[kwlug-disc] linux distro for nontech windows user

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 11:05 AM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> Fedora and Mint both support flatpak, and neither has snap support in the
> default install. I don't like snap because it isn't open source and Ubuntu
> takes away user control that you get with flatpak, and that lack of control
> was creating issues for me. I switched from Ubuntu to Mint to get away from
> Snap.
>

I remove the snapd package from all Ubuntu systems that I have/manage.
Works like a charm on Xubuntu LTS and Ubuntu Server LTS.
>From that moment on, I never never have to interact with snap at all.

Mint has an in-place upgrade just like every other traditional Linux
> distro. It's just risky and flaky. Major version upgrades are a nightmare
> process, an attribute that Mint inherits from Ubuntu. The Ubuntu
> documentation has similar scary warnings to Mint about backing up your data
> before attempting a major version upgrade, in case the upgrade fails or
> breaks packages and you have to do a clean install to repair it. I had
> problems with Ubuntu too.
>
> Getting away from that Ubuntu upgrade nightmare was my motivation for
> installing Kinoite.
>

My experience has been quite the opposite here.
I used Kubuntu daily from 2006 (Breezy Badger?) until ~ 2016.
Around that time I switched to Xubuntu due to some KDE issues.
And I have been on Xubuntu ever since.
During those two decades, I have had multiple Ubuntu Server.

I only stay with LTS releases, and never install interim ones.

I always upgrade in place (using the do-release-upgrade command),
and have not once had a system level failure that caused me to reinstall
from scratch. I did face issues with some packages, but the desktop always
works. I think only once did I have a case where the desktop would not
start, but that was overcome somehow.

I did do a fresh install on occasion, e.g. one time I could not open the
new (to me) laptop easily to replace its SSD with my old SSD.
But lately, I have been overcoming that obstacle by imaging the disks
over the network, so even that use case is no longer a cause for a fresh
install.

(Side track: Here is an article I wrote on how to migrate your disk to
another
<https://baheyeldin.com/linux/how-to-migrate-old-linux-computer-disk-to-new-computer.html>
computer over the network)
<https://baheyeldin.com/linux/how-to-migrate-old-linux-computer-disk-to-new-computer.html>
.

Another thing that is different in my case, is that I stick with .deb
packages that are from the Ubuntu repositories only, and a few
others that I have used for a long time (e.g. Mozilla Team for Firefox
ESR, Opera, and a few other things).
I do compile from source occasionally, when I need a certain newer
version of a package.

If I were to guess, perhaps some of the software you install manually has
overwritten stuff in official packages, causing the botched upgrades?

Mileage may vary, and all that ...
But ... once someone has gotten used to the Debian packages, and its
ecosystem, they can never go back to anything else.

TLDR; My experience with Ubuntu upgrades has been very smooth.
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
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