I work at a government lab, and the reason ubuntu adoption is lagging is cybersecurity. It's not that Ubuntu is intrinsically less secure, but that its repository is so large that it requires a much larger investment in a security inventory. It's also the case that the ubuntu encryption is not opensource, and the license is ~1K/seat. We hope to switch to Ubuntu within this FY, but we'll see. 

Art Edwards

-- 
  Arthur H. Edwards
  [log in to unmask]

On Wed, May 20, 2020, at 12:55 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
> I also use MATE, and often issue direct text based commands in the 
> standard Linux CLI, bash (that has enough csh and korn shell features to 
> make it useful).  I do install a number of KDE GUI utilities as some of 
> the KDE programs do what I need.  Now that Ubuntu 20 LTS is in 
> production, I shall be updating my wife's Ubuntu 18 LTS machine to 
> Ubuntu 20 LTS; my understanding is that unlike EL for which a major 
> release upgrade requires a new install (for which the simplest thing in 
> most machines is to install a new "fresh" harddrive, install EL N++ from 
> media -- typically a bootable USB "thumb drive", and then using the old 
> drive, recursively copy /home and other non-systems directories onto the 
> new system drive for a laptop, I use an external USB "drive holder" to 
> access the drive), LTS allows one to upgrade from major release N to 
> major release N++ (e.g., 18 to 20) in place.  A number of LTS users have 
> informed me that they routinely do this with no ill consequences.
> 
> Ubuntu (Canonical) advertises:  Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, 
> the OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging 
> categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced robots.  Is 
> this advert factual?  If so, why is HEP staying with EL -- is it inertia 
> or are there significant stability advantages to EL over LTS?
> 
> Yasha Karant
> 
> On 5/19/20 10:23 PM, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
> > Metoo. I use the MATE desktop, as the least annoying of all
> > desktops available on all three of el6, el7 and Ubuntu LTS 18.04.
> >
> > As for el8, officially everything except some gnome is removed,
> > KDE was never available, probably still not available, so meh.
> >
> > FWIW, I am evaluating el8 and ubuntu LTS 20.04 in parallel, so far,
> > el8/ubuntu package versions: python 3.6/3.8, gcc 8.x/9.x, php 7.2/7.4;
> > Ubuntu can boot from zfs (18.04 you have to follow a check list, 20.04
> > supposedly the installer can install straight to ZFS). On el8 I will not even try
> > boot from ZFS, for sure there is some systemd bogosity that will
> > prevent it from working (like systemd refused to boot from degraded btrfs).
> >
> > Sorry to bring this up again, but other than for nostalgia and inertia,
> > there is not much point to el8.
> >
> > K.O.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 09:48:28PM -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> >> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 4:45 PM Keith Lofstrom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>> I've done my feeble best to compile Mate for CentOS 8; my
> >>> result is not completely broken, but not ready for use.
> >>> Some of the graphics fails.  "Mate8" seems to leak memory.
> >> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 05:08:34PM -0700, Akemi Yagi wrote:
> >>> There is a thread on the CentOS mailing list about Mate for el8 that you
> >>> may want to take a look:
> >>>
> >>> lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2020-May/350284.html
> >> Thanks for that;  about six messages down that thread is
> >> a pointer to a webpage discussing compiled packages:
> >>
> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__copr.fedoracloud.org_coprs_stenstorp_MATE&d=DwIBAg&c=gRgGjJ3BkIsb5y6s49QqsA&r=gd8BzeSQcySVxr0gDWSEbN-P-pgDXkdyCtaMqdCgPPdW1cyL5RIpaIYrCn8C5x2A&m=Q6LCVHs6caad7nOhlIGsnO-ZZUhyem88W6GHqfhenh8&s=7XyJM3wNZhcVzu5ozYZvc9sKtl4zp0lRlr7HMXiXXP8&e=
> >>
> >> I will copy my borked home compilations to backups, then
> >> install that version of MATE.  Many of us are installing
> >> MATE; I probably made my clumsy attempts prematurely.
> >>
> >> ----
> >>
> >> To others who suggest alternate ways to use linux ... thanks,
> >> but I'm an old dog, and a gnome2 user since it was a puppy.
> >> MATE comes closest.
> >>
> >> My "new trick" schedule is overloaded with math and physics
> >> skills that I hope to learn soon, skills that would have
> >> been much easier to learn 50 years ago.
> >>
> >> -----
> >>
> >> Finding the gnome3 text rendering flaw will be more difficult.
> >> That flaw is why my subnotebooks still run SL6.
> >>
> >>
> >> Keith
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask]
>