
Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish Released - nanna
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes
======
apexalpha
Despite recieving enormous amounts of backlash and criticism from the tech
comunity every release Canonical is the one company making Linux desktops
available for less technical people and I applaud them for doing so!

Rocking the latest LTS here, and Ubuntu server on my homeserver. Wish them all
the luck!

~~~
hyperbovine
Honestly though, how many non- technical people do you know who run _any_ form
of Linux? Steve Jobs came along and gobbled up that market 15 years ago.

~~~
severino
My dad! :-P

For non-technical people, I think there's not much difference between using a
computer with Ubuntu, Mac or Windows, for regular tasks like browsing the
internet, online shopping, sending email, doing stuff in spreadsheets, sharing
photographs, etc. Software's mostly the same, in fact. And with this trend to
make everything browser based, even more.

Of course things can go wrong, but it doesn't really matter which OS they're
using. For example, should this last week botched Windows 10-HP upgrade
happened to my father, there's nothing he could have done on his own to
restore his computer.

~~~
jki275
That's true only so far as using MS Office is not needed...

Most people's computing needs would be adequately served by an iPad -- but
those who aren't are typically doing more with their computers than can be met
by any OS.

~~~
severino
Right. While Office has still some unpaired features, it's also true that not
everybody using Office needs Office, specially the home users who need only
daily finance, writting letters, etc.

~~~
appleiigs
The non-technical people in my life did not realize you don’t need Office to
open Office documents. This important when they interact with accountants,
lawyers and such.

Once I show them Libre, they still want Office because Libre looks like it’s
from Excel 2003 era and loses credibility in their eyes.

Then I show them Google Docs and Sheets and it looks nice. Literally all they
need is something that _looks_ modern. But in fact Google apps have actually
been quite slick. Perfect amount of functionality at the moment. Google seems
to follow keyboard behaviour and shortcuts for easy transition (especially
Excel). Hope Google doesn’t bloat their apps over time.

~~~
jki275
All of those applications are _ok_ if you don't actually need to produce
commercial documents. Libreoffice and Google Docs aren't good enough, and if
you're doing anything other than basic data presentation with Excel it's not
compatible with any of them.

~~~
y4mi
Google sheets isn't the only option available though. You can even use
Microsoft's own online implementation if you want compatibility to excel
(without vba)

[https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx](https://office.live.com/start/Excel.aspx)

~~~
jki275
Those are limited subsets of functionality, and vba isn't all that's not
there.

------
KeitIG
As always, kudos to Canonical to deliver one of the most mature distribution.

But. 2018. And still no fractional scaling. This drives me mad. (changing the
text scaling is not a solution).

Ok, there was Mir, Wayland is late (again)... how can this problem not be
solved in 10 years? (genuine question)

~~~
sunseb
Maybe it's because when you set fractional scaling you lose pixel perfect
design (icons, images, and so).

[https://icons8.com/articles/make-pixel-perfect-
icons/](https://icons8.com/articles/make-pixel-perfect-icons/)

~~~
quantummkv
It dosen't happen that way on windows. I had scaling set to 1.25 and got no
issues anywhere.

The issue with linux is that X wasn't designed for this and Wayland is still
unstable/unusable (thanks nvidia)

~~~
vetinari
Wayland is actually pretty stable. Nvidia has problem with OpenGL in Xwayland
(i.e. 3d accel for x11 apps), otherwise, it should work.

There are warts though, when using Wayland. When using scaling (doesn't have
to be fractional, either), X11 apps are being upscaled, not downscaled,
resulting in blurriness. Unfortunately, neither Firefox nor Chrome does
support Wayland natively, and who wants to use their most used app on their
computer in blurry mode?

~~~
nanna
Must admit I don't understand what Wayland is, or X server for that matter.
Would someone mind explaining it, for someone a bit dull of mind as myself?

~~~
Shywim
In short: X.org is a decade old _display server_ that became the standard to
display graphical window on the majority of Linux distribution. GNOME, KDE,
XFCE and others are/were client to this display server.

Wayland is a new protocol where the window manager (ie GNOME, KDE,...) is
responsible of directly managing the display. Each window manager must
reimplement this protocol (or use a library already doing this work) which
enable them to have more control over the windows.

Applications must also directly support Wayland like they did for X.org before
(which was the default commonly used, so no problem) or the user just have
XWayland installed on their computer to show X.org windows inside a Wayland WM
but then the application may not display correctly (blur, artifcats,...)

~~~
ch_123
It is perhaps worth noting that while X.org is about a decade old, it is an
implementation of the X Window System protocol which dates back to the mid
80s.

Suffice to say, quite a lot has changed in computer graphics/interfaces since
that time, and most modern *nix operating systems end up circumventing quite a
lot of X to offer modern features. Thus X brings quite a lot of legacy debt to
the table which can't be easily removed.

~~~
oblio
Also, even back in the day, X wasn't considered the best tech around, at least
by some. For example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS) was
around.

However NeWS' licensing was proprietary and X won out.

~~~
unstuckdev
Gopher and HTTP had a similar situation. Gopher had a lot going for it, but
the future licensing situation was unclear. HTTP was free, clear, and
widespread by the time Gopher became GPL.

------
brendaningram
Unfortunately, I think Canonical has lost their focus on the desktop user.
Every version of Ubuntu since 16.04 has had major issues for me. I have given
every one of them a chance to redeem themselves, right up to today trying
18.10. Still no dice...

For me, as boring as it sounds, Debian 9 (Stretch) with XFCE is rock solid as
a daily driver. I'm not some fuddy duddy doing nothing but text editing
either. I code every day with Golang and Postgres 11 using VSCode. I make
music using Bitwig (and sometimes Ardour). I use Shotwell and Gimp for my
photography. I run the latest Krita in the (probably vain) hope that I can
become a better artist. And I write my always-in-progress novels with the
latest Libreoffice 6.1 and FocusWriter.

So to the people asking for a distro that has a better policy on quality, I
don't think you can go past Debian.

~~~
stplsd
What major issues you encountered on 18.04?

~~~
hannasanarion
Well for one, at release, if you mistype your password, and then type it
correctly, gdm would crash and you had to hard reboot.

[https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031797/ubuntu-18-upgrade-
fa...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031797/ubuntu-18-upgrade-failing-to-
login-after-upgrade/1032472#1032472)

------
nanna
A point that's not been discussed in the Ubuntu vs Debian discussion here is
the difference in communities. A major reason I prefer Ubuntu - ok
specifically Kubuntu - is because I find the community around it warm,
welcoming, positive, encouraging and inclusive, whereas I found the Debian-
user email list cantankerous to say the least. I'm glad there's a place for
the kinds of posters out there in the world, but it's not for me. Horses for
courses, as we say in the UK. Linux isn't just a bunch of software that I can
use, but a community which I am a part of.

~~~
retSava
OT: cantankerous - bad-tempered, argumentative, and uncooperative

thanks for the vocabulary expansion!

~~~
unstuckdev
I (and probably the person you replied to) take all these words for granted.
It didn't occur to me someone hadn't heard of them.

Check out the thesaurus entry for cantankerous for some more useful, related,
and probably less common than I think terms:
[https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cantankerous](https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/cantankerous)

~~~
retSava
Thanks!

And I don't wish people to stop using less common words - I do enjoy an
expanded vocabulary, just for the record. The comment was just to save others
a couple of clicks :).

------
tumetab1
I'm amazed at Canonical policy of releasing new versions with these kind of
bugs open
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes#Known_...](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CosmicCuttlefish/ReleaseNotes#Known_issues)

Anyone care to recommend a distro which has better policy on quality? (for
desktop usage)

~~~
jl6
Canonical need to be clearer that the LTS releases are the real releases, and
the interim 6-monthly releases are more like developer previews.

~~~
tumetab1
Humm, didn't think of them that way.

------
vmp
Personally, I've only ever had issues with Ubuntu Server and have since
switched back to Debian.

I don't know if I'm extremely unlucky or if the choices I make are really
_that_ bad;

\- I've hit a bug with amavisd and bitdefender[1]

\- Recently, Ubuntu pushed for 'netplan' instead of ifupdown and that didn't
work with an empty bridge for LXC[2][3]

\- They broke a (convenience) script for remotely unlocking a LUKS rootfs[4]

\- postconf segfaulting every 5 minutes[5], nothing bad but it just looks ugly
in the server logs

That's the major annoyances that I've experienced in the last 3 years. Never
had anything like it on Debian. :/

[1] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amavisd-
new/+bug/1...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amavisd-
new/+bug/1525930/)

[2]
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1736975](https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1736975)

[3]
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1773997](https://bugs.launchpad.net/netplan/+bug/1773997)

[4]
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/busybox/+bug/16518...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/busybox/+bug/1651818)

[5]
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/postfix/+bug/17534...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/postfix/+bug/1753470)

~~~
hyperbovine
Most Debian packages are years behind the current stable release. This debate
is as old as Ubuntu itself. It is the very reason Ubuntu exists. Stable, free,
current: pick any two

------
Tepix
Great to see a new release. Looks like TLS 1.3 is supported OOTB.

To get nginx with TLS 1.3 support currently required compiling from source on
Bionic. "The Ubuntu project is currently evaluating replacing OpenSSL 1.1.0
with backported OpenSSL 1.1.1 in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Bug 1797386"

Fingers crossed...

------
irq-1
Lubuntu 18.10 will have LXQt -- it's still beta:

[https://lubuntu.me/cosmic-beta-released/](https://lubuntu.me/cosmic-beta-
released/)

------
milankragujevic
Curiously I can't install it on a laptop so I've hot to go back to 16.04. None
of the new versions want to install, get stuck at Installing grub2...

~~~
tbiteteitb
Are You online or offline while installing? 18.04 won't install in my laptop
if I was not online.

Something needed to be downloaded to properly finish the setup process.

~~~
milankragujevic
Online, though my internet doesn't work properly today, so it may be that...
I'll try again later...

------
knocte
Two quick questions for anyone that has already tested it:

\- Does it include a dark theme by default, or not yet? :-/

\- Can you install flatpak with `apt-get` or do you need to install some apt
sources first?

~~~
kjullien
You can install any theme you want... This is linux, not macos. The point is
for you to customize to your liking.

Same for flatpack, I don't see why you expect it to be bundled over snaps
(which is included if I recall) or appimages...

~~~
knocte
> You can install any theme you want... This is linux, not macos. The point is
> for you to customize to your liking.

Not that easy without security risks. See:
[https://askubuntu.com/questions/854253/how-to-install-a-
cust...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/854253/how-to-install-a-custom-
gtk3-ubuntu-theme-without-having-to-add-a-ppa)

That's why I ask if it has been included by default, in the preferences menu
or wherever the theme preferences are.

> Same for flatpack, I don't see why you expect it to be bundled over snaps

I didn't ask if it's bundled. I asked if it's in the default repos to install
it remotely (opt-in) without changing the repos configuration.

~~~
hocuspocus
You can install ubuntu-budgie-themes, they come with Pocillo, including a dark
variant.

------
martinsbalodis
Does 18.10 solve the Dropbox sync problem?

~~~
hannasanarion
You mean the fact that Dropbox only supports unencrypted ext4 now?

No, that is Dropbox's new intentional behavior, they have no plans to resume
sync support for linux.

~~~
marenkay
Couldn't you just fake it in a container pretending it was ext4? Apart from
the real question: why Dropbox when you can rsync and others.

~~~
hannasanarion
... because dropbox is cross-platform, user-friendly, doesn't require use of
the commandline or configuring an upstream source, has a web interface, simple
sharing with others, etc etc etc etc

Those kinds of "can't you just..." or "why use [easy user-friendly popular
thing] when you could [complicated nerdy feature-bare alternative]" answers
are rarely helpful and typically come across as condescending.

Yes, there are complicated containerized or fancy disk volume spoofing
workarounds, and there are also alternatives (I like SpiderOak), but none are
as simple as using dropbox was.

~~~
Fnoord
I got 1 TB for free with TransIP STACK. They use encryption on their end, I
use on mine as well (Cryptomator). Its cross-platform (basically their clients
are a fork from OwnCloud/NextCloud), there's a web interface, simple to share
with others, and it works on every filesystem AFAIK. No vendor lock-in.

The only thing Dropbox has going for it, is that it was the first one which
was both easy and popular when there was demand for it. That's all. Network
effect example numero uno.

------
ymannn
Hello fingerprint scanner!

~~~
marenkay
Can you elaborate on that? I saw the fingerprint scanner libraries being added
but does this add a significant amount of the hardware installed these days?

