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

When Abusive Law Firms (Working for Microsofters Against Us) Assert That Someone Writing in Social Media About Himself is Confidential Information
There was no reason to throw "GDPR" into 2 SLAPPs; they know it, but the goal was to increase the cost of a Defence and lessen the incentive to challenge the SLAPPs
 
Links 15/06/2025: Military Games, Parade, and Actions
Links for the day
Links 15/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, and Wars
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/06/2025: "AI Fatigue and Crappiness"
Links for the day
Microsoft Attack Dogs Against Watchdogs and Guard Dogs in Software
Last year Microsofters hired attack dogs or "guns for hire"
Slop Cannot Replace Domain Expertise
All this "AI" hype (it's not even intelligence, it's all a misnomer, as many of us have insisted all along) will fizzle and be written off as a failed experiment
IBM's Fresh 'PIPs' (Action Before Layoffs)
At times like these, even once-reputable employers resort to PIPs and other procedures/tricks for denial of workers' rights
Microsoft is a Problem Not Just for Denmark
Every country should consider what Denmark is doing, why Denmark is doing it, and then do the same
The Slopfarms' Self Detonation
If more sites like BetaNews go under, then maybe we can still salvage some of the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 14, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 14, 2025
Links 14/06/2025: FDA Changes Priorities, Cassette Data Storage From The 1970s
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Steam Next Fest and Thoughts on Gemini
Links for the day
Site/Datacentre Maintenance Next Week
speed things up
Bulgaria: GNU/Linux Near 10%
The Bulgarian market seems to be changing
I Never Spoke to BetaNews. But BetaNews Wants to Ensure I Never Will, Either.
Sometimes just the reluctance to talk about it can say a great deal
Throwing Money at Lawyers Can't Stop Us (It Never Did)
Even just trying to censor things can result in the opposite of the desired outcome
Online Search or Large Search Engines Aren't Working Anymore
business models that directly compete with interests of Web users
Holidays and Breaks
I've hardly taken any long breaks since I got married
Danish OpenDocument Freedom
"year of Linux"
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025