Time to get testing Ubuntu 21.04 ahead of release, plus Canonical loses another face

Right. :)

Out of the most recognisable names from my early Ubuntu years (Sil, Popey, Wimpy, Jono and Jorge), only Jorge is left, as far as I know.

These guys shaped Ubuntu for me. They built an incredible community that I contributed to for over 15 years, first on the Ubuntu Forums, then on Ask Ubuntu (I still have my "top 100 contributors" t-shirt lying around somewhere!).

Absolute stars. They'll be missed.


Last edited by scaine on 8 Apr 2021 at 1:38 pm UTC

Wonder why they're all leaving now... Perhaps Canonical isn't moving as fast as some would like to sell out and have a big payday for some who have been there a long time and they're tired of waiting? Perhaps Canonical is downgrading desktop as a priority? Who knows...

I hope Wayland become default to the next Ubuntu LTS version too. In my opinion this would help developers to realize that wayland is now the standard and start to port their apps to it, since Ubuntu is still the "main" distro for those entering the Linux world.

I hope Wayland become default to the next Ubuntu LTS version too. In my opinion this would help developers to realize that wayland is now the standard and start to port their apps to it, since Ubuntu is still the "main" distro for those entering the Linux world.

Agreed. I've been using Manjaro Gnome Wayland for the better part of a year now on my work laptop and it's terrific. I have no idea how gaming is on Wayland, though, as I game on my Manjaro KDE xorg desktop.

How is Wayland for gaming right now?


Last edited by iiari on 8 Apr 2021 at 2:54 pm UTC

I hope Wayland become default to the next Ubuntu LTS version too. In my opinion this would help developers to realize that wayland is now the standard and start to port their apps to it, since Ubuntu is still the "main" distro for those entering the Linux world.

Well, the right way to do it would be getting major applications to run flawlessly in Wayland -before- declaring it standard, and breaking all things that aren't yet ready for it. Not the other way around. You don't push stuff to production systems before they aren't absolutely ready for it, and I am not convinced that Wayland has reached that state yet.

Anyway, I am probably going to jump ship soon anyway. I have been a long-time Ubuntu user, but their push towards Snap is a dealbreaker for me. The point of Linux to me is that it's not controlled by a single corporation who can dictate me what to do with my system, and if I wanted an Appstore-like monopoly in my ecosystem, I might as well buy a Mac.

most GNOME apps updated to GNOME 40 but they're sticking with the previous Shell version due to it being a big change

Just as an FYI for anyone testing or running something like Arch which recently got the Gnome 40 update. The much used but out of action 'dash-to-panel' extension has now been forked to Gnome 40. It's still WIP but it appears to work okay 🙂

https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel/pull/1303


Last edited by Lofty on 8 Apr 2021 at 3:48 pm UTC

Wonder why they're all leaving now... Perhaps Canonical isn't moving as fast as some would like to sell out and have a big payday for some who have been there a long time and they're tired of waiting? Perhaps Canonical is downgrading desktop as a priority? Who knows...

I can't speak for every tech job, but generally, if you want (or need) a pay increase or need to push forward in your skillsets and career it means a job change. Most jobs only hand out cost-of-living wage increases yearly (unless you get a promotion). Even then, depending on the direction of the company, there may not be many opportunities for an engineer to grow their skillsets if they stay at the same company.

The point of Linux to me is that it's not controlled by a single corporation who can dictate me what to do with my system, and if I wanted an Appstore-like monopoly in my ecosystem, I might as well buy a Mac.

I think you like fragmentation (that holds Linux back) and no optimization whatsoever.

And yet we're here, obviously considering that fragmented world that is Linux to be better than it's corporate-controlled alternatives. Can it be that the free competition of ideas, approaches and different implementations tends to produce better results in the end?

Agreed. I've been using Manjaro Gnome Wayland for the better part of a year now on my work laptop and it's terrific. I have no idea how gaming is on Wayland, though, as I game on my Manjaro KDE xorg desktop.

How is Wayland for gaming right now?

Gaming right now is mostly xwayland due to legacy applications not supporting native wayland (old SDL2 embed libraries for example). But in practice, playing in a single monitor, I didn't had any drawbacks compared to x11, and I've notice some improvements with some of my games when I changed to wayland (I think I can thank Gnome compositor for this, despite I don't like to use gnome)

I don't know about the state for multiple screens, but I know that any problems wayland have right now is a work in progress instead of broken by design.

Well, the right way to do it would be getting major applications to run flawlessly in Wayland -before- declaring it standard, and breaking all things that aren't yet ready for it. Not the other way around. You don't push stuff to production systems before they aren't absolutely ready for it, and I am not convinced that Wayland has reached that state yet.

Well, that's kind of a problem with every change of technology, specially with a big one like this. To make something to run "flawlessly" you first need people to test in the real world, then people will complain about some problems, and then they can fix it.

It's a bad, but necessary step to make it work.

The good news is wayland already covers mostly of this cases and xwayland covers mostly of others, and both are being improved while we speak :)

Anyway, I am probably going to jump ship soon anyway. I have been a long-time Ubuntu user, but their push towards Snap is a dealbreaker for me. The point of Linux to me is that it's not controlled by a single corporation who can dictate me what to do with my system, and if I wanted an Appstore-like monopoly in my ecosystem, I might as well buy a Mac.

For a long time I don't use Ubuntu (way before snaps) but I still recognize them as the main door for someone outside the linux to enter. You don't look like someone who needs an advice for a linux distro, but if for some reason you need a "unsnaped x11 Ubuntu" I would recommend you linux mint right now, since they're openly agains snap packages, and they had to pretend wayland isn't a thing yet because of their partnership with Nvidia.

Or Debian, Debian is cool :P

I think you like fragmentation (that holds Linux back) and no optimization whatsoever.

I think you like sweeping generalisations.

Agreed. I've been using Manjaro Gnome Wayland for the better part of a year now on my work laptop and it's terrific. I have no idea how gaming is on Wayland, though, as I game on my Manjaro KDE xorg desktop.

How is Wayland for gaming right now?

I actually switched my KDE Plasma desktop over to Wayland about a month ago (well, I have it set so I can pick and choose between both Wayland and Xorg from login) - caveat, with an AMD GPU of course - and I'm assuming prety much every game uses XWayland anyway. Once I cleaned up some bugs related to really ancient configs I had being loaded, honestly for me at least it seems no different for gaming. No performance difference, MangoHud still works. Proton works if needed, too.

The main catch is if you're trying to capture a window or gameplay with something like OBS - there's a plugin for Vulkan renderer captures, and now in OBS 27 there's Pipewire support (that I haven't quite got working yet, but I run Gentoo so I fully expect I need to configure it yet).

I also have non-gaming related issues around copy & paste, particularly between Firefox (running Wayland native) and Discord (via XWayland), but pasting and re-copying from a Konsole window in between usually works. Apparently clipboard issues are common still, sadly.

I can't speak for GNOME, as I don't use it, but I have heard their Wayland support is a lot further ahead than KDE Plasma's.

I have been a long-time Ubuntu user, but their push towards Snap is a dealbreaker for me.

Yeah. I am getting a bit nervous as well. Snap is OK as a technology for commercial or very fast moving projects, but seeing Ubuntu wanting to push core components to snap makes me unhappy. So far KDE Neon has remained snap-free for the important stuff.


Last edited by no_information_here on 8 Apr 2021 at 5:38 pm UTC

I have been running 21.04 for some months now on my desktop PC, its coming along great.

Gaming related its worth to note that Lutris is in the Ubuntu Hirsute (21.04) repositories since it finally got in Debian unstable. I mostly game native games, or Stadia, so I do not use it much, but seems to work for what I tired.

I have been a long-time Ubuntu user, but their push towards Snap is a dealbreaker for me.

Yeah. I am getting a bit nervous as well. Snap is OK as a technology for commercial or very fast moving projects, but seeing Ubuntu wanting to push core components to snap makes me unhappy. So far KDE Neon has remained snap-free for the important stuff.

There is one application (snap-store the Ubuntu branded gnome-software and its dependency snaps) installed as snap in 21.04 same as it was since 20.04

You can remove it and snapd then put in a preference file like Mint does to not get snapd in as a recommend or dependency.
And then if you still want gnome-software install it as a deb, but that is then not Ubuntu branded but the stock gnome-software.

This is what Mint has to prevent snaps, but since Ubuntu repositories are available you can just remove that on Mint and then install all snaps you want.

 
more /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref 
# To prevent repository packages from triggering the installation of Snap,
# this file forbids snapd from being installed by APT.
# For more information: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/sn
ap.html

Package: snapd
Pin: release a=*
Pin-Priority: -10

only Jorge is left, as far as I know.

Heh I left like 4 years ago, thanks for the kind words, you've made my day.

Oh, Alan leaving. Will be interesting where he shows up again. I can see that there are few challenges at Canonical more and more becoming only a distributor for guys like him. Innovating is less of a topic now, more maintaining.

I'm sure he found something interesting. We'll see end of the month on which shore the tides washed him up.

I hope Wayland become default to the next Ubuntu LTS version too. In my opinion this would help developers to realize that wayland is now the standard and start to port their apps to it, since Ubuntu is still the "main" distro for those entering the Linux world.

Anyway, I am probably going to jump ship soon anyway. I have been a long-time Ubuntu user, but their push towards Snap is a dealbreaker for me.

That is why I left the Ubuntu ecosystem myself a while back. Snaps sound like they'll eventually be a great solution (once themes and performance are worked out) for network admins and Linux-hesitant developers looking for one distribution method to rule them all, but I see very little advantage for me as a desktop user and the downsides are obvious.

[quote=Kithop]

I can't speak for GNOME, as I don't use it, but I have heard their Wayland support is a lot further ahead than KDE Plasma's.

Quite right. I haven't used the most recent Wayland KDE build (which is supposedly a solid step forward), but as recently as just a few months back the Gnome build was far ahead, virtually "normal" feeling, while over on KDE you'd trip over lots of broken or unoptimized functionality all over the place and it was quite annoying. Again, though, supposedly the latest edition (I haven't tried) is better.

And yet we're here, obviously considering that fragmented world that is Linux to be better than it's corporate-controlled alternatives.

I like tech in general, but I don't use Linux anymore, don't worry, such a waste of time. It's cool to mess around with commands though.

So you're just here to troll?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 9 Apr 2021 at 6:58 am UTC

There are only 2 issues, that I know of, that prevent me from using Wayland full time. The first one is Teams, under Wayland the screen can't be shared. The issue is more due to Teams being an Electron app, and until recently (version 12 if I recall correctly) it was not possible. Now it is, waiting on MS to build Teams with the new version.

The other one is FreeSync, with Wayland on Gnome the max Hz on my screen is 60 instead of 144 that the monitor is capable of. There is to fix this Sway, but Gnome is my favourite/most at home DE and I really dislike Sway's dev so not really an option for me.

Regarding Ubuntu... They didn't take my application as Cloud Engineer the other day, and I'm now bitter until next week or so that I forget about it, so rather don't do many comments :D