UBUNTU without the CONTROVERSIAL choices: try these 5 Linux distros!

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#Linux #Ubuntu #linuxdistro

00:00 Intro
00:51 Sponsor: Regain control of your network connection
01:49 Why not just use Ubuntu?
03:54 Debian (instant clickbait)
05:14 Linux Mint
06:19 Rhino Linux
07:37 Pop!_OS
09:18 Tuxedo OS
11:01 Why not these ones?
13:24 The LTS problem
14:23 Sponsor: Get a PC made to run Linux
15:28 Support the channel

Generally, what people dislike about Ubuntu are the inclusion of Snaps, the proprietary backend of the Snap Store, the opt-out telemetry, and some questionable decisions over the years.

But you could always disable all of that? That’s just part of the story. If what you dislike is Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, then disabling this doesn’t really help.

And we’ll begin by immediately lying, as this one isn’t Ubuntu based: it’s actually the one Ubuntu is based on: Debian. If what you like about Ubuntu, and what you want to keep using, is apt, the package manager, the vast software repos, but you want a vanilla KDE or GNOME experience, and none of the Canonical projects and decisions, Debian might be a really solid bet.

Mint is based on the latest Ubuntu LTS, and removes basically everything that makes Ubuntu, Ubuntu: snaps aren’t there, some apps that don’t have a debian package anymore in Ubuntu have on in Mint, like Chromium, and they don’t use the GNOME desktop: you get Cinnamon, a desktop Mint developed themselves, once based on GNOME 3, but now pretty much its own thing.

One you might want to try is Rhino Linux. It’s also a relatively recent distro, and it moves away from the Ubuntu template by being a rolling release: it doesn’t give you major upgrades, it’s always updated in the background, especially the Linux kernel, and some important apps, like Firefox.

Rhino Linux doesn’t use the GNOME desktop by default, it uses its own vision of XFCE, that, let’s be honest, feels very much like modern GNOME. You can use apt, but Rhino Linux also comes with a meta package manager, called Rhino-pkg, that lets you install debian packages from the repos, flatpaks, snaps, and it also lets you use pacstall, an equivalent to the Arch User repository for Ubuntu.

Another Ubuntu based distro that has a few cool tricks up its sleeve is PopOS. PopOS has some updates on top of that base, notably for drivers and the Linux kernel, and has some applications that are provided in their own repo, so you’re not stuck on very old versions of important apps. They also have some interesting tweaks to the GNOME desktop: they offer a different experience, with a dock by default, an app launcher, and auto tiling features that let you switch from floating windows to a tiling window manager at the press of a button, or with a keyboard shortcut.

If you’re more of a KDE user, then there’s Tuxedo OS. It’s Ubuntu based, with the latest KDE apps and desktop, plucked straight from KDE Neon’s repositories: this means you get a semi rolling release model, with access to the repos for Ubuntu’s latest LTS version, plus some extra repos on top of that for more recent kernel and drivers, and some applications that need to be more up to date.

And now for a list of the distros I didn’t really include, and the reasons why!

The first one is Zorin OS: while it’s a good take on Ubuntu, being basically exactly Ubuntu LTS, but with a customized desktop, pre made layouts, and support for virtually every packaging format out of the box, it’s also based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and the Linux kernel 5.15.

The second one is elementary OS. It’s based on 22.04 LTS, and does have access to the full Ubuntu repos. While I personally think it’s a really great option, the defaults won’t fit everyone, including the removal of all debian based packages from their graphical app store.

And then there are all the Ubuntu flavours: they’re also now constrained by Canonical’s decisions, like preventing them from shipping another packaging format than snap.