An Average User's POV: Ubuntu 24.04

Ubuntu 24.04:Distinguishing the Hate Hype from the Truth.

This is all from the pov of an install of the beta. When the final release comes out I will use install it and see if it has any changes on these. But this is my intial reaction of a weeks worth of using it in my day to day in both work and play.

How I am handling package management

I will first go to the default app store. If its in there and from Ubuntu proper I will use it. Snap or deb, does not matter to me. If it's an app from a 3rd party I will first check with the developer. If they officially support a snap then I will use it. If they only officially support a flatpak I will use that. Tbh, this is how all users should use software.

Truth be told I'm not really a fan of Snaps, Flatpaks or Appimages. I like the good old fashioned debs. But I can understand the use cases for the alternative package management. Im not a fan because of the propriatary back end of Snaps. But I get why Canonical did it. To limit the amount of crappy 3rd party stores. Flatpaks while they seem to be the most popular and wide spread of the 3 they have become that what they have set out to avoid. Sure there are a couple of distros that have their own Flatpak repos, but there is essentially one Flatpak repo that most people use, Flathub. I am not a fan of centralized services of any kind. The runtime updates and most of the packages are out of control when it comes to their size and amount of updates. It's beginning to get insanely stupid to admin your own system if you have a lot of flatpaks installed. Its complete and utter bloat.

I have a 2TB external hard drive that I keep my data on. It's half full of stuff I want/need to keep at a momments notice. I also have 2 500GB internal ssd's. 1 is only 40% of stuff I use day to day for the day job. The other is my root. I ran Pop!OS (2 yrs 1 install), Dual booted ZorinOS & Pop (almost 1 yr), then Debian Bookworm/MXLinux with nearly all the apps I thought I needed to have as flatpaks on all of those distros. the root drive was never less than 30% full except for when I was only using Pop!OS. That was only down to 20%. With this install of the 24.04 beta I've kept the flapaks to minimum and using mostly snaps and debs. I am currently only using 12GB of a 500Gb drive.

Appimages are pretty much moot for me. I havent found an app that is only distributed as an Appimage that I want or need to use. So it's easy for me to ignore them.

The hater's points I have found to be untrue about Ubuntu 24.04

• It will substitute snaps for debs! = FALSE. You can search and install deb packages from the software store. I removed the snap Thunderbird and then searched the software store for Thunderbird and it did not return a snap package. It did show a deb package. I installed it and then ran snap list and Thunderbird was back in the snap list. But other apps I installed as deb packages it did not install snap versions. So this is a case by case situation.

• Everything is a snap! = FALSE - There are only 9 snap packages installed by default. Mostly run times and 2 apps. Both from Mozilla, Firefox & Thunderbird. You can still remove snapd, including the store and run everything with Synaptic or Gnome Software.

• Snaps are evil and run like shit = FALSE - I find the unofficial snaps and less popular apps are just as slow and crappy as flatpak versions.

• The new software app wont install deb packages. = FALSE - search and install debs. Including the Synaptic Pacakge Manager and Gnome Software for flatpak management.

• Canonical is an evil corporation = Im going to call FALSE on this as well. They are a open source company trying to make a profit. The same people who hate on Cononical also hate on Red Hat and System76. I do not think Canonical or System76 are evil at all. I think they are corporations doing the best they can to survive. Red Hat on the other hand have moved the goal posts and are owned by the enemy of open source. They are trying to walk the fence line and blatantly don't care about when they step over it. Thats going to be the downfall. You cant have it both ways and it will eventually eat them.

What's it got and auto upgrade schedule?

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS includes the new 6.x Linux kernel that brings many new features.

• 24.04 is supported for 5 years until June 2029

• Users of Ubuntu 23.10 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 24.04 soon after the release.

• Users of 22.04 LTS however will be offered the automatic upgrade when 24.04.1 LTS is released, which is scheduled for the 15th of August.

• The default value 28 of vm.max_map_count was increased to 1048576 which is needed for some games to run

• The init system was updated to systemd v255.4

• The network stack was updated to Netplan version 1.0 34.

• A bunch of security improvements

• The new Flutter based installer. Worked great for me and was super fast. Heres a tip: When installing (doesnt matter if it's Ubuntu or any other distro) unplug all external drives. Many installers will scan all your drives before starting the install process to present you all of your options.

• All new Ubuntu App Store. While it is snap centric it does install and manage debian packages from the Ubuntu repos. This store is probably the best looking and functioning store that Ubuntu has ever had.

• Gnome is updated to Gnome 46. Probably the best looking and functioning Gnome to date.

  Plus a whole big old list of stuff that 99% of people who use Ubuntu Desktop don't really care about.

  The bottom line

  At the end of the day Ubuntu is a distro created by a company that needs to make a profit. Just as System76 is with Pop!OS. System76 had an issue with Gnome's direction they were taking so they set out to create their own desktop called Cosmic. Everybody fawns all over it. Canonical had an issue with package management and came up with snaps and a closed sourced back end to keep out 3rd party repos and to be able to control support requests on the various official Ubuntu flavors they required the flavors to run snaps and not flatpaks. That is somehow considered evil and reprehensible for a company to want to control the support of it's products.

  It's still possible to remove snaps and replace them with debs or flatpaks entirely. Canonical did state that they plan on making an immutable version of Ubuntu with everything as a flatpak. But it would be a long ways away. Snaps are the way that Canonical has invested to differentiating Ubuntu from the rest of the world of Linux.

  I've been running the beta version for almost 2 weeks now. Every day for the day job and my off work time. I have to admit that it has been probably the most stable beta version of Ubuntu I've ever used. It is taking the least amount of room on my hard drive and running with the lowest of resource usage I've had from Gnome in close to 10 yrs. I actually like it and look forward to the final release so I can install it again and see what changed from the beta. So far it seems to be back to the distro that you can just install and get things done without all the hassle.

Remember that with Linux, it's not what you use that matters. It's that you use Linux thats important.

It's been quiet

It’s been quiet

It’s been really quiet around here. Not necessarily because I’ve been busy with the day job. I just don’t really have the want to do really anything. I don’t want to get on social media because it’s stupid and full of narcissistic people who think the world revolves around them and their personal views.

About the only “socializing” I can stand online anymore is hanging out in a couple of Matrix chat rooms. I used to love Twitter. But anymore its just a bastion of ads intertwined with click baity stolen content from other content creators whose sole purpose is to divide and instigate arguments. All hoping to get those impressions from Elon’s advertising revenue share. I have no problems with people making money. I’m just tired of the shitty ass advertising. Literally everything is a fucking advertisement online.

But that’s not the real reason I’ve been so quiet.

I’ve been in mourning. You will be too when I say it. Some of you already know. Most of you don’t. My best friend of 30+ yrs, John Sisler Jr died last Tuesday April 9th. You knew him as Johnny Gearjammer. He was my musical soul mate and muse. We went trucking together, we got drunk together, we got high together. We were the epitome of brothers. He named his son after me. That is an honor I will always cherish. I would have reciprocated and named my child after him but no form of John or Jonathon works very well with a daughter. And he was fine with that. The man had a heart of gold even though he looked like he would rather throw you in a wood chipper most of the time.

But the man loved life and he loved to laugh. He was involved in nearly every podcast, live stream or radio station I ever did. Whether he was behind the scenes giving music suggestions and topics for shows or actually on air hosting them.

I’ve never had more creativity come out of my brain and my heart than I did when I was jamming with him. We wrote and recorded hundreds of songs that were never released. They are all on tapes and cd’s in a nondescript storage unit somewhere and I am dying to get my hands on them.

Here’s what happened

He had checked himself into the hospital over a month prior complaining of stomach pain. He never left. They could tell it was cancer along with a perforated stomach. They ran daily tests looking for the cancer and they couldn’t fix his perforated stomach without knowing the cancer. So they were running a circle. His blood pressure kept dropping because of the perforated stomach and he finally crashed super hard on April 5th. They flew him to another better equipped hospital while in a coma and on life support. On the 9th his family had to make the tough decision to pull the plug. John passed a couple of hours later.

What comes next?

There was no service and no memorial. So how do we move on with our lives? By that question I guess I’m meaning more about how do I move on with my life, lol. I really don’t know. Now I’m sitting here with this hole left empty in my life. I’ve got literally no creative drive. All I can do is sit and think about the fun we had. I’ve got some of his older solo music that he released out into the ether and all the stuff from Slight Case of Death still rolls around in my head all day and night long. Plus all the jams he and I did still ring in my ears like it was yesterday. But there is no drive to create something new. All I want is to jam with one more time. But that wont happen. At least not in this life.

3 Fat Guys/Loud & Proud/Off the Rails

Whatever you want to call it. All 3 are pretty much the exact same show. Im thinking that Radioman and I are going to do a tribute/memorial stream soon on Rumble, YouTube and CastGarden. I would also like to do one in the old Palnet discord server so that all the old listeners can come and join in and talk about their favorite things about John. Might just do that all at once so everybody can attend.

In IRL there is a service planned once everyone has had time to process and grieve in their own way. John knew and was friends with a lot of people who loved him as much as he did them. Because of this we are planning a big memorial service once the weather here in mid Michigan gets back to being stable warm. We are inviting anybody who ever knew or played music with John to bring their instruments and just having a big ass jam session/concert for an entire day of remembrance of him. I plan on sticking his number one favorite guitar “Peggy” on a stand on stage left. The side he always stood on. “Peggy” is the black LTD Explorer with the skull on it. He named it after his grand mother. It’s a beautiful guitar and the one he played the most on stage.

If I can pull it off and get some resources together I will see if I can get someone to either stream it live or at the very least record it.

The giant jam session/memorial isnt going to happen for a couple of months. The live stream from Radioman and I will be soon. I will keep you all posted.

UB Live/Other content

I will continue to post videos and blogs on things that I find interesting. Probably mostly about Linux and bitching about the over abundance of idiots in the world today.

I've had a recent rekindling of wanting to do more music stuff again. But I'm not really sure if thats because all these memories of making music with John came flooding back or if it's really something that I want to do. Maybe I will share me figuring out things in music creation. Who really knows. The future is an unkown.

I love and miss you my little brother from another mother, Johnny G. May you rest in peace and keep those strings in tune. Cause I cant wait to jam with you again.

TileOS - River Edition

In case you hadnt noticed

Vibrating Viruses

Digital rights charter - Windows free religon

Mashed Cover Ups: Social media sucks

Loud & Proud clip: The Covid Lawsuit

Drop the Mic - My favorite J-Metal Songs

Loud & Proud clip: Kwa sings the Christmas classics

Loud & Proud clip: How to deal with Xmas carolers

Loud & Proud promo: Uncensored

Ubuntu Sway Remix 23.04

The Playlist - OTR preshow 07-29-2023

8 billion stronger versions

Jellfin - It's all you need

Online Freedom starts with your device

I play TF2 and die a lot

How to fall off a stage

How to Fall Off a Stage - A True Story

Hello Dreemers and Ecencials! It's day 2 of the Dreemport Ecency Challenge and I have to credit my partner, @blackdaisyft in the challenge, for inspiring this one. She wrote about her experience at a music festival here. You should go read it.

But it reminded me of my "Rock Star" days when I was playing guitar for S.C.o.D. Which stands for Slight Case of Death.

A little history about the band

We were never a "big band" by any means. But we did gain quite a bit of attention between the cities of Flint, Saginaw, Lansing and even a bit of Detroit. We had a cool little collection of fans that would follow us for a time being to every show. We called them the SCOD Squad, lol.

Like I said we weren't a big band by any means. But we were really well known in the Michigan area. We didn't play a lot of shows. Very few in fact. I think 10 in a year was our busiest. It's not that we thought we were elite or anything. It was in actuality we were all responsible adults with jobs and families. If we didn't have those things we probably would have gotten somewhere.

Our biggest claim to fame was opening for Great White at The Soaring Eagle Casino. It was part of a Music Festival called 11/11/11. And yes that was the date it was held on. That day was epic for us. We got to meet and hang out with Great White, my best friend got married there, we played to a standing room only crowd that was estimated to 3000 people, the entire festival was broadcasted to the entire casino and hotel. But the icing on the cake was random people stopping me & my wife all night long asking for autographs. Before you ask. Yes I signed my name as Unkle Bonehead, lol.

But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about the time I fell off the stage and kept playing. When I would play shows I was usually the one dude on the stage other than Gary (vocalist) that would run around, jump, bang my head through an entire song. And I was usually, not so much drunk, but had enough in me to feel good. Well this night we were headlining which means we were the last to play. The grand finale if you will. I typically will go through a couple of pitchers of beer by myself with no problem. Still just buzzed but not drunk. But that's not what ended up happening.

One of the SCoD Squad had brought an entire fifth of whiskey and Peach Schnapps for the squad to consume for the evening. I was then asked to help finish them off. Which I was happy to oblige but, I not being in my right mind and forgetting we still had yet to perform, finished them off in a grand fashion.

I'm not sure exactly what or how the show was going. But I remember being on stage rocking out, banging my head and getting very, very dizzy. Now keep in mind it wasn't that big of a fall. It was only maybe a 6-8 inch riser I was on at the time. I didn't get hurt or any injured in any way. I just basically ended up in the middle of the mosh pit. Which surprisingly made way for me and they all politely avoided hitting me and my guitar. Another reason why I love the metal community. They have mad respect for each other. Its just a natural thing.

But my little 6 inch fall of the stage seemed to go down in history with the band and the Scod Squad who never let me live it down. From that night on there was always a smart ass at every show with a tape measure checking the stage height and putting a tape mark on the stage for me to stay behind.

Summing it up

Like I said the band was a lot of fun. Even though we never recorded an actual real EP or went on any tours. We had a big enough fandom that we did headline a lot of local shows. We were in high demand because we were known as an "in the moment, must see live or miss it" band. I don't regret any of it and I miss the fans the most.

To those who think that metal is nothing but trash

No matter what you think about metal music. There is no other music community that is as dedicated, respectful and protective of their fellow members. They don't care about your politics, your sexual preferences or anything like that. You go to a metal show. You are family. You are accepted as you are. To me that's an awful lot like Hive feels to me. So maybe we are all Metal Heads on here and we don't even know it.

BTW

This post, as with all of my other posts of written content, are done using Ecency. I usually do them in the Ecency desktop app called Vision but this time I used the web app.

When I respond to your comments on my posts I'm usually using the Ecency Mobile app on my phone or tablet. Dont worry they have both iOS and android so you're covered if your interested. If you haven't tried out Ecency yet and you are on Hive. You owe it to yourself to go check it out.

You can thank me later.

A brief history of my podcasts & live streaming

3FatGuys-Mail Order Cremation

ZorinOS Pro

2FatGuys-Music, Morons & Weed

Hanging out with Johnny G

Rumble.com Video

Click here to play this video on Tor

John & I havent hung out together since we ended Off the Rails shortly before Halloween 2023. So we thought we would get together and do some catching up.

My Links -

• https://defluence.me
• https://twitter.com/defluenced
• https://d.buzz/@unklebonehead
• https://rumble.com/c/c-1773197
• https://youtube.com/@unklebonehead
• https://cast.garden/c/defluenced/videos
• https://www.twitch.tv/unklebonehead

I use Ubuntu, btw

CastGarden video

Click here to watch this video on tor

I gave Ubuntu 23.04 a good try and I like it.

I gave Ubuntu 23.04 a good try and I like it. IMO it's the best one so far. You dont have to use the snaps if you dont want. Just install Flatpak and boom. Get your work done. The new flutter installer worked like a charm on my machine except for not adding a swap partition. Two weeks solid as a daily driver for work and play and no issues after adding the swap. Check out Ubuntu here.