Ubuntu has too many problems for me to want to run it. However, it has occurred to me that there aren’t a lot of distros that are like the Ubuntu LTS....
My wife’s laptop absolutely has to work. For some mad reason I decided on Arch for it. Actually a rolling distro is not so mad. You get the latest stuff and in general issues are fixed as quickly as a LTS jobbie or you get a work around in the forums or you dig out the source and a compiler. It’s no accident that the Arch wiki is an oft cited resource. Its not for everyone!
I’ve been looking at a similar thing for my company and Kubuntu so far is my choice and I’ve already ditched the LTS bit. I need to run AV and the usual corporate bollocks to pass silly tick box exercises, so my options are rather limited.
There is no perfect one size fits all distro, that’s what we have rather a lot of them to choose from - they rise and fall according to natural selection and not artifice. Imagine if all computers were sold with a free/libre OS or none at all and Windows or Apples were a paid for add on. Monolithic OSs are completely deluded about being able to cater for all, without some dreadful contortions.
Anyway, back to the job in hand! If you want a LTS then you must accept older software or you use an LTS as a base and add newer stuff yourself. Most Linux distros allow you to run your own add-ons formally or informally. Gentoo has a rather nifty user patching mechanism for distro ebuilds and you can have your own ebuilds take over entirely. RPM and pkg distros can handle user packages and Ubuntu has PPAs too. I could go on. Also you can go off piste and put stuff into /opt and/or /usr/local!
Please reconsider your use of the term “unstable”. I suggest you write down a list of your requirements and score them according to importance. Then grab a list of OSs and distros - all of them, don’t preclude Windows and Apples: they have their uses. Then score the OSs/distros against your requirements. The scoring might be in the form of a matrix (table). I suggest keeping it simple with a score of -1 to 1 for each item (-1=dislike, 0=neutral/whatevs, +1=like)
Do a pilot project and see how that goes. Take your time. If it is for personal use then run your tests in a VM. Most modern hardware can easily run a VM or two. Virtualbox or VMware Worskstation or KVM (libvirt is a good effort)
The choice is yours. Note that word “choice” - its very important.
I’ve just moved my work PC from a cast off from a customer - it had a BIOS date stamped 2012, and was a rather shag Lenovo with a … Intel Core something and four GB RAM. Cheap though, ie free. I did wedge in a SSD to make it usable.
I run KDE which isn’t known for being tiny and I have a Postgres DB and a few containers for experiments running. The new box is a i5 Intel G13 thingy - HP mini jobbie. Luxury
To ensure that I am as disadvantaged as everyone else, I run ESET Endpoint AV and full disc encryption on it. It boots EFI and Secure Boot is enabled. I will pass a Cyber Essentials Plus audit (UK standard) without having to employ any misdirection. I’ve also read up on the US standards. The STIG for Ubuntu 22.04 is doable but my desktop is running 23.04 and 24.04 has just come out.
I run my company and we have some customers who have some rather more stringent requirements than others. We also have our own standards.
“I understand that Canonical has every right to make the decision about their product.”
That seems fair. There are loads of distros available so why not try something else if you don’t like Ubuntu?
Linux and other mainstream Unices such as FreeBSD or OpenBSD int al (that’s not something I ever thought I’d be able to say a few decades back) are not Windows or Apples or whatevs. You do you and not them!
If Ubuntu fails to scratch your itch then move on. Debian is the upstream for Ubuntu so you’ll probably be fine with that instead. There is loads of documentation for Debian via the wiki etc and of course most Ubuntu docs will apply as well.
So now what distro are we running for LTS desktops?
Ubuntu has too many problems for me to want to run it. However, it has occurred to me that there aren’t a lot of distros that are like the Ubuntu LTS....
Windows 11 will reportedly display a watermark if your PC does not support AI requirements (www.tomshardware.com)
I AM SO DISAPPOINTED WITH UBUNTU 24.04 😡 (news.itsfoss.com)