I have now tried Ubuntu LTS for a couple of years, but I had too many problems to stay on Ubuntu LTS. Ubuntu LTS is soooo fragile. It pushes out updates frequently, and when I accept the updates, there is a good chance that it breaks something. I usually accept all updates on Ubuntu LTS but that is not a good strategy I have learned.

(In my experience Windows update is way more stable than Ubuntu LTS. For instance, I had yesterday a large Win10 update "This current version of W10 you are using is soon to expire, please accept this big update" - or something similar. I accepted and after 15 min of working the update caused a blue screen. But W10 immediately backed out and restored everything so W10 works fine again. No problems.)

Later I tried the latest Ubuntu, not a LTS distro. And it was even worse. More fragile and more problems. Now I am using Ubuntu 2020.10, and it is more polished, but more fragile. Every time I basically had to reinstall to fix the problems. Here are some problems I had with Ubuntu.

1) Graphics. I accepted an update and the graphics went from 1440p down to 480p. I tried to fix it, and posted questions on forum, but no one knew how to fix it. I guess it was an update changing from Nvidia driver to open source Noveua driver? I dont know, but it was unusable at 480p. Finally I reinstalled Ubuntu and did not accept updates. It did not work to rollback and try an older Kernel update, because the graphics did overwrite the global settings - or something.

2) Lag. For several versions of Ubuntu, my PC was unusable because of heavy lag. It felt like 1-2 fps or so. I suspect the lag had something to do with Spectre Meltdown Intel bug patches? I had to stay on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for several years.

3) ZFS. I have an old SSD disk formatted with Solaris 11 ZFS. It worked fine with Ubuntu. Except. Everytime I boot Ubuntu, it adds an entry to "zpool history":
zpool import -c /etc/zfs/zpool.cache -aN
So I have now over 300 lines in the history. Will it grow to 1,000 lines? Or 10,000 lines? Solaris 11 never added those meaningless entries.

And worse. I yesterday installed Solaris 11.3 and guess what? Solaris refuses to import this ZFS disk. The disk is "unavaible" and weird. I thought that Ubuntu ZFS was compatible with Solaris 11 ZFS? But it is not. I have a large JBOD ZFS3 raid which I access with a LSI2008 SAS card. For several years I was hesitant to try to access my ZFS raid with Ubuntu, suspecting that Ubuntu ZFS would break my raid, so I never tried it out. In hindsight, I made the right decision. There would be a chance that Linux would break my ZFS raid rendering it totally unusable with Solaris 11 or another OS using ZFS.

WARNING! Linux ZFS might corrupt your Solaris ZFS disks to an unusable state!



OTOH, Solaris 11 has been rock solid through all the years. All updates worked fine, never caused any problems because the updates were heavily tested and never broke anything. If I messed up something by accident, I just did a rollback with ZFS "beadm" and the system was back to the previous working state just fine. I now had enough of Linux. I heard that Ubuntu LTS is among the most stable distros, and other distros are even more fragile. Maybe RedHat/CentOS is more stable, because it uses old versions of the software? I dont know. But my experiments with Linux is now over. I gave it a couple of years and there were way more problems than Windows. Windows just works. Just like Solaris. I am now going to install OpenIndiana I think? I heard it is similar to Ubuntu, but a Solaris kernel. That sounds fine. I look forward to a simple rollback of the system if something messes up. Just what I am used to.

Anyone have good experience of OpenIndiana? Or other Solarish distro?

BEWARE! I have imported the newly created zpool from Solaris 11.3, and imported it to Ubuntu 2020.10. Then I created a zfs filesystem and renamed it in Solaris. Then I exported and imported to Ubuntu 2020.10. Ubuntu reports the zpool is "DEGRADED".

pool: HDD_10TB
Now that is scary. I mean, Solaris 11.3 ZFS is the canonical ZFS version. Solaris is the reference implementation of ZFS. If Linux zfs cannot import and correctly handle a Solaris zpool - that means Linux zfs is not compatible. And Linux ZFS adds lots of "zpool import" entries to the "zpool history" - why? Something does not feel right about Linux ZFS. Linux ZFS is not 100% compatible, and has bugs. It does not follow the Oracle ZFS filesystem. Linux ZFS is something else. I wonder if Linux ZFS will be incompatible with FreeBSD zpools too?

I will destroy and recreate my zpool because Linux ZFS does not like it. It works fine in Solaris 11.3 though. I will not let Linux access my JBOD raidz3. Linux will probably destroy all my data.

-Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

Most people probably won't reply to this, but I will offer one post.

You are so so wrong on many fronts.

• Linux is not Ubuntu. Don't blame linux because you don't like Ubuntu.
• You need to be able to do a modicum of diagnostics and setting up to run a computer.
• Don't ever try something, say 'it failed' and expect help. You have to give details, what you have tried to fix it and error messages minimum. You learn in the beginning by intelligent searching and reading.
• Solaris, IIRC is only offering patches (since version 12?). Stay in the past if that makes you happy.
• Stay with M$ windoze if you like. If not, don't shove failed/failing OSes the faces of people you are asking for help from. Windoze is presently trying to use the linux kernel to fix it's major issues.
• I am not recommending you another linux distribution because I am sure you would dislike that as much as Ubuntu. Take it from me, there are many better ones. Ubuntu is not leading the pack at the moment.

3 members found this post helpful.

To be fair, Ubuntu has advantages over Solaris. Ubuntu is more up to date, and much work is done on Ubuntu today. All software you read about, is very easily available, just download and install. For Solaris the software does often not exist, so you have to work hard to make it work. But when it works, it works fine and does not break, even if you accept and update of the OS.

With Ubuntu 2020.10, I had installed Retropie to play emulatorgames. It worked fine. Until I accepted an update. And then everything broke and I had to reinstall Ubuntu again. Be-jesus.

I also read that if you install Ubuntu 2020.10 on a whole disk, you can use ZFS to rollback updates, similar to beadm Boot Environments on Solaris. But, upon googling a bit, rollback via ZFS is experimental and there are posts of people cannot rollback properly. So Ubuntu ZFS rollback is not robust, you should not count on it. Linux is fragile. Accept an update, and there is a chance everything breaks. I just want it work, and not reinstall and fix problems everytime I accept an update. Or, the best strategy might be just to never accept an update. Then your Ubuntu is frozen in time.

As of now I will use OpenIndiana, i.e. Ubuntu with Solaris kernel. And then I know all ZFS disks works fine, and my data is protected. Then I will install Ubuntu in VirtualBox, and Windows. So when I have to do work, I will use these VMs. But OpenIndiana will be my backend and provide all infrastructure to the VMs.

Ok? So there are Linux distros that are stable?
1) Do you encounter any problems at all when you upgrade?
2) If you have problems, can you just rollback and solve all problems? You never have to reinstall Linux?
3) If you import a Solaris ZFS disk, does it work? And vice versa, can Solaris import your ZFS disk? Have you tried this?

FreeBSD has ZFS and it works well. I have no idea about compatibility between Solaris's ZFS and FreeBSD however. If this is a server, fine, but FreeBSD takes more work as a desktop. I have used it as such and if you don't mind manual configuration, it's fine.

Microsoft updates are ANYTHING but stable: on my Windows 10 Enterprise workstation (work laptop), multiple reboots on patch Tuesday are required because the idiots at Microsoft have not figured out how to chain patches together like the rest of the world. Nevermind the black screens after some updates that require multiple reboots to fix.

I have not tried FreeBSD, but the only reason I am using ZFS is to protect my data. If the filesystem cannot do that, I do not see the point in using the filesystem? Then I might as well use NTFS. OpenZFS is too unstable and messes up my ZFS disks so I cannot trust OpenZFS obviously. I expect OpenZFS to be fully compatible with ZFS, if it is not, then I have to switch back to old trusted ZFS.

Regarding MS updates. I am a home user, and not a Enterprise user with patch tuesdays. For home users, I have very seldom problems with Win10. Linux is a catastrophy in comparison with numerous reinstalls. I have not done a Win10 reinstall because of update problems, Win10 rolls back just fine. I dont have to do anything.
But you have to do frequent Win10 reinstalls because patch tuesday messes up your Win laptop?

Be advised that FreeBSD does not hold your hand like Ubuntu does - be prepared for 100% command line configuration if you choose it. Not difficult, just something to be aware of.

My enterprise laptop is a nightmare on patch Tuesday. I am on a large AD domain with 100's of thousands of users so very different situation. I never lost data on my work laptop but the frustration of having to reboot 4 or 5 times during the work day is tremendously annoying.

My Windows 10 home machine has given me zero issues but I ONLY use it to game, nothing else. Linux as a desktop has given me zero issues. Any issues I have had are due to me and my inability to keep the same distro for more than a few weeks/days/hours. Long story, won't go into it. I back up data multiple times a day to my NAS using rsync and in 20 years, I never lost anything.

Having said that, The most stable distros I have ever used are Debian (vanilla) and OpenSuse Leap. I liked Leap better because it is (seems) more modern, plus Yast is a pretty awesome admin tool. My opinions are my own and not necessarily shared by others.

1. I'm on Slackware, and don't upgrade that often. Sure, there are hangs and things go belly up from time to time. The trick on distributions line ubuntu, debian, etc is to update often - weekly. Problems are minimal then, and would be for me If I did that.

2. I have shot myself in the foot, if that's what you're asking, but the problems are because I shot myself in the foot. Not because the OS or distro is deficient. When you do a big update, things have changed some settings are obsolete, etc.

3. I never installed Solaris. Don't know about ZFS. You should get yurself a usb disk, and back stuff up. then you can restore, instead of reinstalling.

Not too much, and I use Arch(Rolling release)

Yup, I can downgrade to the last kernel in 1 minute.

Nope, rolling release.

Here is some info.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ZFS

Interesting that you two guys dont have problems with Linux updates? Why am I having all these problems with frequent reinstalls? I thought Ubuntu LTS were stable? I did not want to try a bleeding edge distro because the new software is not well tested. The newer the version, the buggier it is. Old software is stable and more bug free, that is why server distro Redhat/CentOS only has old versions of the software and never new versions.

It is said that Windows becomes stable first after Service Pack 1, because then many bugs have been ironed out. I dont understand how a bleeding edge Linux distro with untried and buggy software, can be more stable than Ubuntu LTS. Something does not add up.

I have googled a bit, and people say this regarding LTS distros: The repo package contains only old versions of software that are known to work well. If you want to install a new software not in the repo, or if you install a new version of the software in the repo, then this can happen: The new software replaces an old battle tested library with a new version. This makes other old software that use the same library cringe and they complain about the new library. So you have to update the old software to a newer version that use the newest library. All these new software complains about other old library versions, so you need to update the old library to a new one.

So basically, by installing one new software, this triggers a cascade of updates so after a while you have left the LTS distro and you are using the newest bleeding edge distro.

The only way to stay with LTS, is if you never install new software and only use the old software in the old repo, i.e. it is frozen in time. That is the reason the idea behind LTS does not work in practice, because everyone installs new software which breaks the whole idea with LTS. Gahhh! This problem does not occur on Solaris. It is much more stable and tested.

I have had three flavours of LTS Ubuntu on two computers, some combination of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu 16.04, 18.04 and 20.04, never non-LTS (so not .10s and not odd year .04s.) I always wait for the first point release before upgrading. I update regularly, minimum once a week, and then updates go quickly (with my internet speed that’s fast enough.) Updates don’t interrupt me - you have good control of when they install. Today I regularly use Xubuntu 20.04. There are many things to criticize about the *buntus, they can do some flaky things, but I have never had to reinstall because a *buntu installation was irretrievably broken. It is also possible, at least in some cases, to install newer software than in the repos if you need it (which I have done.)

I use Slackware - my favourite Linux - x86_64 stable 14.2 and (since a few weeks ago) -current, and ARM -current on a Raspberry Pi 4. Stable 14.2 really is stable. It never does the flaky things that Xubuntu does occasionally. If its software is too old for you, current’s probably isn’t, but it is a development version so there can be the occasional glitch (watch the changelogs and LQ forum.)

I use OpenBSD stable x86_64, updating within a few weeks of release every 6 months. As of a few weeks ago, I also started using OpenBSD stable ARM 64 on my Raspberry Pi 4. In both cases, it’s stable and doesn’t do flaky things.

I even tried OpenIndiana for a short while. I don’t remember any major problems with it. I would never call it xxxUbuntu over a Solaris kernelxxx EDIT similar to Ubuntu, but a Solaris kernel, and I expect the OpenIndiana team would take exception to that.

My family and I have Windows 10 on several computers at home. It was terribly unstable at first, but has settled down a bit now. There are now ways to somewhat control updates, and we haven’t had big update problems in awhile (did have a huge, nasty one Oct 2016, that might have been Windows 8 but I’m still annoyed), but if you think people aren’t having big problems with Windows, just do an internet search, or read AskWoody or Krebs On Security around every Patch Tuesday.

My point with all that is that Ubuntu is not your biggest problem, and Linux is not your biggest problem. If you are having to frequently reinstall any Linux, you need to look elsewhere. Maybe you have incompatible or failing hardware at the moment, or maybe you are being a reckless administrator of your system, or... plenty of other possibilities.

If you want help with Linux problems, describe them specifically and be ready to provide specific information and outputs for people who might be willing and able to help.

If not, and you are just venting and are set on using Solaris or OpenIndiana, then I hope that works out for you. Good luck and enjoy.

TKS

ZFS: never used it, so can’t comment. I always use default FSs and have not (yet) noticed problems of stability or data integrity with them. Doesn’t mean they haven’t happened, just that I haven’t noticed yet. I manually back up and keep all old backups. If my FS needs ever change, I would look at ZFS or BTRFS.

TKS

Oracle ZFS and OpenZFS are incompatible file systems. You're comparing closed source and open source implementations of a file system which have diverged over a period of several years. Most of your problems stem from there - i.e your own misconceptions about these OS.

I have been using Unix 20 years back, since uni where I studied comp sci. I am no expert in Unix and I never memorize the details of all commands and have to check up it up when I want to do something, but I have a pretty good understanding of Unix and what can be done. The rest is just details that I never bother to memorize. I also used Linux back in the days many years ago. I think I used slackware? Back then Linux was stable, because I never upgraded it.

My hardware is a Supermicro motherboard (they exclusively do Enterprise grade stuff), Xeon E3 cpu, ECC RAM and Geforce GTX 1070Ti.

Maybe I was just unlucky, but I had lots of problems with Ubuntu LTS. It requires maintenance. I dont want that, I just want to work. I want to use a well tested stable OS and a stable Linux distro. And as I have understood it, Ubuntu LTS is quite modern and stable. RedHat is most stable as it is server OS - but it is too old for my taste. On my hardware, Ubuntu LTS was quite problematic.

I understand that you have no problems with Linux, and upgrades doesnt cause you problems, but for me, they do. I do prefer to work in Linux though, because it has so much software. I think I will use Solaris as a backend, and install Ubuntu in VirtualBox as a VM. Then I have the best of both worlds. A stable underlying Solaris OS with a stable trusted ZFS to store all my data, and I can work in Linux.

I wish Linux was more stable. The main problem for me was all frequent updates that broke stuff, and that OpenZFS destroys ZFS disks - what else does OpenZFS destroy? My data?

Anyway, thanx for your help and advice.

My experience of