06-08-2024, 10:46 AM
Now that Ubuntu 24.04 has been out for a month or so I thought I would check what the reaction has been. As predicted not so good I would say.
It's actually sad for long time Ubuntu users, more so for newcomers coming from Windows. I ran into brick walls when asking questions on Ubuntu forums and gave up.
The big issue is Snaps and how Canonical hijacked 'sudo apt install' and turned it into 'sudo snap install'. They could have been honest about it. The issue I identified earlier this year is that Snaps are really AppImages that have been signed by Canonical. Except that the AppImage format and by extension Snaps relies on other packaging systems to establish dependencies. So an Ubuntu system is destined to start to break as dependencies fail to be met. I don't think a Snap pack can provide dependencies for other Snap packs. If you know the answer to this drop it in the comments.
The other thing I didn't like was 'Ubuntu Pro' which is supposed to be an updating enhancement except now you have to provide an email address to Canonical. I think Canonical was cynical about what they bundled into Pro. Ffmpeg and Imagemagick are there and now VLC has been added. These are packages that don't have a clear-cut GPL license because of video codecs etc. Strange users didn't need Canonical as a middle man last year but now they do?
I think Ubuntu has started to punish users who don't enable Ubuntu Pro and they will stop other things from working. A waste of time really because apparently lots of things aren't working.
I've been around long enough to know the foundation of many distros has been their packaging systems. Debian had debs and RedHat/Fedora had rpms. I've made both and the bar was set high on purpose with these packaging systems. Now apparently we don't need to worry because faceless backroom boys will do it all. Isn't that the exact reason most of us switched to Linux? So we could use the OS how we wanted.
It's actually sad for long time Ubuntu users, more so for newcomers coming from Windows. I ran into brick walls when asking questions on Ubuntu forums and gave up.
The big issue is Snaps and how Canonical hijacked 'sudo apt install' and turned it into 'sudo snap install'. They could have been honest about it. The issue I identified earlier this year is that Snaps are really AppImages that have been signed by Canonical. Except that the AppImage format and by extension Snaps relies on other packaging systems to establish dependencies. So an Ubuntu system is destined to start to break as dependencies fail to be met. I don't think a Snap pack can provide dependencies for other Snap packs. If you know the answer to this drop it in the comments.
The other thing I didn't like was 'Ubuntu Pro' which is supposed to be an updating enhancement except now you have to provide an email address to Canonical. I think Canonical was cynical about what they bundled into Pro. Ffmpeg and Imagemagick are there and now VLC has been added. These are packages that don't have a clear-cut GPL license because of video codecs etc. Strange users didn't need Canonical as a middle man last year but now they do?
I think Ubuntu has started to punish users who don't enable Ubuntu Pro and they will stop other things from working. A waste of time really because apparently lots of things aren't working.
I've been around long enough to know the foundation of many distros has been their packaging systems. Debian had debs and RedHat/Fedora had rpms. I've made both and the bar was set high on purpose with these packaging systems. Now apparently we don't need to worry because faceless backroom boys will do it all. Isn't that the exact reason most of us switched to Linux? So we could use the OS how we wanted.