Write post about ubuntu journey in 2023

content/post/2023-05-15-journey-around-ubuntu-2023.md

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+title = "Journey around Ubuntu distributions in 2023."
+date = "2023-04515"
+draft = false
+tags =  ["ubuntu", "thinkpad", "thoughts"]
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+
+It is so funny, I always start looking at alternatives just to come back to a "one-true-fits-all" solution. Welcome back Good Old/New Gnome with Ubuntu 22.04-23.04.
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+Last month I installed and tried a few Linux distributions inside VirtualBox and on real machine: Lubuntu, Linux Mint with Cinnamon, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, KDE Neon and Ubuntu.
+
+Thoughts about distributions I tested:
+
+#### VBox: Lubuntu 22.04
+
+* This was my choice of Linux for VirtualBox for many years, because of light resource dependency and small light app selection.
+* However I always preferred another terminal, and after the LXDE-LXQt switch, I left as well.
+
+#### VBox: Linux Mint with Cinnamon
+
+* Looks ok, very similar to Mate and Lubuntu, however not sure why I would be using it instead.
+* Feels more alive which is a plus but from the main website only thing I remember is that Mint is asking for donations.
+* Plus for not having a snap.
+
+#### Thinkpad: Ubuntu Mate 22.04
+
+* I am Yerba Mate lover - what to say.
+* Very pragmatic desktop, for very focused people.
+* Annoying new errors popping on after login.
+* A little undermaintained, feels stale.
+* This is however my current choice for VirtualBox Linux, as not so heavy and nice overall.
+
+#### VBox: Kubuntu 22.04
+
+* KDE Plasma 5.24 (https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/5/5.24.0/).
+* Looks polished, similar experience to Windows, lots of customization options, maybe too much.
+* No newest KDE Plasma 5.27.
+* Not so-great monitor scaling option.
+* I made a mistake and installed the full distro with all apps, and this was too much for me. 
+
+#### Thinkpad: KDE Neon
+
+* KDE Plasma 5.27 and newer.
+* Very minimal set of installed apps, this is really good.
+* Very annoying constant updates of software.
+* Weak point - KDE Discover app.
+* No apt-get, dpkg etc.
+
+#### Thinkpad: Ubuntu 22.04
+
+* Gnome version - 42 (https://release.gnome.org/42/)
+
+* Everything is great, looks simple.
+* There is no Light/Dark theme swither in the menu, and existing Gnome extensions do not play nicely with modified Ubuntu Gnome. I spent some hours reading forums, checking code and even thought about writing something by myself, and then I found Gnome 43.
+
+#### Thinkpad: Ubuntu 22.10
+
+* Gnome version - 43 (https://release.gnome.org/43/)
+* Changing of style is in the menu, great news, without hesitation, I did upgrade.
+* Switch from 22.04 to 22.10 was non-problematic. I did it by changing an option in "Software & Updates" to notify me "For any new version".
+* One surprising advantage of not installing fresh but upgrading was that I still have the Terminal app, and not the Console that was introduced in Gnome 43. Lucky me.     
+
+#### Thinkpad: Ubuntu 23.04
+
+* Gnome version - 44 (https://release.gnome.org/44/)
+* Honestly I did not have to switch again but I feel staying in versions ending in *.10 is bad. 
+* This time switch from 22.10 to 23.04 did not finish happily, I had to rerun it and click "Partial upgrade", after that however everything is working as expected.
+
+---
+
+Overall I think the current Gnome desktop looks very nice. The experience and simple philosophy feel good. KDE for me was a bit too much. I see that I am the type of user that wants to have a good out-of-the-box experience, without spending much time on customisation (never was into unixporn ;). And though I like to stay on the newest software versions, I find the release cycle of Ubuntu twice per year to be enough. Rolling distributions or desktops without good snapshots and backup could be too risky and I prefer to outsource bug testing for paid QA engineers.