I have been slowly transitioning some systems away from increasingly-open-source-unfriendly Redhat derivatives (and RPM distros) to Ubuntu 20.04.x (and APT/DEB, or so I thought). My goal is a maximum-stable malware-free environment, not the shiniest-latest dancing-bearware.
Today I migrated a test machine to Ubuntu 22.04.1. I expected all the upgrades to be DEB packages. Surprise! Canonical provides Firefox as a SNAP package, their own walled-garden flavor (like RPM). I had hoped to escape jails of that kind. There are many Debian and Ubuntu (and derivatives) adepts on this list. Is there a painless way to configure Ubuntu to use only DEB files, with alternate repositories for Firefox and similar apps? Repositories to use, or avoid? Well written tutorials? Or perhaps .DEB-flavor long-term-support alternatives to Ubuntu? I would rather become adept with a new environment before I turn 70 next year, because it may be too difficult to learn and make major transitions when/if I am 80. Note: I use some obscure command-line-only applications that are only available as DEB and RPM. I'm glad there are other distro communities out there, but many do not have the obscure stuff, and building large apps from source will soon be beyond my skill set. So, DEB distros with long term support, please. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected]
