Regressing and Killing GPU Acceleration in Linux due to Distro Policies

[Panix]

Well, even if Canonical pushes Snaps, you can still avoid them. For example, I currently use Kubuntu 23.10, so first thing I did after installation is remove all the preinstalled Snaps, so that they don't use system resources in the background (auto-updating and stuff..).

Currently, only Firefox and Chromium are available exclusively as Snaps on Ubuntu. The reason for that is because when these 2 browsers were shipped as regular packages in Ubuntu, the packages were created by Canonical itself. All the other packages in Ubuntu repos are taken from Debian, so that's why I think there won't be any other app that will become Snap exclusive in Ubuntu.

One thing I really like about Ubuntu is that it's probably the only distro where you have a choice of the stable Mesa version you want to stick with:

1. You can stick with the distro supplied Mesa if it works fine for you. (In this case there would most likely not be updates to newer major Mesa versions)

2. you can use kisak-mesa fresh ppa if you want the absolute latest stable Mesa version.

3. If you want to stay on a recent Mesa version but also want to have some more stability (fewer potential bugs) and less frequent updates, there's also kisak-mesa stable ppa, which only updates Mesa when a certain major version has reached its last point release.

These are very well maintained ppa's and I've never experienced issues with them. (I've also read that kisak is a Valve employee)

Ubuntu and Debian are the distros I'm most used to - although, I used Pop OS recently (but, I would argue that really doesn't count?) - you don't find any issues from removing the Snaps?

I use Brave mostly - I rarely use Chrome/Chromium even in Windows and I stopped using Firefox a while ago. Brave is based on Chromium, though. I wonder how that - would impact anything? I would have to use Snaps (for Chromium) for that?

I really think Ubuntu is setting itself up to annoy a lot of ppl - they have constantly been doing 'their own thing' and annoying the Linux community - both devs and users. I can't fault ppl for feeling that way so I was open and planning on trying to become familiar with other distros - and not the deb/apt distros - for e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE - but, I suppose there's pros/cons for 'switching' to one of those, too.

Imho, the Linux landscape isn't as 'positive' or promising as it used to be.

[user1]

Ubuntu and Debian are the distros I'm most used to - although, I used Pop OS recently (but, I would argue that really doesn't count?) - you don't find any issues from removing the Snaps?

No. Snaps (like Flatpaks) are sandoxed apps which are isolated from your distro. So removing them shouldn't cause any issues.

I use Brave mostly - I rarely use Chrome/Chromium even in Windows and I stopped using Firefox a while ago. Brave is based on Chromium, though. I wonder how that - would impact anything? I would have to use Snaps (for Chromium) for that?

If your Brave browser isn't installed as a Snap, removing other Snaps shouldn't impact it.
Idk if there's a way to get the regular Chromium browser on Ubuntu as a regular package, but I'd argue that if you want the vanilla Chrome / Chromium ui, it's much more convenient to just install Google Chrome. And if you care about privacy, it's better to use Ungoogled Chromium instead - I haven't checked, but I think there are at least a few ways to get it for Debian / Ubuntu.

I really think Ubuntu is setting itself up to annoy a lot of ppl - they have constantly been doing 'their own thing' and annoying the Linux community - both devs and users. I can't fault ppl for feeling that way so I was open and planning on trying to become familiar with other distros - and not the deb/apt distros - for e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE - but, I suppose there's pros/cons for 'switching' to one of those, too.

Yeah, I'm personally also not a fan of Canonical and their Nih, syndrome. I also don't like the arrogance of their devs and how dismissively at least some of them respond to Snap criticism.
I've also used Debian, Fedora and OpenSuse and they all have their own pros and cons, but I think you should try them yourself and see which one you like the most.

I recently wanted to come back to KDE after 1.5 years of mostly using Gnome on various distros and my preferred KDE distro is Kubuntu because every release of Kubuntu ships at least the .4 point release of certain KDE version. This way I'll experience fewer potential bugs. And despite my disdain of Canonical, I still think Ubuntu is a good, stable distro base. I've spent most of my time on Linux with Ubuntu based distros and rarely experienced issues.

Imho, the Linux landscape isn't as 'positive' or promising as it used to be.

If you specifically mean the technological aspect of the Linux landscape, then there is certainly some disappointing stuff like the slow progress of Wayland or other advancements of the graphics stack. But if you specifically mean the distro landscape, I'm mostly ok with where different distros are headed.