Re: Shocking speed difference, Ubuntu vs. Linux Mint, Snap vs. Flatpak

On 2025-03-23, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-03-22 3:48 p.m., RonB wrote:

On 2025-03-22, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-03-21 11:01 p.m., RonB wrote:

On 2025-03-21, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-03-21 1:20 p.m., RonB wrote:

On 2025-03-21, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-03-20 10:57 p.m., pothead wrote:

On 2025-03-20, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Wed, 19 Mar 2025 09:31:45 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:
>

If anyone out there is a fan of Snaps, then there is a chance they might
not be fans of Ubuntu itself. The idea of switching out the GNU tools
that work perfectly well in favour of rewritten Rust ones is just
idiotic. I would trust the people who produced the GNU tools decades ago
a lot more than the filthy hippies who will rewrite them in Rust for a
theoretical benefit in regards to memory.

>
I've been running Ubuntu as my main machine. I'm not a fan of GNOME but I
can live with it.  I can also like with snap, flatpak, and AppImage.
Brave is the only app that shows up both in the snap and flatpak list.
There isn't a lot of consistency. Firefox and dotnet are snaps, Vim is a
flatpak.

>
I've been running MXLinux for a long time, years in fact, but I tried out
the latest version of LinuxMint Cinnamon  and on the same hardware it is
much, much faster than MXLinux.
Especially with regards to loading browsers and surfing.
It was painfully slow under MXLinux. Browser didn't matter.
It's not even close.
I wasn't a fan of LinuxMint in the past but I sure am now.
>
It's come a long way baby!

>
I'm a fan now. It made the pathetic the old hardware feel relatively
new. Its 5250U processor wasn't even good at the time, but it at least
feels adequate eight years later.

>
The 5250U is faster than the 5300U that's in my Dell Latitude E7450 laptop.
But they're pretty closely related. I'm happy with the performance of the
E7450 (I do have 16 GBs of RAM, so that might help.)

>
The Mac's got 8GB with no possibility of upgrading it. I can replace the
128GB it came with, I even have the adapter for it, but Mint doesn't
even fill up the 128GB. At 25% wear, I think I can run it for a number
of years before needing to switch the storage.

>
The MacBook Air that I haven't yet sold (2015 version) is also stuck at 8
GBs. I can't remember what CPU it uses (it looks like a 5250U like yours) by
the specs I find online. It's also at 128 GBs.

>
Tell yourself that if you were a Mac user, you would have no choice but
to bury that thing next to the family dog because it is officially
useless. Of course, with something like Linux Mint, it is still good in
2025.
>
On the other hand, I know that some Mac users that are still rocking
their 2012 machines.

 
The MacBook Air definitely slowed down when I upgraded from Catalina to
Monterey. (If I had realized how quickly Monterey was going to be EOL'd I
wouldn't have bothered.) So I tried a Live USB version of Linux Mint
Cinnamon 22.1 last night (after figuring out I needed to use the Option key
at boot instead of Command+R). Worked well. If the keyboard wasn't so funky
I would probably just install Linux Mint and keep it. Maybe I will anyhow, I
don't know. I do admit that the build on the Apple MacBooks is pretty nice.
(Although I really got it just to test a few Apple-only applications.)
 
Even though the WiFi card is Broadcom, Linux Mint has no trouble installing
a good driver for it — speed was impressive. At least on par with my
Latitude E7450 (which is pretty good for the MacBook Air since it has half
the RAM — I don't leave a lot open at once anyhow).

>
Installing Linux Mint on the MacBook Air was trouble free whereas doing
the same with Ubuntu required me to download the proprietary drivers
through a Bluetooth connection to my phone. For that reason alone, Mint
gets my vote. The fact that it is so much faster only adds to that.
>
I have to admit I'm not a fan of its keyboard either. It got good
reviews, but I find it fairly mushy.

I was thinking more in terms of the Macs key layout (I use the Control key a
lot). The quality of the 2015 MacBook's keyboard is pretty good. But I have
read in the past that the 2017 MacBook Air was a bit thinner than the 2015
(and earlier models) and did have issues with a mushy keyboard.

Here's one of many comments on the 2017 keyboard (this one found on
Reddit) about it...

   2017 here. Owned mine about a year. Keys stick randomly. Thankfully
   they’ve always come back eventually. Still frustrating as heck. Easily
   the worst keyboard Apple has ever released, both in terms of reliability
   and satisfaction. It’s a total POS to type on. Go find a 2015 and wait
   until Apple realises thinner isn’t always better if it means sacrificing
   quality and functionality.

Some of the posters in this particular thread thought it might have
something to do with too much heat.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/8ippga/how_bad_are_the_keyboard_issues_on_the_2017_model/

(Now that I look a little closer I see that these comments were specifically
about the MacBook Pros, not the Airs so, hopefully, they were worse than
your Air.) I do think however, that they 2017 keyboards were not well
received. I think they went to a different keyboard a couple years later.

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien