Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released

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72 pointsdgavrilov113 comments

I still remember when I found out about Ubuntu 100 years ago.

It's clear to me that Ubuntu is no longer in fashion. So what is popular these days? From what I heard, I think it's Fedora or Arch (such as Omarchy), but only with some slick UI stuff like Hyprland and Caelestia.

Whatever just works.

Ubuntu used to be the Debian that just worked without tweaking.

Today I find Debian to be the one which’s works without tweaking, and Ubuntu the one where one has to undo/disable lots of Ubuntuisms.

So for me: Server is Debian. Laptop is Arch.

I recently revived my old gaming PC from 2015 and I wanted to install Pop!_OS cause that was the cool new-ish one everyone's been talking about. But I straight up could not get it to install on my hardware (I think my GTX 970 is too old for official support)

I ended up installing Mint and it's Good Enough™

Why does fashionibility matter? It's an OS, it just needs to work well. Ubuntu still does that.

> Ubuntu still does that.

Debatable.

    - Snaps.
    - Replacing something battle-tested with something written in Rust, MIT licensed, with 140 CVEs and other bugs (uutils).
    - Pulling rugs and replacing debs with snapswithout telling it, because "it creates positive pressur e on the snap team and drives the quality higher".
    - Staggered rollout of some updates, so update is there but you can't update because the your system didn't feel like updating yet.
    - Promising to open source Snap store to allow alternative stores and forgetting what they had said.
    - Bullying Debian to push their changes to Debian to offload software maintenance (they wanted to make netplan the default in Debian, for example).

... etc, etc.

Note: You can disagree with this, and we can discuss this with cool heads, if you prefer.

Snaps did it for me, that's when I moved away to plain Debian.

I never used Ubuntu outside VMs to test Ubuntu-specific stuff. I used to have a colleague who installed Ubuntu as defacto server OS, but I replaced them with Debian step by step.

I see your point is basically snap bad.

And as a software maintainer who publish to all distributions, I wholeheartedly agree.

Nope, snap is bad, but how they modify apt to slow-rollout updates and bully Debian to offload things are equally bad. They became the Microsoft of the Linux world while trying to replace it.

They are moving with self-interest, not with a collective interest. Considering what Ubuntu means, that's bitterly ironic as well.

Shame.

Its far too hyperbolic to say they became the Microsoft of the Linux world.

I'm glad they are moving with self-interest, and that self-interest is Ubuntu and its users. For example, systemd the launcher and netplan are net good for Linux.

The word Ubuntu and self-interest are the exact opposite of each other, isn't it ironic?

If you're managing a fleet, netplan works for simple network configurations, and it doesn't work with Desktop systems at all.

For anything complicated, NetworkManager is much more capable and not more complicated than NetPlan to work with.

systemd is a different can of worms. I'll not open it here, today.

No its not ironic.

NetPlan works great for all network configurations.

Some of the things that annoy me re: snaps are:

1. the update process is separate from the main system update -- "close this program to update, or will forceably update in X days" notifications;

2. breaking desktop file links where an update can create a duplicate file and after the old snap is removed it removes your pins to the taskbar;

3. possibly breaking other things due to the way the snap directory for the app is not stable.

I can't understand the snap hate personally. Snap packages are very easy to create and i like being able to install e.g. a language toolchain in a self contained way that doesn't depend on or pollute my system libraries. And ultimately i use a distro because i trust its maintainers, i can't bring myself to get upset about what package format they choose to use

Hate is such a strong word. I don't hate snaps per se, but its design and push as a technology is a deal breaker for me. A showstopper, if you prefer the term.

As a person who uses Linux for both technical and ideological reasons, the freedoms are equally important for me as well as the technical merits.

A system behaving the way I can't control and I can't replace is a no-no for me. Can I opt out of Snaps? No. Is there a well defined set of Snaps? No, they are spreading inside my system. So, can I replace the Snap repository I use? No, Canonical dictates and controls that side of the deal.

So, can I install a self-contained toolchain without Snaps? Yes. There are multiple ways. Also, can I use .deb and related machinery without Snaps? It eliminates Ubuntu, but that's possible. Can I self-host my repositories for any of the non-Snap technology, controlling it end to end? Again, yes.

So, any non-snap technology which can provide what Snap claims to do is way more usable for me, and more compatible with my computing requirements, technical and non-technical equally.

I'm currently abandoning some SaaS I use and moving to self-hosting, and if I decide to have my own .deb packages in my own system, I can do that. Same for containers and flatpak as well.

I don't get upset with the technology, but how it's forced upon me.

Hope that helps.

Not really, you can't opt out of apt without changing distros, or opt out of systemd without changing distros. So why does snap in particular elicit this reaction. Like every distro "forces" its design decisions on you.

I get the repo thing, kind of. I mean i don't understand it being a showstopper but i do think it's valid criticism. The rest, though, is just distro maintainers doing what they do: making design decisions. Like i said elsewhere, i just can't understand caring about how the maintainers choose to package the packages they maintain, it doesn't affect me. It's not being "forced" on me any more than their choices to use AppArmor or systemd or whatever other base system components.

Edit: the reason i kind of like snaps, other than being easy to make, is that unlike flatpak, they can bundle CLI apps. What alternative is there for a portable, contained CLI package on Linux? You just use docker for everything?

> you can't opt out of apt without changing distros

Yes, however apt/dnf/emerge/etc. are main package managers of the systems. They don't slowly overtake packages you use or the repositories of other distributions do not quietly offload package installations to other package managers (e.g.: apt install firefox triggers snap installation in Ubuntu. This is malicious behavior). Brew, flatpak, etc. live alongside your default package manager peacefully.

> systemd without changing distros.

I'm not a fan of systemd, and let's leave it there. We're talking about package managers.

> Like every distro "forces" its design decisions on you.

True in a sense, but none of the distributions have forced their semi-closed source metastasizing package manager on me mid-flight ever, except Ubuntu.

As I said in my previous comment, snap has two problems: closed backend, metastasizing silently, pulling the rug silently under me. Both are not problems of Snap, but how it's pushed on users.

> I get the repo thing, kind of. I mean i don't understand it being a showstopper but i do think it's valid criticism.

Simply put, I have principles. It's important for me to able to host a piece of infrastructure end to end if it comes to that. Snap doesn't allow me that, hence it's Canonical bound. This is not acceptable for me, period.

Before you ask, yes I can compile a Linux distribution end-to-end if it comes to that. I used to build a Debian derivative distribution.

> The rest, though, is just distro maintainers doing what they do: making design decisions.

In this case, Canonical the corporation is building a closed, revenue generating system for themselves. This is not an "engineering process for the sake of better Linux package management". Companies can pay Canonical to have storefronts on Snap store. It's a commercial product, like Ubuntu Landscape. Make no mistakes there.

> I just can't understand caring about how the maintainers choose to package the packages they maintain

Not everyone are emotionless about how and where they put their packages. Communities and how users and developers are treated matter a lot. Packaging a software is not a mere engineering decision, but deciding to interface with a community and communicate with these people.

> It's not being "forced" on me any more than their choices to use AppArmor or systemd or whatever other base system components.

Don't forget your apt package might become a snap tomorrow, without your knowledge with an apt upgrade. I mean, snap is not forced in any way. It just eats package you have. If it doesn't bother you, more power to you.

> other than being easy to make

You can build a binary, lintian-clean .deb package in 5 minutes flat. Been there, done that.

> that unlike flatpak, they can bundle CLI apps.

I beg your pardon: https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.neovim.nvim

> What alternative is there for a portable, contained CLI package on Linux? You just use docker for everything?

Besides Flatpak, you can use Brew and AppImage at least. If you need something fully contained but not Docker, you can use Podman or Apptainer. It runs as a user, compatible with Docker if you need, is free, fast and lightweight. We use rootless containers on our systems where more than a couple of hundred users login at the same time. Nobody leaks anything to other users, and they are very lightweight.

> apt install firefox triggers snap installation in Ubuntu. This is malicious behavior

See, this is just crazy thinking to me, sorry. It's in no way malicious. The system package manager is managing system packages, some of which happen to be Snaps. That is not malicious.

> Don't forget your apt package might become a snap tomorrow, without your knowledge with an apt upgrade. I mean, snap is not forced in any way. It just eats package you have. If it doesn't bother you, more power to you.

Right: it doesn't, and it won't, because i simply do not have any reason to care what binary format my distro maintainers use for their system packages. All i care is that the system packages are reliable and up to date. Nothing is operationally different between the two for me as a user, so it means nothing. This would still bother you even if the Snap backend were open source and self-hostable?

And no, deb packaging is a lot more complex than Snap packaging, i have lots of experience with both.

That neovim flatpak is genuinely the first I've ever seen for a CLI app. If it's possible then i wonder why there's so few of them. Flatpaks for language toolchains would be quite nice (since i currently like using Snap for those). Podman/apptainer are not actual replacements imo, they're a different class of tool. You don't get automatic updates, you have to manage bind mounts and such.

> See, this is just crazy thinking to me, sorry. It's in no way malicious.

Without any hard feelings, I'll agree to disagree here. It's apparent that our perspectives are very different, and that OK.

> And no, deb packaging is a lot more complex than Snap packaging, i have lots of experience with both.

I didn't package Snaps, but I was churning close to 10 .deb packages a day. I'll not ever agree that .deb is a complex package format. It can become sophisticated, but not complex or hard. At least for me.

> If it's possible then i wonder why there's so few of them.

I have no idea. I may play with it too, someday. However, it's apparent that there's no barrier for it.

> Podman/apptainer are not actual replacements imo, they're a different class of tool. You don't get automatic updates, you have to manage bind mounts and such.

While automatic part is true, but can be done with a simple cron. To manage the mounts, etc., I write a simple wrapper and put it in /usr/local/bin or ~/.local/bin depending on who's going to use that, and it works.

I've been using Ubuntu for years and admin a whole bunch of Ubuntu servers for work - I originally chose it due to it having more recent packages than Debian and it's relatively easy to find information on fixes due to its popularity. What bugs me the most with snap is that the system insists that I close down e.g firefox or signal, so that it can be updated. That's annoying as are the frequent notifications that there's an update waiting for me to close down the program.

Don't get me wrong, I like frequent updates, but it does seem like a major flaw with snap that it doesn't update as easily as apt-based packages.

I mean an apt update of Firefox also doesn't get applied until you restart the app, there's just no mechanism to remind you to do so. I imagine you can turn the reminders off?

An update to the apt version of Firefox used to happen in the background, so yes you didn't get the new version until you restarted it, but you didn't need to shut it down to apply an update.

There are ways to suppress the notifications (e.g. set a specific update check time) but I'd rather just have updates applied as soon as they're available. It's awkward that there's now two separate software updating mechanisms.

Interestingly, if you ignore the notifications, the app will forcibly close after 2 weeks to apply the update which could conceivably result in loss of work/data though I doubt that people get caught out by it very often.

As far as i can tell the Snap also updates in the background though? The notification is just to tell you that you're on the old version? Other than the notifications and the forced 2-week restart I'm really not seeing what the difference is

> As far as i can tell the Snap also updates in the background though?

No it doesn't. My issue is that it doesn't update in the background if the app is open, so you have to close the app, let it update (maybe 5 seconds or so) and then re-open the app.

Can't stress enough how bad snaps have been.

Even when you do an apt install chromium , it does a snap install .. the worst part is snaps don't even work well everywhere.. (add to that the complexity of x11 vs wayland vs vnc)..

Yes snaps are not great, but they can be removed.

Netplan is great, Debian should go with that, though without the bullying.

Otherwise, I'm not sure how Ubuntu isn't still good.

Making netplan the default breaks the Desktop environment and NetworkManager through and through. This is why it shouldn't be the default.

Netplan is already present in Debian you can install if you want to use that.

You can't remove snaps from Ubuntu, because you lose half of the Ubuntu software that matters when you remove it.

However, if you fancy Snaps, you can add it to Debian, as well.

> Otherwise, I'm not sure how Ubuntu isn't still good.

Any system doing things behind the administrator of that system is not good, that's the point. Ubuntu is now its ecosystem. You either buy into it completely, or don't. This is why many people doesn't like Ubuntu in professional settings.

If you buy into Ubuntu and don't care about Linux at large, it's a bearable product up to a certain point.

No I want NetPlan on Ubuntu because it works way better than anything else.

I can and have removed snaps from Ubuntu and had no issues with losing software I needed.

Ubuntu is not doing things behind the admin of that product, so not sure of that complain. I buy into Ubuntu because I care about Linux at large. Its more than bearable, its great.

The popular OS is more likely to be either directly tested by people writing software, or already have bugs filed/fixed for edge cases because more people are using it.

Ubuntu may not be fashionable but it's still very widely deployed

I said popular. Fashionable is just one type of popular.

And Ubuntu is still extremely popular so I'm not sure what your point was then

Popular OSes will have better software support

Ubuntu is ubiquitous, so it's popular and therefore you'll have a better experience with software support

[X fashionable distro] is fashionable, so it's popular and therefore you'll have a better experience with software support

I'm still using Ubuntu at the moment. But at least curious about what's popular tiday. There are usually at least minor technical rationales. But also it's like anything else to a certain degree, fashion is dumb, but you still don't want to be obviously out of touch.

Ubuntu is like the Windows Vista of Linux. Bloated, loaded with a bunch of questionable software, some mystery-box proprietary duds like Snap, and sometimes ads and bad behavior by the parent org. Also hit-or-miss performance.

If it's a server: Debian Stable or Rocky Linux (choose according to taste).

If the person can put in the work and doesn't need bleeding edge software: Debian Stable.

If the person can put in the work, the machine is in a secure environment, not going to serve anything and is a desktop system: Debian Testing.

If the person can't put the work and wants something working: Fedora.

If the person wants to dive deeper: Arch, Gentoo, LFS.

Note: Debian needs some work not because it doesn't work out of the box, but it doesn't do any customization on packages. So tailoring things according to your taste takes time. Then it becomes so customized it almost reads your mind and feels like home.

Debian had some nasty bugs in Rust packages because they do modify them.

Care enough to file bug reports? I don’t write rust, otherwise I’d gladly help you with the filing, but I can guide, if you want.

I've been A/B testing the desktop side of this. If the person doesn't mind reading a wiki page every now and then and has a few hours to set up the OS on the first day, Arch (without `archinstall`) works better for "wants something working."

The reason is that, people eventually need proprietary / old / unsupported software, and AUR often has it out of the box, and when it doesn't, at least the dependencies are already there. On the other hand, beginners (even some experienced but busy guys) might agree with a problematic `apt` plan and uninstall the desktop, and it goes downhill from there (can't repair the system because they never built it in the first place, or cannot go back to the original configurations, etc). For instance this can happen because the user tried to install a `deb` package for an older release.

That being said I can't remember seeing fedora fail this way, though the user might have to manually clone / build a dozen more git repositories to install the same unsupported software. This was a deal breaker two years ago (lack of AI help), but now it's just time consuming.

This is the conventional wisdom, but there are some new distros that shake things up imo. For people who are migrating from Windows to Linux Desktop, I'd recommend the following:

* Low maintenance + most familiar to Windows Users => Linux Mint

* Low maintenance + don't want custom packages => Aurora (or any immutable distro)

* Low maintenance + gaming => Bazzite

* You want the ability to install or customize whatever you want => Arch Linux

Maybe there's a middle ground between the low maintenance distros and Arch Linux, but for me I'd rather go all in on low maintenance or all in on customizability.

> Low maintenance + most familiar to Windows Users => Linux Mint

Familiar to Windows users of 2003 - 2010.

I still like Ubuntu for a few reasons. The design. Dock on the side. The fact that it's really popular and well supported.

But of course feel free to distro hop yourself.

I've settled on NixOS for things I manage - servers, VPCs, laptops/pcs. Not gonna rehash its pros/cons, but it really clicks with me. Also, very useful for project dependencies and things that doesn't need to be installed just because are used once a month.

I just keep using Ubuntu anyway. Servers, raspis, WSL, laptops, it's nice to just have the same system everywhere

I'm still on Ubuntu and I'm not sure I'm dedicated enough to bother with Debian (especially on a niche laptop, I run Debian on servers), but everything I'm seeing about the new Ubuntu releases makes me want to switch to Mint once 23 (26.04 base) comes out.

for every use case, you can use NixOS haha

- in the server

- desktop ui

- NAS

- ci

- dotfiles

- ultra compact docker image

- microvms

- development environments

- SmartTV? NixOS

- build your docs? NixOS

- wanna control a fleet? NixOS

- build ISOs?

- wanna control brew declaratively? NixOS

- secure environment? NixOS

I was an Ubuntu member for years; got a certificate from Mark Shuttleworth, a cool @ubuntu.com email and IRC cloak, contributed to Ubuntu a ton, gave public talks around Brazil in schools and events like Latinoware, ran a pretty successful blog about the distro here in Brazil, was co-leader of the LoCo team in my state. You could say I was very invested in Ubuntu.

Still, I can't recognize the distro anymore. We got ads, things being pushed down the community's throats, the insane hiring process, and so much more. I have very fond memories of my time as an Ubuntu member, and I wouldn't be where I'm today if it wasn't for what I did as a member, but I left years ago when all of this started.

Been using openSUSE ever since. I don't contribute to openSUSE as I did Ubuntu, as I don't have the time anymore, but the decisions are sound, the system works incredibly well and stable[1], and the voice of the community is heard by leadership. I'm pretty happy with the choice.

[1]: Heck, it works so well that I even run Tumbleweed, a rolling release distribution, on servers.

CachyOS is probably the new hip one (Arch-based). The new "I use x, btw" would be nixOS. Arguably, the distro matters a lot less if you use containers or flatpaks for most things (which I'd recommend). So there's nothing standing against using just boring Debian stable these days, or Fedora if you want to be more up to date. If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment, should work on all mentioned.

Arch is great, but stick with stock or go for CachyOS, which prioritizes modern compiler optimizations and speed. Omarchy is DHH's vibecoded slop and I'd stay all clear of it.

Really interested in CachyOS. On their website it seems like they don't have the new Nvidia driver 595?

Not super familiar with NVidia's numbering scheme but I see 615.78.08 in the repos, presumably newer than 595?

1 - https://packages.cachyos.org/package/cachyos-extra-v3/x86_64...

Yeah CachyOS worked without any driver problems.

Ubuntu is fine, and it was the distro that got me into Linux.

For years I ran on Mint, and I still adore it. But on my daily driver I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and I am really enjoying it so far.

While not necessarily indicative of the Linux world as a whole, the Distrowatch page hit ranking is pretty useful to see what people are looking up over there. Mint and MX Linux have been at or near the top for a while while CachyOS shot up a lot recently.

https://distrowatch.com/ and look at the side bar on the right.

The MX Linux rating on distrowatch has always been bizarre because most people haven't even heard of it before, let alone knows someone that runs it.

> the Distrowatch page hit ranking is pretty useful to see what people are looking up over there.

No it is not.

You think that the Distrowatch.com-published ranking of page hits per day on Distrowatch.com is not useful for seeing what visitors to Distrowatch.com are looking up on Distrowatch.com? Fascinating.

It will be another hundred years before their market share ticks up another 3%. Distros. What a worthless dead end endeavor.

Linux Mint is the go-to distro. It’s default branch is Ubuntu based but they also have a “Debian Edition” which IMO works fantastic as Debian with a great UI.

Despite of the shortcomings, I'm still sticking to Ubuntu. It's boring, and occasionally break things. But at least it's not hostile.

If you use the words like "still" and "at least", there is little enthusiasm. But that's how a long-term relationship looks like I guess.

The silent forced replacement of deb packages with snaps during regular apt updates is pretty hostile, IMO.

That sounds bad. I just haven't encountered it personally (or didn't notice).

Ubuntu started doing too much weird or non-standard stuff, so I moved all my servers to Debian.

Previous releases was MIR, Upstart, Snapd… This release it’s no X11 and GNU Coreutils replaced by buggy Rust rewrites.

Debian feels more like pure FOSS and in general just better. None of that icky flavour in the back of your mouth.

I don't like Ubuntu. It was born with the intent of making Linux more user friendly, it changed policy wanting to become the Microsoft of the linux world: Snap, Mir. And then why use a derivative if I can stay on the original? I love debian: stable, it creates the right environment to feel at ease without the fear that every update can break something. Old software? flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably. The distro is slow? It's not true, maybe many don't know the magic of debootstrap. Many say that arch is fast, but the base rootfs weighs double that of debian and the speeds are comparable

Seems that this release still allows for coreutils (rm, cp, etc) to come from the GNU folks in addition to the Rust-based uutils:

* https://packages.ubuntu.com/stonking/coreutils

See "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils" from last month:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49696697

Used to love Ubuntu but they dropped X11 support so I'm out

(I'm fine with Wayland for those who want it but it still breaks things I've used)

*Gnome dropped X11

Agree. My next upgrade from 24.04 will be to Debian.

Is X11 no longer in the repos? It's not mentioned in the release notes. I thought it was still there as an option, but GNOME dropped X support so it can't be the default anymore (and isn't on most other distros either like Fedora)

I searched around when ubuntu did that 'unity' switch a LONG time ago, found Mint, and have been on it all this time. The team has repeatedly showed themselves to be calm, sober, sensible decision makers - I still use mint the same way I started. They are not prone to fits of 'redo everything', force this, snappify everything, simplify everything so that nothing can be done. Version to version, things just keep getting better, slightly, improving upon the previous version, without breaking what was working fine.

Linux has been daily driver for ever, I have never, in my 30+ years run windows as my main desktop (went from DOS directly to linux, slackware at that time). I hate things being forced on me, changing out from under - its very disruptive.

Linux Mint - just works. And has been for a long long time. Thanks to a small, brilliant, sensible, stable team.

just upgraded an old notebook from 16.04 to 18.04 :) i’m surprised they kept the files up for such a long time.

...but why?

The oldest commercially supported release at the moment is 14.04 so of course they will have the files.

There are both ISOs and apt packages all the way back to the first release here: https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/

I left ubuntu back during the unity desktop days. It was a great desktop for beginners, but not my cup of tea. Since then they put ads in their operating system and embraced these nonsensical snap packages, so I'll never go back to ubuntu.

Instead, I'll probably move everything over to Void next.

Im on Void Linux and using X11 too. While i do a lot of my config using an LLM these days, i do find the system simple again. No SystemD, no wayland etc (This works. great for me as im on a desktop with a AMD GPU and well supported HW. If i was on a laptop i would use Wayland probably).

I personally consider Ubuntu an irresponsible choice. They hold back security updates unless you subscribe to Ubuntu Pro with the 'esm-apps'. I'd rather use a distro that doesn't apply a ransom to security updates.

How do they compare with Debian for the same updates?

From my experience Debian uses much older versions of tools which has caused me many problems in the past (I need newer tools sometimes) but they do backport security patches fairly quickly. Supposedly 'testing' doesn't always get security updates, and 'unstable' is the wild-west of broken packages.

Would it be fair to say that the Ubuntu thing is quite reasonable, then? Presumably it's expensive to maintain this, and they already give away so much for nothing.

> I personally consider Ubuntu an irresponsible choice

Absolutely. Injecting ads into the desktop and cli, having a package manager that runs as a root service, their decades of poor upgrade testing, etc.

I have never found them to be trustworthy when other, better options exist.

Is Ubuntu pro just a paid extension for the LTS?

If so, why pay for that rather than upgrading? Honest question.

May not be able to easily replatform the application running on top of the 5-10yr server or VM.

LTS also only covers core OS components with security updates, not the 30k+ packages available in the repo...

Yeah I can see a niche situation where it's helpful, it's just surprising to me that it's a common enough case to make it a business line.

Someone may run into some issues upgrading their one server, and decide to power through it. Enterprises create a project plan, have meetings, get QA involved, identify risks, mitigate them, need sign off from the security team, not just on the new Ubuntu version, but they may talk themselves into re-certifying the entire bla-di-blah. For them it makes economic sense (in the short term) to just pay for the support plan that keeps them "compliant" and comfortable on the current version.

And this, among other things, is why I like the agency that small companies should be able to offer you.

I've been in the room more than once where this conversation has happened:

IT guy: We must upgrade our shockingly ancient [database|OS|whatever]. The long term support patching costs are $X thousand and we are out of compliance with corporate security policy and they are threatening to deny our exception.

Exec: How much does the new license cost?

IT guy: $Xk + $1.

Exec: Is corporate security going to pay for it?

IT guy: They don't usually do tha...

Exec: No.

IT guy: Bu...but...

Exec: One more word out of you. Just one more word. Fucking try me.

> Yeah I can see a niche situation where it's helpful, it's just surprising to me that it's a common enough case to make it a business line.

Critical industries are slow to make changes due to risk and regulatory requirements. Spend any time at non-tech Fortune 500 or similar and you'll run into this all the time.

Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it. Also, most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic.

All applications need maintenance. Either you do it at application level to keep on top of its dependencies or you do it at OS/3rd party level. Either way, someone wants to get paid.

> Sure, but if you are such a situation, then paying for Operating System is probably cheaper than paying engineering time to fix it.

Yes, that is the entire point of what I said.

> most stuff these days could probably be shoved into a container and thus extremely distro/version agnostic

It depends on if it's an in-house app or managed and built by a 3rd party (may void contract). Also depends on the risk of life/monetary loss if something goes sideways.

I agree, since that move I've migrated everything I had running on Ubuntu to Debian, with the exception of my big blue button VPS whose installation script is really tied to it.

What? Ubuntu Non-LTS, which this release is, support window is 9 months of support and LTS is 5 years free + 5 years paid.

That's well spelled out here: https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

You can also just upgrade your LTS and continue to get support for free.

This is what I don't understand, I have 24.04 LTS and yet it still holds back gstreamer for example, and other security patches. I just don't get it, and it brings it up with a list every time I update. It's mid-cycle, shouldn't it have those updates included automatically without any intervention on my part?

Ubuntu is surely controversial but no, security updates aren't paid. ;) Well, unless you need an LTS that cannot be updated for whatever reasons for 10 years. Or for people that need an extra FIPS approval.

sound like FUD, ubuntu don't hold back security updates for their LTS distro , move to newer LTS one if you wanna secure your system, same goes to Debian or RedHat or Windows , who wanna maintain older Debian 9 security or Windows 7 secuity update.

https://ubuntu.com/pricing/pro

Look at the descriptions

https://ubuntu.com/pricing/pro

Ubuntu Pro:

Expanded Security Maintenance for Ubuntu’s Main repository for an additional 5 years beyond Ubuntu LTS end of standard support (infra-only)

Coverage levels Infra-only coverage Encompasses over 4,700 open source deb packages in Ubuntu’s Main repository for an additional 5 years [...]

Full-stack coverage Provides security maintenance for over 36,000 open source deb packages in the Ubuntu Universe repository for up to 10 years, including [...]

TLDR: They withhold Ubuntu patches in the Universe repo without Ubuntu Pro.

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If Canonical creates a security patch for a universe package, that patch is gated behind Ubuntu Pro. Standard systems will display notification prompts that security updates are available via Ubuntu Pro, but running sudo apt upgrade without Pro enabled will skip them.

Yes this FUD, EOL-ed LTS support individually same goes to older debian , older redhat or older EOL-ed windows , better you migrate to supported LTS-one , like move from EOL-ed debian to stable Debian one

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-pro-faq/34042 -- they don't do that really

From their FAQ you linked:

Ubuntu Pro is an additional stream of security updates and packages that meet compliance requirements such as FIPS or HIPAA, on top of an Ubuntu LTS.

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There are additional patches they are releasing that aren't contributed upstream for either security or compliance features.

... unless you're a Ubuntu Pro subscriber

It's free for personal use on up to 5 machines

Link? I can only see a 30-day free trial.

https://ubuntu.com/pro/subscribe

> Free, personal subscription for 5 machines for you or any business you own, or 50 machines for active Ubuntu Community members.

No they don't.

I only want to know one thing: did they finally fix the main usability problems with Snap?

Or at least acknowledged them?

Based on Canonical's track record with previous project I'm just waiting for them to give up on Snap.

Questions like this are easier to answer if you specify which problems you refer to. They have fixed a ton of issues since it was added to 22.04. If the issues you complain of is fixed or not, that is impossible to answer without more information.

My biggest issue is that I cannot start a snap program, e.g. firefox, and allow it to access different mount points than the one used for snap.

I know there have been partial fixes and workarounds, but if they change what it means to run a program in Linux and unexpected things happen, then I consider that broken.

Also, when I use VNC and xeyes works, then I expect any X11 program to work. Except, this does not always hold for snap based programs somehow.

These two points together make snap unworkable for me.

There is a flag to install a snap in classic mode, which I think would allow it more access, but I've not seen more fine-grained control than that. Perhaps it exists, I have not had a reason to look.

As for X11, I'm on Wayland and wouldn't expect xeyes to work. What X11 programs still is used seems to work fine in Xwayland, but I don't use VNC so I don't know how they interact.

So I don't know if these are solved, sorry. I suppose I have simpler needs.

OK. But as you can see Snap is breaking abstractions that have worked for decades ... And these are just the basics of running applications.

Part of that is much of the point behind snaps (and just as true of flatpack for that matter) - once applications are put into sandboxes many things break. And while it is often easy to erect walls against unwanted use it takes a lot of thought building abstractions that let people do what they need in a controlled way that don't leave the system as open when compromised.

But yes I agree, it is definitely a big change compared to how things traditionally have worked. The question is if it is a necessary direction.

Well, if access to my filesystem stops working as expected, then I'm sure many people would agree that is not a desired direction ...

Linux has traditionally used the model of: users are suspect, applications are trusted; of course you can ask questions about that, but don't flip it upside down while breaking stuff. For example, I would probably be OK with it if they added a popup asking me to set permissions. But instead, it just breaks.

Reminds me of the "Stonky Kong" meme

stonks?

Stonking is British slang for large/huge/etc. For example, "Labour won by a stonking majority."

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