I do use DDG, so that’s great advice, thanks!
I thought about going withe the Flatpak, but since it’s community build and not packaged by Signal itself, I decided not to.
Good advice! I should have done that, before switching haha. I’m especially having a hard time going from the Adobe suite to it’s OSS alternatives, which never really are as good, from my experience.
But hey, they are also not made by a billion-dollar company, so I should cut them some slack.
As a former ubuntu user, not a fan of the LTS releases…
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HWE is more like a separate more frequent update track for the Kernel and a few other things. It won’t effect most of the software in the snap store / official repositories. For that you’ll have to wait for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS this spring.
Here is an explanation of HWE
Brand new hardware devices are released to the public always more frequently. And we want such hardware to be always working on Ubuntu, even if it has been released after an Ubuntu release. Six months (the time it takes for a new Ubuntu release to be made) is a very long period in the IT field. Hardware Enablement (HWE) is about that: catching up with the newest hardware technologies.
Now, how does Ubuntu want to reach the goal of Hardware Enablement? Using rolling releases for the kernel: as soon as a new kernel is released, it is packaged for Ubuntu, tested (via the proposed pocket and special Q/A methodologies), and made available to Ubuntu users. This method has of course some disadvantages: releasing a new kernel too quickly may introduce some bugs and issues, and may not be suitable for the enterprise.
The solution? Offering different kernels for different users. Therefore Ubuntu will offer at least two kernels: the General Availability (GA) kernel, i.e. the most stable kernel, which does not get updated to point releases; and the Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel, i.e. the most recent kernel released. This is why you are seeing both the
linux-genericand thelinux-generic-hwepackages.Finally, if you are interested in developing or testing the newest kernel technologies, look at the Ubuntu Hardware Debugging web site.
References:
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Will do, thanks! I’d rather use Flatpak anyway.
I found the Signal Flatpak as well, but I don’t want to use it, because it’s not packaged by Signal itself, but the community.
Since I use Signal for quite sensitive stuff, I don’t wanna introduce a third party.
Ahh okay, I’ll read it, thanks a lot for the link!
Thanks 
It’s pretty low, since I mostly rely on commands I find on the internet or that ChatGPT suggests.
Yeah, that was my impression too. That’s why I also felt comfortable starting with it, although I would have preferred Fedora.
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In Linux world, there are 2 major release models, point release and rolling release.
Point release distros freeze their apps, packages, drivers, etc. after they’re released. They’re doing this for stability. Ubuntu pushes out a new point release/version every 6 months.
And there are rolling release distros that update everything regardless. This way, you’re always on the latest stable version of the apps, packages, drivers, kernel, etc. (but not always, depend on the maintainer). I don’t see any stability issue using openSUSE Tumbleweed here, though.
You can give Brave Leo a try. But I have to admit that Gemini and ChatGPT still give me better results at this time. Maybe, because I am not using the paid version.
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Snap should be giving you access to the newest versions of apps, are you sure you’re not installing deb versions? Maybe try installing them through the CLI. But never used Ubuntu, so idk for sure.
Thanks a lot everyone for the many tips and resources! Due to work, I won’t be able to answer to everything, unfortunately.
I really appreciate the helpfulness and support of everyone
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Yeah, I’m sure, that it’s Snaps. scrcpy in Ubuntu Software lists the Snap Store as source, but the version is 1.2.3, even though the most up to date version is 2.3.1.
I’ll check later, if using the CLI gives me a more up to date version!
It seems the only way to get the latest version of scrcpy on Ubuntu is to build from source, which is very simple due to the dev’s script, see: scrcpy/doc/linux.md at 5a6b8310cae1e0741b4375ca760d9c8dd49822c4 · Genymobile/scrcpy · GitHub.
Fedora ships with Toolbox, which allows to install deb.
Probably would be better to use DistroBox instead, but yeah containers could solve his problem.
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Ah, I didn’t know that. Will check it out, thanks!
Why do you think Distrobox would be the better choice?
That’s what I did in the end. But it’s part of my complaint, about the Linux desktop experience: I want to be able to just install my apps from a trusted source, and not rely on having to run a script, that I don’t have the time or ability to inspect.
But the script is from the app developer, no? There’s only so much package maintainers can do to vet against threats, so I wouldn’t advise having a false sense of security around them.
It is and okay, fair enough.