Bonum Certa Men Certa

Proprietary Panda: Don't Be Misled by the Innocent Looks of Ubuntu (and Microsoft Canonical)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 24, 2023,
updated Sep 24, 2023

St. Patrick's Day Panda Bear

THE previous article mentioned Mark Shuttleworth. Mr. Shuttleworth is not an evil person and he is certainly not stupid. He also left some comments in Techrights (in the distant past) and we'll write about him in the future, seeing that he put pressure on mere volunteers (some committed suicide later).

As part of the relaunch (after upgrade) of Techrights we try to reduce repetition, replication and duplication across Techrights and its sister site, Tux Machines. For GNU/Linux updates we suggest that Techrights readers also subscribe to Tux Machines. Both sites have RSS feeds.

There are a few worthy highlights about Ubuntu and Canonical though; Stéphane Graber, who left Canonical two months ago (he said he was no longer happy there), is "[b]ringing back the Incus demo server" [1], Alan Pope, who also left Canonical (he had worked with the team developing Snaps), says he "built a snap of bandwhich," [2] and Ubuntu 23.10 beta has been released [3-6]. It's pushing Wayland [7] and users' preferences/interest don't seem to matter. Canonical has been busy pushing RTOS [8], "cloud", and Web bloat [9] because that's where it believes there's more money. The Weekly News [10-11] (it's Issue 805 already) will not say much anymore and Alan Pope plays "hero" by upgrading to some edgy beta with a very short support cycle [12]nical tough.

Given the number of disgruntled employees who leave Canonical and given Ubuntu's trend of just copying whatever IBM does in Fedora, is there still a good reason to choose Ubuntu? There's no actual community and a lot of the development efforts have been minimised for financial reasons or offloaded to others through Snaps. IBM did the same with Flatpak.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Stéphane Graber: Bringing back the Incus demo server
    History

    One very neat feature we had back when LXD was hosted on the Linux Containers infrastructure was the ability to try it online. For that, we were dynamically allocating a LXD container with nested support, allowing the user to quickly get a shell and try LXD for a bit.

    This was the first LXD experience for tens of thousands of people and made it painless to discover LXD and see if it’s a good fit for you.

    With the move of LXD to Canonical, this was lost and my understanding is that for LXD, there’s currently no plan to bring it back.

    Enter Incus

    Now that Incus is part of the Linux Containers project, it gets to use some of the infrastructure which was once provided to LXD, including the ability to provide a live demo server!

  2. Alan Pope: Monitor bandwidth usage with bandwhich

    Back in 2020 I stumbled on Bandwhich, a “Terminal bandwidth utilization tool”, written in Rust.

    More recently, I was looking for a tool to identify which processes on a box were using bandwidth, and how much. I remembered Bandwhich and took another look. I wanted an easy way to install Bandwhich on a variety of machines, running a variety of Linux distributions across different architectures.

    So I built a snap of bandwhich.

  3. Ubuntu 23.10 Promises to Be an Exciting Release, Here’s Why

    A new installer, GNOME 45, minimal preinstalled software, and TPM-backed FDE are among the upcoming Ubuntu 23.10 "Mantic Minotaur" novelties.

  4. Ubuntu 23.10 Beta Released with GNOME 45 and Linux Kernel 6.5

    Ubuntu 23.10 beta is now available for public testing with the latest GNOME 45 desktop environment and powered by Linux kernel 6.5. Here's what's else is new!

  5. Ubuntu's 'Mantic Minotaur' peeks out of the labyrinth

    The next release of Ubuntu will appear in mid-October, and the latest daily builds reveal some of the features of the forthcoming interim release.

    Ubuntu 23.10 is codenamed Mantic Minotaur; the adjective means relating to prophecy or divination of the future, and we're sure you know what minotaurs are meant to be. The wallpapers have a suitably labyrinthine theme. Mantic hasn't gone into beta yet – that's scheduled for next week. However, some of what will be in the new release is becoming clear.

    The original Ubuntu release schedule, back in 2004, was intended to synchronize with the GNOME project's semiannual releases, so we knew that the default desktop would be the imminent GNOME 45, whose beta we examined in August as well as the changes to its extensions system earlier this month.

    One change that should have little to no visible impact is switching the default Firefox browser snap to use Wayland by default. In the event of problems, the above post details how to revert to the X11 version of Firefox, but it looks tricky for non-technical users.

  6. Ubuntu 23.10 Adds a New Package to Restore Old Classic Font
    For those who prefer the old system font, now it’s easy to get it in Ubuntu 23.10 via a new package! Since Ubuntu 23.04, Ubuntu takes use a new slim font for the text in system menus, documents, and app windows.
  7. Ubuntu 23.10 Runs Firefox in Wayland Mode by Default

    Most of us using Ubuntu use the Mozilla Firefox Snap preinstalled by default — and in Ubuntu 23.10 that package comes with a big below-the-surface change. Ubuntu defaults to Wayland but the Firefox Snap currently runs in XWayland mode Canonical has announced that it has configured the Firefox Snap in Ubuntu 23.10 to run in Wayland mode by default.

  8. Fast SDV prototyping in automotive with real-time kernel

    How you can use real-time computing to prototype software defined vehicles in the cloud

  9. Display graphs for WebRTC Statistics API data using ChartJS and React

    WebRTC is an open-source technology that enables Real-Time Communications (RTC) in a web browser.

  10. Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 805
    Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 805 for the week of September 10 – 16, 2023. The full version of this issue is available here.
  11. The Fridge: Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 805
  12. Alan Pope: Go manic for mantic

    So let’s upgrade now!

    Also, nobody seemed to spot that I got the releases round the wrong way. 23.04 is Lunar, and 23.10 is Mantic. I edited the post, but kept the above screenshot in

    Upgrades work

    So I’m upgrading one of the machines now. I will only upgrade my personal desktop Intel NUC, not the work laptop. For now, at least.

    I’ve long had the opinion that Ubuntu upgrades are generally reliable. On the whole, for most people, most of the time, the upgrade tool from one release to the next, will result in a working system.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
 
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025