looopTools5d ago
A friend of mine who switch to #linux back in march 2025 and started with #fedora as distribution on my recommendation, asked my opinion on #ubuntu
I was perfectly honest that I in general like the distro, it just insist on things I don't like. Like none vanilla #gnome #snaps and so on.
He said he was thinking about giving it a spin due to a lot of the resources online was available for only Ubuntu.
I, honestly, encourage him to go for it. I don't want to be a distro gatekeeper.
Show threadlooopTools5d ago
That was two weeks ago.
In the last two days I have gotten more questions about Ubuntu, than I got about fedora in 11 months! He had a problem with VLC... turns out it was installed as a snap and did not have the right permissions. He had problems with gnome plugins clashing with canonicals default once. He had a weird issue that he and I are still trying to debug with #libreoffice crashing if and only if he starts Calc before Write and this one baffels me and.
Show threadlooopTools

the list goes on with a lot of applications, that behaves weirdly. From what I can tell so far. All applications (except libreoffice) he is having problems with are snaps! Either there is /home/<USER> they cannot access or its issues with them not having a dependency and so on.
Can someone please tell me if this is normal, I am not that experienced with snaps. He is running 25.10

He is thinking about switching back to Fedora because of all of these issues.

Mar 24 at 5:48amElk
Show threadlooopTools5d ago
Honestly, I would like to help him fix the issues. But I am just not well enough versed in snaps.
Fun fact, we tried just for fun to install some of the apps as flatpaks as well... they don't have the same issues.
Show threadÓlafur Jens Sigurðsson5d ago
@looopTools how about trying to stick with the .deb packages coming from Ubuntu?
Or perhaps try Mint, OpenSUSE, Manjaro or some other thing. Can be tried in a VM, no reinstall needed.
Oooooor, and that's my favorite, go with Debian and make the desktop part yourselves 😁
Show threadlooopTools5d ago
@ojs The problem happens when you use the App Store that defaults to snap
Show threadJohn Smith5d ago
@looopTools @ojs honestly the meta tools that work for all distros. Backup management and partitions so when something borks clean install is easy and lossless. Absolutely basic Terminal (like, cd, ls is about it if you use a file manager simultaneously) and how to find and use the package manager. I haven't yet come across a compatible software that didn't have terminal instructions to install I could easily follow, and most issues have been found and solved by someone on Ubuntu/overflow comms.
Show threadJohn Smith5d ago
@looopTools @ojs teach a man to fish as they say (also I'm not talking like gentoo level stuff. Just enough that he doesn't get unduly punished for trying to troubleshoot himself.
Show threadÓlafur Jens Sigurðsson5d ago
@looopTools ah, I see. I haven't used Ubuntu since snap came into existence so can't help there.
All I can say then is basically, good luck 🤷‍♂️
Show threadRasmus Lindegaard5d ago
@looopTools @ojs gotta love that they on the one hand didn't want their users to use flatpaks because of their own snaps, but on the other hand don't seem to care enough about their desktop to make the damned things work properly
Show threadlooopTools4d ago
@rasmus91 @ojs Well I am actually quite surprised it is this bad. I hope my friend is just having a very abnormal experience.
Show threadqrvhh5d ago

@looopTools I did run into problems (with snaps, but also with regular packages) on 25.10, which made me go back to 24.04 LTS. In all honesty, while interim releases should work just as well as LTS ones, I only ever suggest upgrading from LTS if there is something thats required by one's workflow being added to a new interim.

Unfortunately all I can suggest is either giving 24.04 a spin, or waiting for 26.04, it should be more stable, and an overall better experience.