Ubuntu 22.04 LTS early findings

[fox]

The new Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is available now as a new installation or an upgrade from the previous LTS or Ubuntu 21.10. I upgraded from 21.10 a few hours ago, with no problems. I have been testing it out and it's worth noting the following:
- It seems very snappy; faster than the previous version.
- The default is now Wayland, but on my iMac, the xorg version still works better for some things. Your mileage may vary.
- If you are using Insync to access and sync your Google Drive, the current version needs a tweak to work until the company fixes it.
- Firefox is installed as a snap app (can't add extensions). Non-snap version is no longer in repos, but you can install it through a PPA.
- You have more customization options in 22.04 than you did in any previous version.
- The RStudio statistical app needed a tweak to work (not a big deal).

Those are my main findings so far. I'm going to test it out more before upgrading my Ubuntu LTS installations on the same iMac or my Dell xps 13.

[William]

Ubuntu review on Distrowatch:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20220502#ubuntu

[Last paragraph]

I think the launch of Ubuntu 22.04 is a clear sign Canonical is much more interested in publishing releases on a set schedule than producing something worthwhile. This version was not ready for release and it's is probably going to be a costly endeavour to maintain this collection of mixed versioned software and mixed display server and mixed designs for a full five years. It's a platform I would recommend avoiding.

[fox]

I read Jesse's review, but my experience has been much more positive so far. I find 22.04 to be pretty fast and I haven't run into any obvious bugs. The one thing I do agree with is its high memory consumption. I am running it with 8 gb RAM on my 2019 iMac. With Firefox and a calendar program called Morgen running, I am using 2.3 G RAM.

I have since installed 22.04 on my 2011 iMac. I had a more serious problem there - very flaky wifi that crapped out after a few minutes. I searched this on the internet and it turns out to be a bug in the 5.15 kernel series that affects Atheros drivers. It is supposed to be fixed in the next update (due May 9). In the meantime I installed the 5.13 kernel and with it, the wifi is good. The bug reports show that this is not just a Ubuntu problem, as the 5.15 kernel also crapped out Atheros wifi in Manjaro.

[William]

Anyone using (or used) MX Linux, Mint, or Fedora?

[fox]

I had mx on an older laptop, but I never really used it much. I didn't have any trouble with it, but it seemed slower than Ubuntu on that machine (a Dell xps 13).

As for Mint, it was my primary work distro for about three years (2015-2018) on a 2014 iMac. I switched to it from Ubuntu when the kernel used by Ubuntu was taking 4 or 5 minutes to boot up the iMac. The older kernel used by Mint (4.08 and later, 4.15 as I recall) worked very well. Mint gave me no trouble and was at least as fast as Ubuntu. I used the Cinnamon version, and set it up to duplicate the look and feel of Gnome. My only complaint was the aesthetics; I like the look and feel of Ubuntu (and Gnome) better.

Incidentally, Mint is the only distro I have ever donated to. I was so grateful that it worked well on that iMac that I decided it was worth financial support.

[buster]

Mint is used by Marilyn on our best desktop. Keeps on working smoothly. Probably our safest OS for trouble-less maintenance.

MXLinux is neat, but it doesn't work well as a virtual on my Windows machine. (Drag and drop between Windows and MXLinux iffy.) So I use Kubuntu. We'll see what happens with the update to Ubuntu.

Tried Fedora many times. Never understood why people used it.

Do not even like the idea of flatpacks. Distrowatch showed that most do not with their latest opinion pole and comments.

[ssfc72]

I use Mint on one notebook computer (my main computer) and MXLinux on another notebook.
Both work well for me.

Anyone using (or used) MX Linux, Mint, or Fedora?

[Jason]

- If you are using Insync to access and sync your Google Drive, the current version needs a tweak to work until the company fixes it.

Thanks for your review, Fox. Probably worth waiting in your case but if you were curious, you could check out OpenDrive, an alternative open-source client for Google Drive. It should be in the standard repos.

[Jason]

Anyone using (or used) MX Linux, Mint, or Fedora?

Fedora sucks as far as I'm concerned. It's purer (closer to vanilla Linux and desktop environments), but in being so, it's missing a lot of user-friendly enhancements that most distributions have. Many of us would find it unusable without a lot of tweaks.

But Linux Mint is damn good, at least from my last experience with it. I was using the Plasma edition until they dropped it a few years back.

I'm using MX Linux full-time now. You can read my review and other thoughts on it here. I don't know who is using it regularly but you can lots posted about it in this forum. When you do a search, look for "MX Linux" (the actual name) as well as "MXLinux" to find them.

[Jason]

Do not even like the idea of flatpacks. Distrowatch showed that most do not with their latest opinion pole and comments.

Just to note Flatpaks and Snaps are different although based on the same idea. They make producing Linux programs a LOT easier for developers as they don't have to be built against specific versions of distros which can have widely varying libraries at times. They can help users for the same reason. You can get the latest version, know it'll work and it won't mess with your existing OS. AppImage is another format. It's even easier. Download and drop in any folder. And click to run it (sometimes you have to make it executable). When you start it, it checks for updates and downloads them either then or next time.

I think a lot of Linux users hate them because they can take a little longer to load. And because let's face it, a lot of Linux users hate change. You'll find holy wars online over the change from SysV to systemd, for example. And users that think their distro is the ONE and everything else is shit. I joined a Linux group on Facebook and left it after a few weeks because every post winded up with people arguing over it.

And if you make development easier, you're likely to get more programs for Linux or better ones since the developers don't have to worry about trying to target different distros.

[fox]

I have nothing against these package formats per se, but one app I don't like in it is Firefox in snap. I can live with the longer initial download time, but I don't like that extensions cannot be run on it. I understand, though, that Canonical and Mozilla are working on a fix, so I'm leaving the Firefox snap there for now.

[Jason]

I have nothing against these package formats per se, but one app I don't like in it is Firefox in snap. I can live with the longer initial download time, but I don't like that extensions cannot be run on it. I understand, though, that Canonical and Mozilla are working on a fix, so I'm leaving the Firefox snap there for now.

Initially, I thought you meant browser extensions but I realize now, after some searching, that you must mean Gnome extensions. Is that correct? I forgot that Firefox calls these browser extensions "add-ons". Everybody else calls them extensions. Either way, that's a screw-up on their part. There is nothing that stops you, AFAIK, from configuring the snap to do this. Somebody was just sloppy.

Firefox was a Snap in at least one previous version of Ubuntu. I remember being surprised at this.

[fox]

.... There is nothing that stops you, AFAIK, from configuring the snap to do this. Somebody was just sloppy.
....

Configuring the snap to allow the addition of extensions? How do I do that?

[buster]

I think I like aesthetically that the available bits are used to build everything. There need be no duplication on your computer of much of the software. But I see in the future an unpleasing array of single programs isolated from each other, most of them using the same software bits in each program.

While of course modern computers can handle the new programs in this format, it feels crude and inefficient.

Also I don't get too excited about new and exciting programs anymore.

I like the traditional Linux way. Just a personal opinion, not a criticism.

[Jason]

Configuring the snap to allow the addition of extensions? How do I do that?

Sorry, I didn't mean the user. I meant the developer was sloppy. But I was also thinking that you meant browser extensions.