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Interview With Will Cooke, Canonical Desktop Engineering Director, on Future of Ubuntu

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the future-looks-bright dept.

jas writes:

Following Canonical's pivot away from its internally-developed Unity user interface and Mir display server, Ubuntu has enjoyed two relatively low-drama years, as the Linux Desktop market homogenized during its transition back to a customized GNOME desktop. In a review of the most recent release, TechRepublic's Jack Wallen declared that "Ubuntu 19.04 should seriously impress anyone looking for a fast and reliable Linux desktop platform."

Largely, it's been a slow-and-steady pace for Ubuntu since the pivot from Unity to GNOME, though the distribution made headlines for plans to end support for 32-bit support. This prompted Valve, operators of games marketplace Steam, to re-think its approach toward Ubuntu, which it previously characterized as "as the best-supported path for desktop users."

TechRepublic's James Sanders interviewed Will Cooke, director of engineering for Ubuntu Desktop at Canonical, about the distribution's long-term plans for legacy 32-bit support, shipping a desktop in a post-Unity-era Ubuntu, and why Linux should be the first choice for users migrating from Windows 7 prior to the end of support.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubuntu-what-does-the-future-look-like-post-unity/

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:05PM (5 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @05:05PM (#865429) Journal

    And they still offer nothing more than the quiet, stable, and long lasting ones [slackware.com] do :-)

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  • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:54PM (2 children)

    by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:54PM (#865494) Journal
    As a (deblobbed) Slackware user, I can testify that the OS is in fact better than Ubuntu in virtually every way that I care about, however, there are things Ubuntu does that Salckware simply doesn't, and that serves a horde of users. My family & friends run Ubuntu & Debian (cuz that's what I install & support), and I have to say, KUbuntu is pretty fucking slick the last couple of years, in the sense that everything appears to just work (tm) and the user rage is at the minimum. I remember abandoning Ubuntu during its tumultuous yearly 2000s because it was a steaming pile of shit with crash frequency measurable in Hertz. This is simply no longer the case: whatever it was, they fixed it, and the OS is perfectly usable, with clear paths to deblob and/or stem the non-free software creep.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:26PM (#865513)

      What, specifically, are these unnamed "things"? Kernel panics and app SIGSEGVs I know, but they're not a positive feature. :)

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:53AM

      by Gaaark (41) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:53AM (#865589) Journal

      I used to use and recommend Ubuntu, but then came feck around, feck around, feck around.

      Manjaro (Arch) has given me stability and rock solid performance.

      I'd love to see Ubuntu return to 'GREATNESS', but won't bet on it.

      Really would be nice.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:55PM (1 child)

    by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:55PM (#865495) Journal

    Historically, one major advantage of Ubuntu and other distributions based on it was better hardware autodetection and more defaults that "just work" during install for common classes of desktop and laptop computing tasks. About when did Slackware catch up in that respect?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by melikamp on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:00PM

      by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:00PM (#865496) Journal

      Hardware detection is in the kernel now, but what you are saying is still an issue when it comes to user-friendliness. You can't really compare Ubuntu to Slackware in this area: I mean, for x-sake, Slackware still boots into command line on install, AND THAT'S TEH WAY WE LIKE IT, tyvm. Ubuntu, otoh, goes out of its way to set shit up so that the user doesn't have to, and it it really make a difference.