[kwlug-disc] Xubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 Upgrade

[Charles M]

We've started testing Linux Mint as well. "Out of the box," Xubuntu
integrates screen savers a lot better. I know this isn't a thing for
95% of people out there, but it's nice it works a bit better in
Xubuntu. The "Super key" is also bound a bit differently in the XFCE
version of Linux Mint. In LM XFCE the moment you press the Super
key/Windows key the whisker menu is triggered. In Xubuntu there's a
bit of a delay, which you might think is bad, but it allows for the
extra key bindings in Xubuntu. (I've gotten used to those key bindings
and had to do some re-learning for Mint).

I also initially had an issue with Mint XFCE 21.3 on my home
workstation because of the AMD RX5500 video card. This was resolved by
changing to a newer kernel, which turned out to be pretty painless in
Mint. Conversely, this turned out to be a bit of a plus in Computer
Recycling. Because Xubuntu 22.04 uses a new-ish kernel the proprietary
Nvidia drivers for some older cards would fail to install. But those
same drivers installed fine in Mint 21.3 because it installs an older
kernel (not sure about 22, but I believe that benefit goes away with
22 as the kernel is newer).

There are some programs we would miss with flatpak, but generally we'd
prefer if everything were deb packages too. We have quite a bit of
testing left to do before we do any switching, but now that Xubuntu is
prompting people to upgrade we're having to look more at our future os
direction. De-snapping Xubuntu creates some issues with default apps,
and while there are tools to deal with this (xfconf-query) the whole
snap thing is a concern. (Not just because Canoncial runs the Ubuntu
store, but because it's been slow from time to time {releases}).
Having mirrors and being more open are more preferable.

I really like Xubuntu, and Mint has always felt a bit awkward (despite
looking a bit better in the past). I like the new look of Xubuntu
24.04, and the fact that I can see deb packages in 24.04.1, but I'm
concerned it won't stay this way in the future.

On Tue, 3 Sept 2024 at 20:00, Jason <jasonpa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is one reason I use Linux Mint, as they've completely removed snap, and I support their reasoning for doing so: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3906
>
> Also, from here:  https://winaero.com/enable-or-disable-snap-in-linux-mint-20/
>
> The Snap Store is exclusively controlled by Canonical. It is a centralized software source.
> While Snap is open-source, it only works with the Ubuntu Store.
> You cannot create your own store, and uses a closed protocol to deliver updates.
> This means that Snap client works only with one store, and nobody can create his own store for redistributing span packages.
>
> Personally, I would use Flatpak because at least you can host your own Flatpak repository if Flathub ever goes away.
>
> It was frustrating when using Ubuntu Server, that doing things like installing Firefox with apt, was just a wrapper for the snap package install.
> This actually broke the man pages and they aren't available.
> Hilariously this has been a known bug since 2016: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1575593
>
> Cheers,
> Jason
>
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2024 at 6:59 PM Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am using Xubuntu 22.04 LTS on the desktops, and Ubuntu Server LTS 22.04 on the servers.
>> So far, I have managed to do away with snap totally.
>> The snapd package is not even installed on any of these computers.
>> The trick is to uninstall any snap packages, and then uninstall snapd itself.
>>
>> $ sudo snap
>> Command 'snap' not found, but can be installed with:
>> apt install snapd
>>
>> When upgrading (from 20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS) Canonical did not re-install snapd.
>>
>> For Firefox, I use the Mozilla Team PPA from apt, and all works well.
>>
>> I am hoping that my luck so far with this scheme continues with 24.02 LTS.
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-- 
Charles
Mastodon: @chaslinux at techhub.social