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

On 2025-03-18, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

Having discovered that Ubuntu intends to replace the GNU utilities with
Rust equivalents which may or may not work as well in the coming months,
I switched over to Linux Mint 22.1 from Ubuntu 24.04 on this old Macbook
Air 2017. Not only does it bundle the necessary, proprietary wireless
drivers allowing for a smooth install unlike Ubuntu, but Linux Mint runs
a _lot_ faster under Cinnamon than Ubuntu's implementation of GNOME. I
imagine that most of it is due to the use of Snap. For example,
LibreOffice went from taking about ten seconds to load (on a cold start)
to one or two.
>
I can only hope that Linux Mint does not follow Ubuntu in removing the
GNU utilities in favour of the rewritten Rust ones. They have already
shown themselves to be less than 100% compatible, so you can imagine
what kind of chaos will result from the change.

I'm finding out that the Firefox Snap can't read files in the non-local user
directory and Flatpaks can't work with applications outside of their
directory. I also can't (or don't know how) to customize the Snap version of
Firefox. I think AppImage is the best of the three.

There might be another reason Linux Mint is faster. LM defaults to X11
instead of Wayland. On my (older) machines Wayland leaves artifacts (is
blotchy in the dark parts of videos, which I guess are artifacts). X11
doesn't do this.

Change isn't always for the better.

--
“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