Ubuntu 22.10 'Kinetic Kudu' is out now

Sounds like a pretty good distro, looks like firefox improved a lot the startup time on snap and it's performing better in benchmarks than non-snap version.

Maybe I'll try Ubuntu again in the next LTS

It is amazingly swift and stable already. Very glad for Ubuntu Unity becoming official again! Rudra Saraswat is also behind the great Gamebuntu.

I suppose it's time now to figure out of Pipewire can indeed do network audio with fallback. Pipewire's ability to do this hasn't been clear and I have not yet taken the time to dive into it.

I do wish that the October *buntu releases got 12 months of support instead of just 9 - I'd love to be able to stick with those, as I've always found them to be perfectly stable for my requirements.

Finally WEBP. I've never understood why this was not supported. Does someone have any insights I'm missing?

Probably won't grab Kubuntu 22.10. I'll be sticking with 22.04 for the moment.

I checked live version and compared fonts rendering on both Ubuntu 22.10 and Fedora 37 with Gnome Text Editor. In Ubuntu 22.10 fonts looks great, all is sharp, but on Fedora 37 fonts are blurry. Both OSes use Gnome 43 and GTK4 for Gnome Text Editor. Do you know what make a differences? I tested a lot of the same fonts on both OSes. Only monospace regular looks decent on Fedora 37. Second things, libadwaita apps works properly with Ubuntu color accents. DO you know how to achieve sharp fonts rendering and accent colors in libadwaita apps on Fedora 37?

I checked live version and compared fonts rendering on both Ubuntu 22.10 and Fedora 37 with Gnome Text Editor. In Ubuntu 22.10 fonts looks great, all is sharp, but on Fedora 37 fonts are blurry. Both OSes use Gnome 43 and GTK4 for Gnome Text Editor. Do you know what make a differences? I tested a lot of the same fonts on both OSes. Only monospace regular looks decent on Fedora 37. Second things, libadwaita apps works properly with Ubuntu color accents. DO you know how to achieve sharp fonts rendering and accent colors in libadwaita apps on Fedora 37?

Apparently Fedora uses the grayscale font antialiasing method by default. Most other distributions tend to go for subpixel rendering instead. I haven't touched Gnome in a decade, but a quick search suggests you should be able to find the relevant settings in Tweaks -> Fonts -> Anti Aliasing. Might have to log back in for this to take effect in apps.

Seems like the rationale for going for grayscale instead of subpixel is that the former looks nicer on high DPI screens.


Last edited by tuubi on 21 October 2022 at 4:05 pm UTC

firefox improved a lot the startup time on snap and it's performing better in benchmarks than non-snap version.

So, the official snapped Firefox now works better than the old fashion one. How things change. And what negativity Canonical got from small but feisty band for this work in progress

Looks like Steam snap is coming together nicely already too: https://ubuntu.com/blog/what-the-steam-snap-is-evolving

"By packaging Steam as a snap we’ve ensured that all of the dependencies required for gaming are included in the application. This means no messing around adding and maintaining PPAs and no issues with 32-bit libraries. Everything you need is included and isolated from the rest of your OS, regardless of the distro you’re running."

Apparently Fedora uses the grayscale font antialiasing method by default. Most other distributions tend to go for subpixel rendering instead. I haven't touched Gnome in a decade, but a quick search suggests you should be able to find the relevant settings in Tweaks -> Fonts -> Anti Aliasing. Might have to log back in for this to take effect in apps.

Seems like the rationale for going for grayscale instead of subpixel is that the former looks nicer on high DPI screens.

I used the same settings via gnome tweaks for both OSes, so it must be something else.

Hopefully wine will be build soon for that release

firefox improved a lot the startup time on snap and it's performing better in benchmarks than non-snap version.

So, the official snapped Firefox now works better than the old fashion one. How things change. And what negativity Canonical got from small but feisty band for this work in progress

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

That’s some Microsoft level asshattery. “We know you tried to install Firefox, but we installed Edgeium instead.”

firefox improved a lot the startup time on snap and it's performing better in benchmarks than non-snap version.

So, the official snapped Firefox now works better than the old fashion one. How things change. And what negativity Canonical got from small but feisty band for this work in progress

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

That’s some Microsoft level asshattery. “We know you tried to install Firefox, but we installed Edgeium instead.”

Yes, exactly this. I’m using Ubuntu (LTS) on my machine at work. I really like the OS, snap is unfortunately the exception to it. Not so much that they have included and pre installed snap. While I would have preferred flatpak, I think snap is fine and valid for things like discord, Spotify of even Steam. But pushing snap into apt and running the snap installer while pretending apt is still very misleading and has a bad taste to it.

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

That’s some Microsoft level asshattery. “We know you tried to install Firefox, but we installed Edgeium instead.”

That can't be right because you could uninstall anything. They forced or tried to force? No, the choice is yours and you can remove anything you like if you're not into the way Ubuntu has chosen to go ahead. See, there really is also the bigger picture for Canonical as service providers.

Canonical supports Ubuntu LTS releases for 10 years. It takes a huge amount of effort to build the latest Firefox (or Chromium) on ancient distros and Canonical didn't want to do that any more.

Users of old Ubuntu releases will get new browser updates (including security fixes) faster than with the traditional .deb update system.

Also, there are people who keep using Ubuntu after it has reached EOL. They won't get any security updates except from snaps because snaps still work.

The firefox.deb in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS does more than just install the Snap. It also provides integration for bug reporting and for allowing the Snap to be set as the default browser.

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

Which alternative method to you propose to get those users upgrading from a prior release (where the package existed) onto the snap (which is supported) rather than the package (which no longer exists)? Note that your chosen method will need to both be seamless for users and reduce the maintenance burden for the Ubuntu devs.

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

Which alternative method to you propose to get those users upgrading from a prior release (where the package existed) onto the snap (which is supported) rather than the package (which no longer exists)? Note that your chosen method will need to both be seamless for users and reduce the maintenance burden for the Ubuntu devs.

I dunno. How do you normally install snaps on the command line? If there's no method, that's a problem for snap, but I'm sure there is one. So if you wanted the snap, you'd use that, no?

I mean, the question you're asking is two questions really--a command line question and a normal users-upgrading question. Presumably Ubuntu has a GUI software installer. So fine, if their new package is a snap, the GUI can install that and uninstall the .deb. On the other hand, if someone is using the command line, on a distribution that favour snaps but also uses debs, then I think it's fair to expect them to use apt to uninstall the old thing and snap to install the new thing if they want the snap.
And as to the package not existing any more . . . Ubuntu is Debian based. The package still exists, they're just choosing not to make it available to you.

firefox improved a lot the startup time on snap and it's performing better in benchmarks than non-snap version.

So, the official snapped Firefox now works better than the old fashion one. How things change. And what negativity Canonical got from small but feisty band for this work in progress

I think most of the shit Canonical got was due to them literally trying to force you to use the snap, if you wanted to or not. Not because it shipped as a snap, which of course is up to them, but you couldn’t even uninstall it and sudo apt install “normal” Firefox, since *buntu was set up to install the Snap version even if you did the command to install apt/deb version. That, I think, was a mistake on their part, to think would go over well with people.

That’s some Microsoft level asshattery. “We know you tried to install Firefox, but we installed Edgeium instead.”

Are you telling me you can't purge that crap and mask it? I mean i'm totally fine building firefox from source, but if the system is coming out of the image with snap installed, configured, and its removal causing overall woes, i might reconsider my choices. Life is too short to fiddle with all the buzzwords that appear and fade away every N years.