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Comment by emj | Hacker News Reader

I never have a problem with this, but I do shutdown my computer everyday. I do actually use arch as well but a lot less than Ubuntu and Debian, my feeling is that Arch is a lot more trouble than Ubuntu and Debian. I am very conservative with my desktop I always want to be able to work, I've had zero problems with that attitude running Ubuntu since it was just an idea. All problems I've had were self inflicted and there are many foot guns for sure.

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I also shut down my computer every night. If it works for you I'm happy for you, but it's more trouble than Arch was for me.

The stability is nice while it lasts, but I've had way too many major things break when upgrading to a new release. The most extreme case was the time Ubuntu 19.10 broke GDM, so anyone with an nvidia card and auto-login enabled had their system bricked. This is even though I reported the issue a long time before the release, and there were very reasonable workarounds proposed in the issue discussion in good time to fix the issues before release. Ubuntu 21.04 released with a nextcloud-desktop application which segfaulted on launch. I also reported this a long time before release, and it was ignored because they had already frozen the packages they import from Debian, so I had to deal with a desktop which couldn't sync my files.

I haven't experienced similar huge issues in Arch, but more importantly, when an issue does occur, I can expect a fix to be out in days, not weeks or months.

I only see problems with LTS. I do agree that there are some stability issues with Ubuntu that just don't get fixed, but this is mostly an issue with the other releases. This is the problem with staggered releases your fix might very well take 6 months.

Arch has severe problems in my mind especially in stability, but as you say it is easier to fix stuff and that is a huge plus. It's just a trap I try to avoid for my desktop!

Thanks for the explanation makes a lot more sense now!

I do truly believe that Ubuntu will be a lot more stable if you stay away from the "interim" releases. When I bring these things up with people, I do get the impression that Canonical looks at the non-LTS releases as more of a sort of public beta test to ensure the eventual LTS is solid. For the sort of stuff I do on my computer, using libraries which are up to 2 years out of date is incredibly painful; even the 6 months between interim releases is a problem sometimes.

So if you use the LTS, and the outdated packages isn't an issue for you, it makes sense that you'd be pretty happy with it. And maybe that's a use-case I'm underestimating.

I just do not trust new stuff being stable enough for a daily driver, but I still use it because I have to. As a developer I do not feel that this is an issue for me. I understand why it can be an issue.

This is why I stay on LTS versions. I'm about to install 22.04 on a new SSD. I'll dual boot 20.04 to work until I'm confident that I can setup 22.04 with all the GNOME extensions I need to have a sane desktop, plus all the software I need to do my job. Actually maybe I'll give a try to Debian 11, no snaps there.

Care to share what GNOME extensions you like? I've gone so far as to hack its CSS files, but that's not a happy place to be.

Here's the list, but the goal first: I want a desktop with only a bottom bar (I'd buy a Mac if I wanted a top one,) a task bar (like old Windows,) status icons and clock in the bottom right (old Windows again?), no laucher / dock on screen, virtual desktops but no animations that move everything on my screen, solid color for the desktop background.

1. Applications Menu - for when I forget the name of an app but I know more or less which category it belongs to.

2. Custom Hot Corners - to disable all actions started by moving the pointer to a corner.

3. Dash to Panel - The important one: panel to the bottom, intellihide the bottom bar, show the taskbar, position the date and system menus, background color, windows previews, workspace isolation, ungroup applications, disable gestures,

4. Desktop Icons - this seems to be a system extension, the only two icons I see are the trash bin and a link to my home directory. I'm not using them from the desktop.

5. Extensions - an extensions menu, useful only when I don't have Firefox open, so basically never. I could remove this extension.

6. GSConnect - not related to desktop customization but even more important IMHO. It's the GNOME implementation of KDE Connect.

7. Notification Center - notifications from the bottom right, in a menu, etc.

8. Places Status Indicator - a menu in the bottom bar with the bookmarks defined in the file manager.

9. Recent Items - a menu in the bottom bar with the recently opened documents.

10. Simple net speed - current bandwidth used by my laptop, in the bottom bar.

11. Sound Input & Output Device Chooser - list of sound output and input devices, set volume per device.

12. Start Overlay in Application View - very important one: when I press the super key I get the list of the available applications instead of the outlines of the open windows (what would I use them for? They are already on my screen.)

13. User Themes - to let me install a theme from my disk.

14. Workspace Switch Wraparound - I have one workspace per customer plus a couple for me. They are arranged horizontally. I go to a workspace with a hotkey but I also move with super-alt left/right and if I want to move a window across workspaces I do it with ctrl-super-alt left/right. This extension makes moving leftward work even on the first workspace and moving rightward works in the last one.

15. Workspaces to Dock - The other important one: it completes Dash to Panel at undoing the remaining default choices of GNOME Shell. Intellihide of the bottom bar (again?), no animations, never see workspace thumbnails, hide the workspace switcher.

I'm not missing the irony of throwing a lot of code at undoing the effects of a lot of code written by GNOME in the last decade. At least they still let us do it.

If somebody's asking why I'm not using another DE: I want to stay on the mayor ones (support and maintenance.) Why not KDE? I had bad memories of KDE around 2014: twice as many clicks than GNOME to do the same thing, especially in settings. Somebody told me that it got better but there is little incentive at investing time to only get where I am now. I'll do it if and when I won't be able to bend GNOME to my desires.

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