Category: Embedded

switching back to linux mint 21

whbeebe1 Comment

Four days ago I switched from Linux Mint 21 to Ubuntu 22.10, the interim release of Ubuntu. I stated a number of reasons why I switched, the biggest being the updated kernel and critical tools. Yesterday I swapped the SSD with Linux Mint still on it back into my machine in place of the SSD that I’d installed Ubuntu on.

The primary reason I switched back was the lack of certain types of development support. For example I had to install everything necessary to support a full build-out of Python 3.11. There were other missing library and development support packages. When I had to install the Fuse file system library support to run some AppImage applications, that’s when I realized I’d made a mistake for my daily driver usage and that I needed to switch back to Linux Mint. Fortunately for me I’d not made any changes that I hadn’t already saved elsewhere, such that switching back was completely painless.

Now that I’ve had this experience I’ve come to realize that Linux Mint can be considered the more supportive developer distribution compared to Ubuntu. That is, I can do more development without having to hunt down and install various libraries to make it all work. For example I run several AppImage applications. Before they would even execute I had to install the libfuse2 library. I did check with my Ubuntu 22.04 Parallels virtual machine, and that support is there. But it was missing in Ubuntu 22.10. Installation is all of 60 seconds, but the fact it was missing makes me suspicious, especially because Ubuntu is pushing (hard) Snap packages over all others. Was support for AppImage deliberately dropped in 22.10? As they say, things that make you go “hmmm.”

Ubuntu 22.10 will appeal to fans of Ubuntu and fans of the latest Gnome, and they’ll install it and use it without a second thought. But if you’re a developer, especially an embedded/IoT developer, make sure nothing breaks if you decide to install Ubuntu 22.10 and make it your daily driver. You may be unpleasantly surprised like I was.

switching to ubuntu 22.10

whbeebe

I made the switch to Ubuntu 22.10 yesterday from Linux Mint 21. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Linux Mint, and it allowed me to get work done. But because it was derived from Ubuntu 22.04, it came with a number of Ubuntu’s 22.04 issues, one of which was the way brltty was installed and enabled by default. The problem with brltty is that it would automatically start up when I plugged any of my development boards into a USB port, causing other tools I used to communicate and program those boards to fail. I solved that problem with (unfortunately) a sudo apt purge brltty, but I shouldn’t really have to do that. At least I could purge brltty. The Pop!_OS distribution wouldn’t allow me to remove it because it’d been so deeply intertwined into the system that removing it would remove a good chunk of the desktop. In the end I had to follow another path and disable the service in two locations. That was before I moved away from Pop!_OS for good.

I’m interested in Ubuntu 22.10 because it’s support for the full MicroPython developer stack in the repositories. This support is aimed at the Raspberry Pi, but because you can’t buy any Raspberry Pies for love or money (without getting screwed on the price), and even the Raspberry Pi Pico is now in the same situation, you can still install those tools on any personal computer that runs Ubuntu. For more information you can look at this post: https://ubuntu.com/blog/ubuntu-22-10-on-the-raspberry-pi-delivers-new-display-support-and-the-full-micropython-stack . I’m not interested in the repos, because I go and pull all the sources I need and then build exactly what I need. If you’re new to this, then by all means go install from the repos. I personally don’t like what also comes along with repo packages. I wan’t my tools lean and to have only what they need to function. No, if they’re pushing MicroPython development front-and-center, then the overall Ubuntu OS needs to be properly configured, which leads me back to not having code running like brltty.

I’m also happy because it has a more up-to-date kernel (5.19), Python (3.10.7), and GCC/G++ (12.2.0). I’m also happy because so far this version of Ubuntu seems very performant compared to all other distributions I’ve run on this little box. I think the new features in the newer kernel may have a lot to do with this. And I like the way the Gnome Desktop has been tamed and cleaned up; I don’t like pure Gnome, such as you’d find on Fedora.

Switching from Linux Mint to Ubuntu was nearly painless, the fastest it’s ever been for me. My entire home directory with development tools came back up with hardly any changes. My ESP-IDF tools worked without any tweaks; it was only the corner tools that had fixed paths in their environments. Those are easy to find and fix when I come across them.

There are those who will tell you to stay away from the interim Ubuntu releases, and only stick with the long term support (LTS) releases. If you’re a developer that shouldn’t deter you at all. I say that because the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release was a mixed mashup of different versions of applications and tools, especially with regards to the Gnome desktop. With Ubuntu 22.10 everything is a lot more polished and stable, which is a hell of a note when an interim release is better than an LTS, but in my not so humble opinion everything that will be released after 22.04 will be better than 22.04.