. Since everyone could submit snaps there was a lot of spyware posing as legit software. My main gripe was when the snap store just decided to unilaterally close and update my Firefox while I was using it.
Linux Mint does NOT have snaps and even had a debian based version. Pretty neat
Correct me if I am wrong, but
apt-get install firefoxinstalls the snap version unless you go out of your way to fix that?Yep, it installs the snap version
apt uses debians packages and debian repositories. Unless they recently created an alias or something, it should install debian packaged version!
I was under the impression the latest "firefox" package was a kind of "meta" package that caused the snap to get installed instead.
Certainly seems that way according to: https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=firefox
Note that 22.04 is described as a transitional package to snap.
Apt does use debian packages (.deb files), but on ubuntu it uses ubuntus repositories.
Even worse than I thought, then :/
They've introduced a couple of redirects so that the snap version gets installed.
As a windows user who's been doing some research and looking to switch this is really the post I needed to see. I know everyone seems to have their favourite distro and means well when suggesting them but its nice to have someone point out a distinct beginner friendly one with no caveats.
To be perfectly honest they're all fine. Most of the major distributions are install it and run it. If you try one and you don't like it don't get discouraged try another. If you have trouble getting your hardware working on one try a different one.
I don't get what the fuck is the problem with Ubuntu anyway.
Edit: I mean I heard the reasons many times but they are completely non-issues for me.
It's about Ubuntu behaving lightly like Microsoft with a closed source backend for the store, having had ads in the apps drawer, putting ads on the motd in cli with apt... It's small things like these
Base Mint now is just Ubuntu but with bullshit cut out. My first and current one was actually Debian, but at this point I'd rather recommend Mint)
They are mostly more technical and architecture based issues. Also the model of the whole ubuntu ecosystem. At least for me.
There's not really a "the problem".
Canonical's intentions don't line up with what is best for the linux community.
But in the end of the day Ubuntu is still linux and it's fine if Ubuntu's tastw of linux is what you want.
I am back to Ubuntu now and I like how it just works out of the box. I might try some other ones later knowing I can go back to Ubuntu if I want to.
I somewhat disagree. Sure, telling windows users they have so many options will overwhelm them so it's best to just give them 1 or 2 options. But telling other linux users who are about to put/suggest linux on someone else's computer that there's better options is good.
For example, let's take Ubuntu pushing snaps. A noob won't know what they are, and there's good chances they will have a bad experience with them and not understand what they are, they will probably think it's a Linux problem rather than an Ubuntu problem and there's a good chance they will leave linux because of them. I personally learned the problems I was having at the start of my linux journey were problems with snaps only because I read it somewhere in the zorin discord server or something like that. If it wasn't for that I would have thought it's a linux problem. Tho this wasn't easy information to find and I was already well on my way to becoming a Linux nerd and I was interested in learning more, but the average user, in my experience, doesn't know/want to look these things up and if you try to explain to them there's a good chance you'll lose them halfway through (which is normal, package managers aren't a fun topic) Telling a linux user about it and that linux mint (for exampel) may be a better introduction for their resident noodles doesn't run the risk because they're already a linux user.
I use Ubuntu for my VMs, and Snaps never feel bad. Why are Snaps bad? At this point, I am only aware that "Snaps are bad" because people keep parroting that idea. Is there an empirical benchmark that compares the "speed" (whatever that is defined as) of a Snap app vs other packaging formats? If there is a claim to be made, there should be evidence supporting it.
If we're going by anecdotal data, then I have had fewer Snap issues than Flatpaks and Rpm. So technically, Snaps are superior, according to my experience. At that point, it becomes an anecdotal debate, which is meaningless.
for some people snaps work, for most they don't. If they work, we all good, but when they don't people will blame Linux for this issue. And that's just snaps there's a lot of shady bs Canonical is doing. Meanwhile we know Linux Mint's packages, for example, work well and rarely has anyone complained about them. There are some benchmarks but that isn't the main issue.
I showed him the thread, and he agreed. He was surprised by how strongly people felt about distros.
Personally, I think I never would have gotten as many comments as I did if not for mentioning the distro!
I dislike GNOME, but I would still recommend Ubuntu to anyone, because it just works. There's no reason to recommend Arch Linux or openSUSE etc. if someone never used (GNU/)Linux before.
You literally did the thing you're decrying in the very next sentence.
"The problem is everyone telling Windows users which distro to use. Which is why I'm telling them they should just use Ubuntu."
No I did not. My actual opinion would be to recommend Nobara OS. What I did was agree with OP's decision. It doesn't matter in the end which they use but if someone is deadset on Ubuntu and you hear several people saying "pick mint" "no pick pop os" "no actually Debian" it becomes overwhelming. Agreeing with OP's decision does not make me a hypocrite.
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