I wonder what percentage of desktop users still use Ubuntu nowadays. Seems like there’s no way to have a clear picture, besides DistroWatch which is more like “interest” and not actual usage?
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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At my work, Ubuntu was the only Linux distro that was used on the desktop.
Some of my relatives use Linux, all Ubuntu.
The only other person I know who uses something else is also a hardcore nerd and professional sysadmin. He uses OpenSUSE.
Outside of the tech bubble, Ubuntu is still synonymous with Linux.
Everyone I know IRL who uses Linux uses Ubuntu. Sample size of 5.
The corpo I work for uses both Windows and Ubuntu for software development workstations. Lately a lot more Ubuntu than Windows. That's a sample size of a thousand.
The official distro at my job is rhel.
Yeah, that's pretty much the only other option for corpos.
Suse? No evil dipshits and on par with RHEL, at least how far i can see
I still use it. With all its faults, I still think it's the best distro out there.
As a fellow Ubuntu user, I think there are distros that are technically superior. But at some point I just got tired of chasing the best option. I just want an operating system that works on all devices I install it to, and that listens to my commands. Ubuntu does that just fine. I love what they've done with GNOME, its ram usage is minimal (1.4GB), apps launch fast, snap is nicer to use than flatpak (which I can install with a single command), and if I wanted to I can stick to an LTS for up to 12 years.
I'm not a big fan of snaps myself. While it's being used for desktop apps, it was originally intended for system or server apps. And I don't like that it automatically updates applications. I'm sure there are scenarios where using snaps make sense, but I prefer to be in control of my servers and what's running in them.
FlatpaksI think are more practical. It's easier to install desktop apps with flatpaks. However there are some technical limitations apparently. You can lose some functionalities due to how it's implemented.
But for everything else, yeah. Ubuntu works ootb with practically every hardware out there and there is a huge library and community of support.
Out of genuine curiosity, what makes you think so?
It's just so easy to use. Supports many devices and has lots of documentation.
Whatever system I've found. Whatever the scenario. I install Ubuntu and it just works ootb. It supports practically all hardware with some rare exceptions. It has great documentation and a large community of users to help fix problems. And when problems happen it's mostly because I fucked up doing something wrong.
And I like that is backed by a company that takes Linux seriously and works hard at making it an actual solution for both desktops and servers. Fedora would come as a very close second in my opinion.
Yeah ngl Ubuntu is so much easier to get up and running than other distros. It’s fast and reasonably up to date. I will say I’ve found the LTS version to be disappointingly buggy compared to other long term releases like Debian and Leap, but nothing that would motivate me to move to another distro. Just annoying audio related bugs that are easy to fix or get around.
Leap was so solid I wished I could’ve stayed with it, but I didn’t want to commit to a distro with an uncertain future.
Debian 12 is incredibly solid with a relatively current Gnome 43. I like that it is ran by a community instead of big corpa and I can install Flatpaks.
It's the universal operating system, with long term support (10 years 🤯) and a few quality of life improvements. It runs well on all my hardware, VMs and containers (that I build). It's got perfect desktop defaults for me. It's the defacto standard Linux OS. It's supported by every software developer or vendor who supports Linux. The corpo behind it is not public (yet) and not hell bent on profit extraction. There's an obvious migration path from it to the universal operating system (Debian), should something terrible happen.
I personally have Xubuntu on multiple machines (I think 3 currently?) And Ubuntu server with i3wm on a 4th.
I haven't touched Ubuntu for years, but I bet it's still popular with new linux users and there are probably plenty other people who don't care about the snap issues.
I’m running 22.04.4 Server with kernel 6.5.0-27 and everything is rock solid.
Any reason I should upgrade when stable 24.04 releases? It doesn’t seem to me that there is, but I’m worried missing something.
Nah, if you’re on LTS, the recommended upgrade is at XX.04.1, which typically comes around July. And 22.04 doesn’t go end of life until April of 2027, so there’s no mad rush to upgrade if you’re happy.
Insightful. Your comment made me smile :)
If you don't already see a reason, you probably don't have one, especially for a server. Especially if you sign up for the Ubuntu Pro free tier, you have 10 years to come up with one. 😂
Maybe the newer kernel? But if you don't think you need it you're probably fine tbh
To be pedantic, you can't upgrade to a new LTS the moment it releases (unless you force it). It's offered to users running the old LTS after 6 months IIRC. It's possible to start with 24.04 from scratch, but you can't upgrade for a while.
Ah right. I didn’t know that - thank you. Only really got into self hosting in the last couple of year.
Does it have the option of using TPM to unlock a LUKS2 encrypted partition like the previous betas? Or was that dropped?