Ubuntu is the Windows 11 of Linux distros.
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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Don't worry, Ubuntu users, it'll be optional. They will respect your choi... oh you've already left
Yet another reason to use a different distro.
Use Debian
If you want what Ubuntu promised, use Fedora. If you learned a bit after trying Ubuntu, use Debian. If you tried Ubuntu and kinda miss the ease of Windows, use Mint. If you think all of these options sound way too practical, try anything but Arch.
I remember when Ubuntu was good. It sure isn't now.
I'm old too.
I tried it out for a while back when Feisty Fawn was new during my college years. Am I old?
I didn't remember if it was "good", I was just amazed at the time that noon Windows OSs existed at all. But gaming back then was not happening so it was kinda useless to me.
I did dual boot it for a while but it was shooting to do that every time I got on to play for a while, reboot to get some schoolwork done, some (sure that shall not be named) ing done, and reboot again to play games again.
Especially since I had spinny drives at the time. Rebooting even now is annoying but quicker than that was. Still wouldn't deal with it now tho.
Can we please not? People are leaving Windows because it slaps AI to everywhere unnecessary
There will be plenty of distros that don't. Ubuntu tracks as the first one that would.
I think RHEL and Fedora did first, could be wrong though
People running away from windows shouldn't chose ubuntu then, It might be the most popular distro- and somany people who do use it have similar nonchalant mindset as of windows users, so we people who don't want shit like that in our operating systems shouldnt use it.
If they get it right (opt in by default, respects privacy, appropriately sandboxed for security, clearly defined use case, etc.) then I can see how this could be useful.
But it's a big if.
I still don't understand how AI would be useful even if I owned the whole stack from the power station on up
I can envision use cases like wanting to be able to search through all your documents or photos when you can't clearly remember what you wrote (assuming it's properly implemented and well-secured, e.g. path-constrained time-limited read-only access), or local chatbot for brainstorming, or if you want to play around with agentic "AI" (automating small things on the local system that aren't easily scripted) then having one that is private and properly sandboxed would be helpful.
yup. at the moment if you want a truly private, properly useful local AI agent you basically have to set one up correctly, manually, yourself. Having one come as part of the OS already largely set up for the user would be a massive W.
but yeah, If.
I use incus as a sandbox for claude. Previously I used podman, but podman in podman is a pain, so I gave it a full vm 😄
One of the most popular Linux distributions is about to get an influx of AI features. As reported by Phoronix, Jon Seager, VP of engineering at Ubuntu developer Canonical, shared a blog post on Monday detailing plans to add AI features to the Linux distro over the next year. As the post states, the AI features “will come in two forms: first as a means of enhancing existing OS functionality with AI models in the background, and latterly in the form of ‘AI native’ features and workflows for those who want them.”
These features will range from accessibility tools like improved speech-to-text and text-to-speech to agentic AI features for tasks like troubleshooting or personal automation. According to Seager, Canonical will be prioritizing model transparency and local inference when adding these AI features. Behind the scenes, Canonical is also encouraging its engineers to use AI more, but Seager noted that “I will not be measuring people at Canonical by how much they use AI, but rather continue to measure them on how well they deliver.”
Seager goes on to add that AI features could potentially help new users navigate the “famously fragmented” Linux desktop ecosystem: “If we’re careful about how we employ LLMs in a system context, they could demystify the capabilities of a modern Linux workstation and bring them to a much wider audience.”
Yes. Agentically automate rm / -rf
The idea sounds reasonable to me.
Of course, between idea and execution a lot can change. But as long they take some sane design decisions (opt-in, transparent, sandboxed, give the user freedom to use their own API or local models, etc), I'm fine with it
This is why LMDE exists.
I see people commenting like it's always a bad idea to implement AI. I think it can be a very useful tool and running locally seems beneficial. Is there no right way to do this?
What's wrong with providing it as a package? Why does it have to be part of the OS?
I don't know enough to know the benefit of doing it within the OS vs just a package.
Imagine that OS is your apartment that you rent in an apt building. Your landlord/super announces he's going to install a home robot in every apt.
The difference is whether someone else should put something like that in your apartment, or whether you should get something like that if and when you want it. It's not a toaster, it may have the ability to throw your cat into the trash chute.
A package is simple enough to remove. But almost everything that shoves AI down your throat makes it every difficult to remove it. Certain rollouts have been heavy handed and people kinda just want choice not force.
Know that scene from Finding Nemo with the seagulls? AI. AI AI AI AI. Every app, every device, every site and service. Then your OS (the last and possibly dying vestige of "I control this, this is mine"), esp one built on ejatbised to be touted as Choice.
Anyway, all depends on how it's implemented.
Ok that makes sense - thanks for the example. If done with a package could it function the same way (do everything) as if it were part of the OS? Are there any efficiency gains if AI is part of the OS? If not, it sounds like I'd always just want a package and never any AI built into the OS.
I view it a bit like going from command line to graphical. Technically the graphics is all seperate but the experience has been brought in to installation of the os and most function. I think ai will be like this but it will only be something I would want to try with a high trust provider. Not sure canonical is that for me.
If it's local, unobtrusive, and optional, I don't see the issue. I'm thinking like the full line code completion in intellij, that's actually useful.
We'll damn, lubuntu was my goto for older hardware.
I'm using antix on a 23 year old laptop. Except for web browsing, it's quite snappy with an IDE SSD (is actually an nvme drive with ide adapter, which is such a waste of that drive, but it's 2230 and 128GB, so not very useful anywhere else)
Pretty much any desktop that offers lxqt during installation works pretty well in my experience. I ran tumbleweed with lxqt for a while on a 4 core atom with 4 GB ram and it was quite smooth.
Ubuntu has taken another wrong turn. She's going left and right like a prodigal daughter. And no one will be able to talk sense into her until she's had her share of bumps.
Please be "don't".