So, this has some clear parallels with my recent troubles with Teams in Windows. It came with my new work laptop. And it worked for a while, but complained it was out of date. Then it stopped working, then it failed to open at all.
So i tried uninstalling and reinstalling. And that didn’t work. And I tried uninstalling, clearing all the caches, rebooting, reinstalling, rebooting… And it still didn’t work. So i called IT support. And they went through all the same steps I’d already done. (Not a waste of time, i wouldn’t trust users, either, if i were them.) Then they gave up, and manually installed Teams via the command line, and rebooted again. And then it worked.
That’s only true if the deb package essentially tells Ubuntu to install the snap package as is the case for Firefox. In that case you can install an actual deb package using apt but you can’t get it from Ubuntu. You’ll have to find it elsewhere.
In Windows, an account without a password cannot be connected to remotely (unless you change a setting in the registry).
I know because it’s why I had to add a password to be able to connect to an account within my LAN. Fortunately, I can still have the computer set up to automatically log in.
(In fact, it does this automatically now on Windows 11, it seems, as it logs back in after a reboot. This is annoying to me, because someone else may want to use the computer.)
The proper response to enshittification is not to recommend operating systems like Ubuntu for beginners. The only problem is that you are spoiled for choice: you could install Debian, Linux Mint Debian Edition, Pop OS, Fedora, you name it. Which may, by itself, confuse beginners if they need to ask someone for help with “Linux”.
For me, its this, but I foremost make a judgement to what the beginner needs. Needs comes first.
For example, if they are running a server, Arch would be a horrible recommendation because of the instability inherent in its design choices (rolling release, bleeding edge packages, etc); a Debian system would be so much better.
If someone is coming off of Windows, then Mint would be a great choice because the Mint team has designed the Cinnamondesktop to be very windows-like (less cognitive and aesthetic friction during the on-boarding period).
In puzzlegal’s use-case (what seems like a fold-able touch screen laptop) Ubuntu kinda fits best. Gnome’s UI is very tablet-like as all the icons/options are large and easy to navigate using a finger (opposed to a mouse pointer).
I, naturally default to recommending Mint just because it will feel most “windows-like”, but not all users need that. Its just a straightforward recommendation that cuts through a lot of the “too many distros” analysis paralysis.
It’s good to hear that Canonical (parent company of Ubuntu) doesn’t completely neuter Apt. Its just sad that they have chosen to push snap in cases where the user explicitly tries to use Apt. Stealthily wrestling control away from technical and opinionated users has left a sour note on them here. Sigh.
The Linux crowd is the most opinionated group of users in tech. There are many who won’t touch KDE Plasma due to one of its poor releases over 10 years ago, there’s people who refuse to use (what is now industry standard) systemd because it is a suite that it too all encompassing (they what to pick and choose each system deamon that runs on their computer).
If you can have an opinion on it, Linux users will have already had it and forked 20 half-dead projects trying to bring it to life.
I picked it because my husband said it was the most popular, and that means the easiest to find help with. I confirmed his recommendation by looking up “Minecraft Linux” and finding two articles about installing Minecraft under Ubuntu, with comments about “and it’s similar under different versions”.
Fwiw, my screen has a lot of pixels, and under the Ubuntu default, everything is tiny on my screen. The font and the icons, whatever. It’s a physically small screen, and I’m nearsighted and can read the tiny print comfortably, so i haven’t looked to see if it can be changed. (I assume it can be.) But i went to the MIT mystery hunt last weekend, and hung out in a room with 50 people all looking at their laptops, and a couple of people walking by commented on the size of my font. (Usually, "can you READ that‽”)
Not literally true (or, at least, not completely).
I just had to de-snapify Firefox in Mint 22.2. Default Firefox even in Mint is the Ubuntu snap version (ridiculously outdated, can’t even install uBlock Origin). Complete with the fake apt chicanery.
There’s a convoluted dance you have to do with apt priorities and Mozilla’s third-party repositories to keep package-based Firefox from being gratuitously replaced by the snap version when you’re not looking.
This kind of dark pattern bullshit is why a lot of users are justified in not unblinkingly trusting Linux (although when Microsoft pulls this crap they just have to live with it).
And I say this as a professional computer systems engineer with literal decades in Unix/Linux system administration.
I didn’t, i typed it on my phone. (Is it hard to do that in Ubuntu?) I mostly access the SDMB from my phone. I’m now recharging my laptop (which completely ran out of power) before i try reinstalling audacity.
I don’t remember, sorry… like anything else, it probably depends on the distro, your desktop environment, etc. =/ And also your physical keyboard… special characters are easier on European keyboards with an AltGr key.
Under Ubuntu 25.10 which I tested, and previous versions, sudo apt install audacity does it (yes, I confess I loves me the Terminal). Before doing that run sudo snap remove audacity.
How I can tell it worked: in the Terminal, run which audacity. It responds /usr/bin/audacity, no reference to Snap. Second, type dpkg -l | grep audacity which should come up with audacity and audacity-data installed, described as “fast, cross-platform audio editor”. Then, when I run Audacity, click on Audio Setup, then Audio Settings, the Playback tab has pipewire as an option. I select that, click OK, then open a WAV file and play it, and I hear something!
PS I tested what happens if you do install the Audacity snap: a window pops up asking about permissions; I clicked on “Start and ask next time”, I do not have any output options available besides “default”, but the playback did actually work… (I guess the permissions must have been granted at some point)
So, i did that a could of hours ago, but i ended up with on older version of audacity that can’t read the files from the more recent versions.
And it doesn’t offer to update itself.
I suppose i might try to downgrade the audacity installed on my Mac and PC, as most of the “benefit” of the latest version send to be cloud storage, something i have zero interest in. That’s kinda why I’m here. But that’s a bit of a pita. (It’s much more convenient for me if they all run the same version.)
I suppose i may add well test this version and see if it talks to my headphones. I hadn’t bothered, trying to update the darn thing.
The Snap version pop-up is telling me to sudo snap connect audacity:alsa; if you are using the Snap version you can try that. However, the Snap version I am getting is Audacity 3.7.5 and the package is also Audacity 3.7.5. The Audacity web site latest version appears to be 3.7.7
Debian packages tend to be much older then those of other distros. This is the price of Debian’s stability. If one wants newer packages then you normally get them through other ways then the Debian-stable repository.
flatpaks, snap, other package managers like Arch’s, or Nix’s one; this might be a bit too advance for you to comfortably use at this point -or not, but perhaps yes
Yes, I see 3.7.7 here. Perhaps the best thing would be to download and install the all-in-one appimage? Certainly simpler for a user.
In Ubuntu, that would probably be the snap version. (Although the Software store does have access to the apt repository catalog as well. But my recollection is that Ubuntu will always favor the snap version.)