Can I rely on Ubuntu/MATE and apt/deb into the future? Many on the plug list use Ubuntu or derivatives like Mint.
I am moving to MATE Ubuntu LTS from 20+ years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives because Red Hat has moved to "stream" distros and Gnome3. Keeping my own cheezy coding hacks working in the Gnome3 environment is Too Hard. Rocky Linux isn't an option because they don't support MATE/Gnome2, while my vision and coordination does not support Gnome3. I've migrated systems towards Ubuntu-MATE 20.04 LTS and apt/deb for months. It meets my needs, but will support endure? I'm dabbling with Ubuntu 22.04.1 "beta" now; the release was scheduled for Thursday August 4, but delayed a week because of a problem with "snaps", Ubuntu's walled-garden package system. This may not bode well for the future; while I can configure gnome packages and Debian apt, Canonical may stop supporting that. I'm not looking for a fashionable distro - I'm looking for a stable and secure distro on which I can build and maintain my own content (mostly huge numerical simulation jobs written in C, with graphical output). Is it reasonable to assume Ubuntu MATE will endure for a decade or two? Or is it more reasonable to rely on Debian MATE? Keith -- Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com
