Comment by zamalek

16 days ago

> Ubuntu LTS

This is why I try to encourage new Linux users away from Ubuntu: it's a laggard with, often important, functionality. It is now an enterprise OS (where durability is more important than functionality), it's not really suitable for a power user (like someone who would use Zed).

42 comments

zamalek

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6SixTy  16 days ago

My understanding with Mesa is that it has very few dependencies and is ABI stable, so freezing Mesa updates is counterproductive. I'm not sure about Snaps, but Flatpak ships as it's own system managing Mesa versions.

  • tambre  15 days ago

    > My understanding with Mesa is that it has very few dependencies

    Some of the shader compilers require LLVM which is a giant dependency to say the least. But with Valve's ACO for RADV I think that could technically be omitted.

  • fc417fc802  15 days ago

    > Flatpak ships as it's own system managing Mesa versions.

    Mixing and matching the kernel and userspace mesa components is subject to limitations. However it will transparently fall back to software rendering so you might not notice if you aren't doing anything intensive.

    Related, being a container flatpak has no choice but to ship the mesa userspace component. If it didn't nothing would work.

plagiarist  15 days ago

I encourage them away from Ubuntu because of the Snaps. If people want an enterprise distro that lags upstreams by a lot they should go with Debian.

fsloth  15 days ago

" It is now an enterprise OS"

You really want enterprise standards support for your graphics API.

Bleeding edge ...is not nice in graphics. Especially the more complex the systems get, so do the edge cases.

I mean in general. If you are writing a high end game engine don't listen to me, you know better. But if you are a mid-tier graphics wonk like myself 20 year old concepts are usually quite pareto-optimal for _lots_ of stuff and should be robustly covered by most apis.

If I could give one advice for myself 20 years ago.

For anything practical - focus on the platform native graphics API. Windows - DirectX. Mac - OpenGL (20 years ago! Predates metal!. Today ofc would be metal).

I don't think that advice would be much different today (apart from Metal) IF you don't know what to do and just want to start on doing graphics. For senior peeps who know the field do whatever rights for you of course.

Linux - good luck. Find the API that has best support for your card & driver combo - meaning likely the most stabilized with most users.

superkuh  15 days ago

And this is a prime example of development-centric thinking prioritizing developer comfort over the capabilities and usability of the actual software. Rather than targeting stable older feature sets it's always targeting the bleeding edge and then being confused that this doesn't work on machines that aren't their own and then blaming everyone else for their decision. 4 years is not a long time (LTS). 4 years is the minimum that software should be able to live.

BadBadJellyBean  16 days ago

You don't have to run LTS. There is a new release every 6 months.

  • esseph  16 days ago

    I've been running Linux for a very long time.

    Ubuntu has never ever been the most stable or useful distro. What it did have was apt and more up to date stuff than debian.

    I would never willingly choose Ubuntu if allowed other options (Fedora, Debian, maybe CoreOS, etc)

    • horsawlarway  16 days ago

      I have a lot of respect for Canonical for driving a distro that was very "noob friendly" in an ecosystem where that's genuinely hard.

      But I mostly agree with you. Once you get out of that phase, I don't really see much value in Ubuntu. I'd pick pretty much anything else for everything I do these days. Debian/Fedora/Alpine on the server. Arch on the desktop.

    • BadBadJellyBean  12 days ago

      I have been running Linux for a long time as well (I used Mandrake linux) and I find Ubuntu mostly nice. What I would not say is that it is not stable or useful. The long LTS cadences give it much time to be very stable and you can also be more on the edge when you use the in between versions.

      So I'd say it is very much a personal preference but just saying it is not stable is just not generally true. I could say the same about Fedora that shipped graphics drivers so new that all my software was broken for a while. To each their own I guess.

  • fulafel  16 days ago

    Especially a 4 year old LTS. But I guess the point was that you will run into some users that do when you ship to the general audience.

    You run into the same problem on other platforms too of course (eg Android)

adithyassekhar  16 days ago

Which one would you recommend for regular users and power users?

  • zamalek  16 days ago

    If you want something relatively uninteresting: Fedora or Debian (honestly, stable is fine).

    If you want something extremely reliable, more modern, but may require some learning to tweak: Silverblue or Kinoite.

  • horsawlarway  16 days ago

    Not joking, Arch. Pick Gnome/KDE/Sway as you please.

    Arch is a wonderful daily driver distro for folks who can deal with even a small amount of configuration.

    Excellent software availability through AUR, excellent update times (pretty much immediate).

    The only downside is there's not a ton of direct commercial software packaged for it by default (ex - most companies they care give a .deb or a .rpm) but that's easily made up for by the rest of AUR.

    It's not even particularly hard to install anymore - run `archinstall` https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall make some choices, get a decent distro.

    Throw in that steam support is pretty great... and it's generally one of the best distros available right now for general use by even a moderate user.

    Also fine as a daily driver for kids/spouses as long as there's someone in the house to run pacman every now and then, or help install new stuff.