I hate to write this rant but...
I generally try to avoid toxicity. but this rant needs to be out there. Although tons similars rant from many already there but this as a reminder for myself every time a thought cross my mind to try out new "Ubuntu Based Distro" ever.
Ubuntu Is the worst Distro for servers, for Desktop Computers for anything.
Recently, I gave a try to Ubuntu Based Zorin Distro.
It was great experience all the fancy UI the UX and desktop ability to morphed into any kind of desktop of Mac, Windows or Ubunut at any point It was incredible.
Until...
Packages Installation Frustration
I wanted to install a package that is outside of Ubuntu Repos.
No, I wanted to install newer version of mpv which is v0.38 Current version of zorin had only v0.36 version and cant update anymore. Because Its not Rolling distro and I am so used to Rolling artix distro. I tried to install via nix its done but inorder to run it properly it also required latest version of its dependancies too.
Sadly I gave up.
Then I decided to upgrade zorin to latest version. I did but still it can fetch 0.38.
Now thats the thing about mpv but theres more.
Then I wanted to install some other app which name I dont remember now.
It wasnt available in Official Repos, also It didnt even had its own PPA or source It was only available as "Universal Deb package" and RPM. And wasnt availble under snap or flatpack either.
Also dont let me started on flatpacks. Software Center was showing flatpacks applications download size about 800 Mb and Installation size would be 80 mb. Enough to make me furious.
Flatpacks sucks I read it somewhere but first time experiencing it.
Zorin is great but
I think new Distro Developer should think 100000 times before selecting ubuntu as their base for new Distro.
Zorin did great job around UI/UX . And It attracts new linux seekers but it might give them wrong impression as they come to realize the side effects of ubuntu itself. And it happens to myself I want to use zorin's DE but having to use Ubuntu make me step back.
If Zorin had just Packaged their UI and made it available across all Distros they could be benefited much more than now. Cuz their engineers had less to deal with ubuntu crap and they can just focus os their Desktop Enviroment thing which can be famous as another better DE than gnome.
How ubuntu abandoned APT and their users
I think They already abandon APT and their official repositories. And forcing Developers to maintain their own PPAs and Let users hunt for them is another reason why most newcomers linux users are reluctant to use Ubuntu based Distros. For this reason I feel that they absolutely dont care about their users and developers in anyway. This is not good for their business but I guess they dont care anyway.
Conclusion: Arch Linux is the Best btw.
I used Arch and Artix Linux and In my opinion any "Arch Linux based" distros are the best. Arch linux is the true native "how linux distro should be" kind of true to the spirit of Linux without no corporate so called "stability" nonsense.
This is how linux should be --- "Rollling" because all the packages and softwares are kind of rolling in their way. They are constantly getting developed, New features comming and issues get solves, CVEs got fixed, and such patches get delivered in no time. That makes it actually "real secured" distro in realtime basis. In philosophical way too they always updating and Arch linux provides those latest and greatest softwares which was release a day ago. Sometimes they break system but only sometimes and got fixed later on very fast or we can roll back to previous version pretty quickly.
I was using Arch/Artix for very long time like 1 year or more and I got very few problem while updating. If you know when to update. Like like I do every month. And I got pretty good idea about some broken upates and manually interventions they mentioned in their website.
I think Arch linux is the best or should I say "True Linux" to the very philosophy of it. Steam knows best. And we should avoid these corporate cannonical, snap, flatpack and what not crap.
Thats it.
Thanks for reading.