this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The shortest answer -
Arch has really good documentation and a release style that works for a lot of people.
Ubuntu is coorporitized and less reliable Debian with features that many people dont need or want.
Can you elaborate a bit on don't need or want software?
like forcing snap or amazon search ads back in the day
Or mir, or pulseaudio before it was ready, or deprecating ffmpeg for half a year... Etc etc
wut
It's true, and it was a huge pain in the ass:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/223855
Interesting read. It sounds like that issue came upstream from Debian not Ubuntu though.
At the time, canonical was throwing its weight around and essentially bullying Debian upstream repos. Around this time, there was a mass exodus of the Debian leadership over this kind of thing.
The old guard of Debian wasn't as... enthusiastic about systemd either, but look what they use now.
In some release they removed gdebi package installer so it made unavailable to install deb files with gui
They pushed systemd really early too, right?
I think so. I lost count of the little things, it really was death by a thousand paper cuts.
I was a pretty rabid fan of Ubuntu, still have an x86 and ppc CD of 5.04 somewhere.
But by the time snaps started appearing, and then Ubuntu pro, Ubuntu decided to revert some of my customized configs in /etc after an upgrade, I had had enough. When snaps were reinstalled after an upgrade in 2021, I just flipped over to Debian, which has come a long way in being usable out of the box.
They pushed their own init system, Upstart, before jumping onto the systems bandwagon.
The biggest one: Snaps.
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian, and it's basically the same thing, just faster since it uses native packages instead of Snaps. Ubuntu might as well run all it's apps in Docker containers.
You could rebrand Debian to Ubuntu and most users wouldn't even notice.
I agree, I switched from Ubuntu to MX Linux in 2016 or so, MX is based on Debian, always up to date, just works, Xfce, .deb, no snap, etc
These days it's mainly snap and how you can type apt install and the system will do snap install instead, for firefox for example.
Firefox has instructions on their website for adding their PPA and pinning it over Ubuntu's. I find it interesting that they made an official response that seems to say "yeah nonconsensual snaps are bad, here's another option"
“Bloat” the less system there is (while still working as a modern system) the better. If i need something i can install it myself.