00:00 Intro 00:29 Sponsor: Get maximum MS Office compatibility with OnlyOffice 01:24 The Golden Age of Ubuntu 03:02 Abandoning the Desktop 04:38 The Desktop Problem 06:45 The Apps Problem 09:27 Ease of Use 10:50 Ubuntu is still good 11:56 Sponsor: Get your Linux laptop or desktop! 12:28 Support the channel
Ubuntu was glorious, back then. It single-handedly turned the Linux desktop from something that was only usable by really knowledgeable people, into something that was really accessible to the masses, even then.
Then in short succession, they dropped Unity, version 7 for the desktop, and version 8 which was meant to be the successor, that brought convergence between device type, they dropped Mir, their display server that was meant to replace X.org and be an alternative to Wayland, and they basically settled for GNOME 3.
Ubuntu has a desktop problem. Since it basically abandoned the leadership of the desktop to the community, it also doesn't seem to anticipate things very much. Which means that the extensions they apply to GNOME pull them backwards.
Waiting 6 months to get what everyone else has sucks, and you get a Frankenbuntu mishmash of versions of apps and libraries, that can't really be as stable as having the whole lot on the same version number.
Ubuntu also has fixed repo versions for apps, desktop environments, and libraries. Only security fixes come through, apart from a few apps, like web browsers. This means that this frankenbuntu is locked in place. If you use 22.04 LTS, you're never getting the full GNOME 42 in your repos.
Ubuntu also has an apps problem. Ubuntu pushes Snaps, their own containerized solution.
On the desktop, Snaps have issues. These issues were shared in the past by other similar formats, like Flatpak, or Appimages. But nowadays, it's really, really late to the party. It doesn't support dark mode integration. It doesn't integrate with themes. it doesn't offer a way to solve these issues, contrary to Flatpak and the Flatseal app for example.
Because it uses fixed repos, without feature updates, it needs a way to bring application updates to the desktop, and this way, is supposedly Snaps. The issue is, the snap store doesn't seem to have as many desktop apps as Flathub has, and snap as a solution is getting increasingly outdated, slow to launch, and less well integrated than Flatpak. It's also being aggressively pushed to Ubuntu users, and this impacts downstream distros, for example, Canonical decided to only ship Chromium as a Snap, which meant that other distros, like Linux Mint, had to take on the burden of packaging and maintaining it themselves if they didn't want to adopt the snap version.
Ubuntu is still very easy to use. But its crown in terms of "the easiest distro for beginners" is long gone. Nowadays, plenty of options are better than Ubuntu for complete Linux beginners.
Linux Mint has a relentless drive to keep working on what made Ubuntu great in the first place: everything must have a GUI to configure it. Zorin OS does as well, **even though its GNOME implementation is also a frankenbuntu, or frankenzorin or whatever.**
These 2 options alone are, in my opinion, much better for beginners than Ubuntu. They have more quality of life features, like built in accent colors, more configuration tools, and they support more software, plus all the software made for Ubuntu.
Hey guys, this is Nick, and Ubuntu got me into Linux in 2006.
Without it, no way this channel exists, no way I'm ever interested in Linux at all,
and no way I have any computer interest at all apart maybe from gaming on it.
Still, the Ubuntu of today isn't the Ubuntu of old,
and it's evolved into something that I just can't recommend to beginners anymore.
Let's see why.
Why you shouldn't use anything else than today's sponsor as your office suite.
This video is sponsored by OnlyOffice, the free and open-source office suite
that's fully compatible with Microsoft Office documents formats.
OnlyOffice has a desktop app available in virtually every packaging format
you might want on Linux, but it also runs on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
The interface is super intuitive,
especially if you've been using Microsoft Office, as it's really close.
And if you want to have your own office suite in the cloud,
you can also run your own OnlyOffice server and link it to Nextcloud,
OwnCloud, Confluence, SharePoint, Redmine, Jira, and a lot of other services.
I personally only use OnlyOffice on all my computers running Linux or otherwise,
and I also have my own OnlyOffice document server linked to my Nextcloud server,
so I can edit documents online or offline using the desktop editors.
Check out the link in the description below and give OnlyOffice a try, you won't regret it.
Okay, the Ubuntu of old. It was glorious back then.
It single-handedly turned the Linux desktop from something that was
only usable by really knowledgeable people
into something that was really accessible to the masses even then.
Ubuntu worked hand-in-hand with GNOME to push that desktop forwards,
add configuration utilities, fix thousands of small usability issues,
allow users to have a nice-looking graphical app store instead of a package manager.
Sorry, Synaptic, you were cool, but you're still ugly and unfriendly to this day.
Without all the work Ubuntu did back in the day, up until Unity was dropped,
I don't think the Linux desktop would be as usable as it is today.
Ubuntu really put the focus on UX, usability, graphical utilities,
and I have a feeling that GNOME's current focus on UX wouldn't be a thing without Ubuntu.
Some people will probably hold that against Ubuntu.
When GNOME moved to GNOME 3, Ubuntu decided to go their own way with Unity.
And while the first versions weren't amazing in terms of performance and stability,
by the end of that desktop, it was probably one of the best options
for a fully polished shell on Linux.
Even their failed projects showed that they had an eye on the user experience,
on the convergence of devices, on gaming, on offering an integrated ecosystem.
You had Ubuntu One, the Ubuntu Music Store, the Ubuntu Edge Phone, Ubuntu Touch.
All of that pointed towards a real will to be as user-friendly as possible.
And then, the Fire Nation attacked.
Or maybe it was the Shareholders Nation.
After the failure of the Ubuntu Edge Phone,
if you can call collecting 11 million dollars in pledges a failure,
after that failure, it seemed like Ubuntu just gave up.
In short succession, they dropped Unity,
version 7 for the desktop,
and version 8, which was meant to be the successor,
that brought convergence between device types.
They dropped Mir, their display server,
that was meant to replace X.org and be an alternative to Wayland.
And they basically settled for GNOME 3 plus 2 extensions,
a dock, and notification icons.
And yeah, there's also a theme.
The visionary for the Linux desktop basically decided that it had sunk enough money
trying to make that thing happen,
and that they would just coast on whatever was being developed.
The money is in the server and IoT space, not on the desktop.
So why bother?
It might just be me, but it felt like a betrayal.
The company, the distribution that made the Linux desktop viable,
decided that it wasn't viable in the end,
and that they would just have that desktop distro
to keep a presence in the consumer and enthusiast space.
How dare they prioritize money in the open source fields!
Those monsters!
Jokes aside, this betrayal is not enough
to make me not want to recommend Ubuntu anymore.
Lacking ambition or lacking a vision
doesn't mean that you're not usable or you're not a good choice.
After all, Ubuntu still has one of the biggest communities.
It's one of the most established brands and names in the desktop space.
It still has regular updates.
You can still find PPAs or dev packages for everything.
And its implementation of GNOME is usable.
So why not recommend this distro anymore?
Well, Ubuntu has a desktop problem.
Since it basically abandoned the leadership of the desktop to the community,
it also doesn't seem to anticipate things very much.
Which means that the extensions they apply to GNOME pull them backwards.
Ubuntu doesn't follow the GNOME release cycle anymore,
which means that you're always at least one version behind.
Oh no, what are we gonna do?
Wait six months to get an update?
Don't laugh, it's a real problem.
Waiting six months to get what everyone else can have sucks.
But also, this is done in order to update their extensions
and make sure their desktop still works.
But it has unintended problems.
First, they still ship updated versions of some applications, but not of all apps.
You'll get Nautilus version 42 in the next release of Ubuntu.
But you won't get GNOME 42 with the vast number of improvements it comes with.
You'll get GNOME 41, released six months ago.
What's the issue with that?
Well, you get a mishmash, a Franken-buntu system
of applications and libraries made for one version or another.
And it just can't be as stable
as something that just used the whole release as a complete system.
Ubuntu also has fixed repo versions for apps, desktop environments, and libraries.
Only security fixes come through, apart from a few apps, like web browsers.
This means that this Franken-buntu is locked in place.
If you use 22.04 LTS, you're never getting the full GNOME 42 in your repos.
If you want GNOME 42, you'll have to move to 22.10,
which won't be in LTS, and will release when GNOME 43 is out.
And also, you'll get a Frankenstein monster of GNOME 42 and 43.
Basically, Ubuntu is not a current distro.
It's a distro that ships something that's been released six months ago.
Some people might not be bothered by that, but a lot will be,
especially since a lot of users are now used to get regular updates on their phones.
Even when their OS doesn't get any system updates anymore, they still get app updates.
And Ubuntu also has an apps problem.
Ubuntu pushes Snaps, their own containerized solution
that was initially designed to create Ubuntu phone apps through so-called click packages.
These guys really like their finger-related sounds,
or maybe they just hope that things would click or snap into place.
But whatever the reasoning for this name, they have been contorted.
This packaging format has been contorted to work on the desktop.
The team that is developing them is focused on IoT and server, not desktop.
And in these fields, Snaps are great.
My own Nextcloud server is a Snap.
I installed it in one command line, and it's been running ever since,
getting auto-updates, and it never crashed or failed.
On the desktop, though, Snaps have issues.
A lot of issues.
These issues were shared in the past by other similar formats, like Flatpak or Appimages.
But nowadays, Snap is really, really late to the party.
It doesn't support dark mode integration.
It doesn't integrate with themes.
It doesn't offer a way to solve these issues,
contrary to Flatpak and the Flatseal app, for example.
It doesn't use the new portal system to enhance security and sandboxing.
And more importantly, it's a packaging format
that's increasingly being left out by other distros.
It's virtually only there by default on Manjaro and Ubuntu.
Even Ubuntu-based distros remove Snap from the base package,
like Linux Mint or Elementary OS.
And since I have way too much empathy and I see that no one wants these Snaps,
now I want to adopt them all.
Anyway, Ubuntu has an app problem.
Because it used fixed repos, without feature updates,
it needs a way to bring application updates to the desktop.
And this way is supposedly Snaps.
The issue is, the Snap store doesn't seem to have as many desktop apps as Flathub.
And Snap, as a solution, is getting increasingly outdated,
slow to launch, and less well-integrated than Flatpak.
It's also being aggressively pushed to Ubuntu users,
and this impacts downstream distros.
For example, Canonical decided to only ship Chromium as a Snap,
which meant that other distros like Linux Mint
had to take on the burden of packaging and maintaining it themselves
if they didn't want to adopt the Snap version.
Basically, Ubuntu seems to be betting on the wrong horse
in the future-of-Linux-app-distribution race.
Every other distro that's relevant for beginners has adopted Flatpak.
Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Zorin OS, Manjaro all have Flatpak by default.
There's also the Steam Deck that only runs Flatpak apps on its desktop mode.
This means that publishers will increasingly adopt Flatpak
and leave Snaps behind,
which means less apps on Snap and so less apps for Ubuntu in general.
Now, Ubuntu is still very easy to use,
but its crown in terms of the easiest distro for beginners is long gone.
Nowadays, plenty of options are better than Ubuntu for complete Linux beginners.
Linux Mint has a relentless drive to keep working
on what made Ubuntu great in the first place.
Everything must have a graphical user interface to configure it.
Zorin OS does as well.
Even though its GNOME implementation is also a Franken-Buntu or a Franken-Zorin.
These two options alone are, in my opinion, much better for beginners than Ubuntu.
They have more quality-of-life features like built-in accent colors,
more configuration tools, and they support more software.
Plus, all the software made for Ubuntu.
Other options are catching up as well,
even though they still have issues that prevent them
from being as user-friendly as Ubuntu yet.
Elementary OS has a laser focus on usability,
ease of use, and having the most polished experience.
Only the lack of software by default in the App Center holds them back.
Fedora has a super smooth GNOME desktop.
It's updated fast and constantly.
It leverages Flatpak to distribute applications.
And only its outdated and infuriating installer holds it back.
Other beginner-friendly distros are circling,
and Ubuntu isn't the king of the hill anymore.
They're barely top 3 and they might drop out of the top 5 in a few years.
They're basically just coasting on the brand name at that point.
Still, Ubuntu isn't bad.
It's still a good distribution for beginners.
It has one of the most abundant online documentation.
Every tutorial has instructions for Ubuntu.
It has huge help forums,
and it's also generally one of the main officially supported distros
for commercial software.
Its GNOME implementation works, even though it's not up to date.
It has access to plenty of software, if you don't care about feature updates.
And snaps, while inferior to alternatives in my opinion,
are still serviceable, if you can swallow the long start times.
Ubuntu is perfectly usable by beginners.
It's a good distribution.
But it's also no longer the best choice for beginners, in my opinion.
When people used to ask me,
what distro should I use?
I'm starting with Linux.
It was Ubuntu.
No questions asked.
Nothing touched it.
Nothing came close.
Nowadays, I just don't recommend Ubuntu anymore,
because there are other alternatives
that can serve everybody's use case with less issues or with better tools.
So thank you for your service, Ubuntu.
You'll always have a place in my heart.
But nostalgia doesn't help beginners.
But what will help newcomers though,
is buying a device with Linux pre-installed on it.
And on that front, Slimbo got you covered.
They're based in Valencia, Spain,
and they make Linux laptops and desktops.
They ship worldwide.
They have all keyboard layouts.
And they have devices for every price point.
For example, the Slimbo Essential.
It's a great entry-level laptop at a low price.
Good specs.
Great build quality.
Great screen.
Good keyboard.
I reviewed it on their channel.
Click the link in the description below
if you want to check out Slimbo's products.
They are really good.
So thank you everyone for watching the video.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, don't hesitate to like and subscribe
and turn on notifications and write a comment
and give me your firstborn son.
Whatever else can help.
And if you didn't like the video,
you can also dislike it and tell me why in the comments.
If you want to help support what I do,
you can join my Patreon subscribers
and my YouTube members.
Both get access to a weekly Patreon cast
and the right to vote on the next topics I'll cover.
So thank you guys for watching,
and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye!
