news.ycombinator.com
What's wrong with Ubuntu?
Excerpt
For instance, not long ago, they were including ads/Amazon results in the Apps menu[1], similar to what Microsoft did with the Start menu. They also keep sneaking in suggestions (aka ads) for their Ubuntu Pro subscription in various places like the MOTD, or when you run apt[2], which isn't cool. Most recently, the biggest annoyance is with the way they've been aggressively pushing their Snap store, to the point of even hijacking regular "apt install" commands - normally, you'd expect an "apt install" to fetch a regular .deb from the distro's repos, but they silently hijack the command to fetch apps from their Snap store instead[3]. Now, you may think that normal, non-technical users don't need to care about Snaps - and you'd be right, if they actually worked well. Snaps are slow and buggy and have been a constant source of pain for many users[4]. A major issue is with how buggy Ubuntu has become, especially OS upgrades, which may result in anything from minor issues like broken shortcuts, to complete breakage[5]. This might lead you to think that it's better to do a fresh install, but of late, new ISO releases have been incredibly buggy - like the 24.04 LTS installer, which kept crashing for many users[6] - and considering that LTS is supposed to be the super-stable version, that is not a good user experience. Finally, my pet peeve is with how commercial Canonical have become, like with pushing their Pro subscriptions to targeting enterprises over end users. A couple of months ago, someone was complaining about how confusing the website had become, where the first "download" button you saw wasn't for the Ubuntu ISO, but some enterprise crap. Everything on the website just screamed "corporate"[7].
Related Pain Points
System breakage from routine operations
8Simple updates, package installations, or configuration changes can render a Linux system completely broken with no clear recovery path. Users are forced to debug using obscure forum posts and terminal commands they don't understand.
Snap packages hijack apt install commands without user consent
6Ubuntu silently redirects standard 'apt install' commands to fetch packages from the Snap store instead of traditional .deb repositories, bypassing user expectations and often delivering slower, buggier software experiences.
Snap Package Performance and Overhead
5Snap packages are slower to launch, consume more disk space, and create additional mount points, contributing to system bloat. They represent a departure from the Unix philosophy of small, efficient programs.
Aggressive commercial upselling disrupts user experience
5Canonical aggressively promotes Ubuntu Pro subscriptions through MOTD messages, apt output, and website navigation, with ads appearing in the Apps menu. This commercial behavior alienates users and contradicts FLOSS principles.
Canonical's proprietary-first philosophy undermines FLOSS principles
5Canonical's history of proprietary server-side components (Snap), closed-source backends, and failed attempts at ecosystem control (Mir, Unity, Amazon integration) signal a 'not made here' mentality that contradicts open-source values and discourages community adoption.