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I can fully relate with the author on this one. For a bit of background, I initially started out using Linux with Slax in 2005, moving on to Fedora Core 5 and then installing Ubuntu when Feisty Fawn was released. For a long time, Ubuntu just felt right. Don't get me wrong, in those days there was plenty of work to do to get a system working well (getting working drivers, configuring xorg, etc), but overall it seemed like Canonical had a real focus on delivering an easy to use, stable Linux desktop OS for people that didn't want to build everything from scratch. Since then I’ve occasionally run other bare metal installed distros/derivaties (elementary, mint, pop, debian) for a while, but I always found my way back to Ubuntu. I’ve tried dozens of other distros through VMs and live disks over the years, just to see what they have to offer too. The world of Linux is vast and wonderful, and there's always the potential for temptation on the horizon. That said, I've been running Ubuntu 18.04 on my main desktop PC for about 5 years now and it's been a relatively reliable daily driver OS during that time. However, snaps leave a very bad taste in my mouth. Canonical seem dead set on force-feeding this crap down users' throats too, which is another trait that doesn't sit well with me. With 18.04 reaching the end of its shelf life, I decided—like the author of the article—to part ways with Ubuntu (and, by extension, Canonical). I spent a good while searching for the right replacement OS and finally came up with the following shortlist: Fedora, Nobara, OpenSuse Tumbleweed and Arch. I wanted a decent low-latency experience for audio production, and to be able to run the Bitwig digital audio workstation software. I wanted Steam, BTRFS, Pipewire, and various other relatively standard packages like Firefox, Kodi, Inkscape, Blender, Spotify, Bitwarden, etc. Initially, I was thinking of using KDE Plasma too. I tried out all of the shortlisted distros above, and finally went with Arch. So far it's been an incredible experience. There were too many niggles in the end, with KDE, and I decided to give the latest Gnome (44) a shot, once it landed in the Arch repos. That was a surprise, as I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near as great as it is. So far this is probably the best desktop Linux experience I've ever had. There's close to zero chance I will ever install another Ubuntu OS on any of my machines. So long, Ubuntu, and thanks for the good times. |