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Comment by adql | Hacker News Reader

Nah, just seeing Ubuntu does it makes me want to not touch it.

While the project was started by Canonical, they've since cancelled it and UBports, a group of volunteers, have taken over.

But it's still Ubuntu.

Absolutely -- I wouldn't touch ubuntu on a personal device, but UBPorts is well known as the cleanest and most performant desktop for the PinePhone user-base. I'd rather port it than use the other leading mobile desktops (or Ubuntu Touch). They've done great work.

It's the only thing that makes me consider installing it.

Why don't you like Ubuntu? Because of the Amazon store thing?

Also snaps.. I haven't used Ubuntu in years. I used Manjaro for a while and now Arch for a couple of years.

I think canonical has taken control from users to its own benefit.

As one example, ubuntu-minimal is the minimal meta package, but it has a sneaky dependency on ubuntu-advantage-tools

and ubuntu-advantage-tools is sort of the master phone-home system.

How do they take control away from you? Under the hood every Linux distro is just a collection of packages. You can install or remove whatever you want. unlike Windows or macOS, you can replace or remove every single piece of the system.

maybe there are "dark implementations" just like there are "dark patterns"

I'm not that guy, but snaps are the main reason for not liking Ubuntu recently. The impression I get is that Canonical is trying to monetize Ubuntu's popularity and a lot of people are resentful of that since Ubuntu gets most of it's value from the free software it bundles into it's distro.

I think you're right, but

Maybe it's my myopia, but I feel they were easily the most dev friend years ago, and poured their life and money into it, to benefit others

But then after ubuntu phone, the level of ingratitude from us devs were shocking

Project focus wasn't always on the ball, but we the community ripped them apart for it

So yeah, snaps is a little more lookin' after number one. I agree with that assessment, but I hardly blame them

The list of Ubuntu "sins" is very long, and goes all the way to their founding - effectively forking the Debian ecosystem. As for being "dev friendly", it really depends on what you mean by that; their insistence on building their own things and discounting third-party input, over and over, was anything but friendly.

[Article author and submitter here]

> effectively forking the Debian ecosystem

The company and project were founded by a Debian user and developer, who employed and still employs a number of Debian developers, to make a version of Debian for ordinary people.

How is that a bad thing?

Ubuntu changes feed back into Debian. Debian now has the `apt` command instead of `aptitude`. It has the Ubuntu GUI tool for configuring repositories and so on. It has various bits of Ubuntu.

ISTM that this was as friendly and cooperative as a sub-project can be, and Debian has benefitted significantly from it.

I tried Debian before Ubuntu. It was hard and I didn't use it because it was too hard for me to bother.

(I used Caldera OpenLinux and then later SUSE.)

Nowadays Debian is a lot better and easier, and I reckon a lot of that is down to the Ubuntu influence.

I find it hard to see that as a bad thing.

2004 called, they want their flame back.

But seriously: Shuttleworth tried a classic EEE play on Debian, over and over and over. Obviously nerds mostly want to get along and will end up talking to each other, but it doesn't change the fact that, at the time, it was a (not-that-) thinly veiled, well-funded takeover attempt on the Debian ecosystem and community.

> Ubuntu changes feed back into Debian. Debian now has the `apt` command

It's nice that you bring up a classic case of unashamed namesquatting. People have been referring to "apt" in general terms since apt-get came on the scenes, 6 YEARS before Canonical was founded. But why give up the chance to piggyback on someone else's brand, eh...? So when the time came to churn on the umpteen apt-get frontend, they did just that.

OK. It definitely looks like you are someone who won't be reasoned with on this.

APT as a set of tools is ancient. `apt` as a command isn't. It is handy, it's simpler and easier, it eliminates the nonsensical split between apt-get and apt-cache and aptitude and so on... and you can tell, because Debian adopted it.

I like it. I use it all the time. The upstream project adopted it, but to you, that's bad, because it falsifies your angry claim.

Yeah, no. End of thread.

Not OP, but they deleted the boot loader of when windows drive when I installed Ubuntu on a different drive... not cool, Cannonical.

how do you expect it to boot? At least linux keeps windows as an option, try installing windows after linux and you will be left without a way to boot it

It would install its bootloader into its own partition and then it would be up to you to direct your boot sequence to look there. I just did this 2 hours ago with opensuse.

how does a non-technical user direct its boot loader to boot from a partition?

efibootmgr

Depends on what kind of user it is. My BIOS can select the disk that will be first tried for boot, and within that which partition has priority. I can select this during boot without setting it in the bios too. Another option is to use one of the boot disk on usb drive solutions. There are even alternative boot loaders (not windows or grub) that can search the disk for ALL bootable partitions.

A non-technical user does not mess around with partitions :)

While windows had its things in the bootloader, how could opensuse take over the boot, without touching it?

Windows bootloader is at the mbr of the first disk. You have opensuse install its bootloader into its own disk. I am not sure if UEFI changes things here but if anything it probably makes things easier.

Both NTLDR and Windows Boot Manager are capable of redirecting to subsequent bootloaders, this feature is intended for dual booting with older versions of Windows but can also be used to dual boot into Linux and other operating systems.

As an example, if you install Windows 98, then Windows XP, then Windows 10 side by side, the following things happen:

1. Windows 98 installs its bootloader.

2. Windows XP takes a dump of 98's bootloader into a file and then overwrites the MBR with NTLDR. NTLDR is then configured with an option to chainload into 98's bootloader by reading its dump file.

3. Windows 10 takes a dump of NTLDR into a file and then overwrites the MBR with Windows Boot Manager. Windows Boot Manager is then configured with an option to chainload into NTLDR by reading its dump file.

This means you can install Windows 10 (and Windows Boot Manager), install Linux and have it install its bootloader (eg: GRUB) somewhere, then configure Windows Boot Manager to chainload the Linux bootloader (eg: GRUB) by reading from wherever it's stored.

Windows only cares for other installations of Windows, it doesn't care about anything else. For Linux installations, you need to do all the proper preparation work prior to installing Windows.

That being said, as I wrote in a comment[1] further down both NTLDR and Windows Boot Manager are capable of chainloading into other bootloaders, including Linux bootloaders like GRUB.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35380297

By selecting the Ubuntu drive I installed linux in the Bios and then that would let me boot either windows or Ubuntu. Which is what it's supposed to do.

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