this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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Without Ubuntu Pro subscription the entire Universe repository does not receive any security updates by Canonical:
https://canonical.com/blog/ubuntu-pro-enhanced-security-and-manageability-for-linux-desktop
You should consider switching to an entirely independent distribution that does not lock security updates behind a paywall, perhaps something based directly on Debian or Fedora.
The updates available through Ubuntu Pro wouldn’t have normally been available prior to Pro. It’s an added service, not something that was previously available that is now locked behind a paywall. There are plenty of reasons to not like Canonical but this isn’t one.
What's a better alternative that uses apt and KDE and has relatively up-to-date packages (other than Debian testing)?
May I ask why you seem to be married to the use of
apt?~~Just couldn't pass up on the opportunity to insert this banger.~~
Isn't apt still better at resolving the dependency tree than other managers? (Idk if it is, but vaguely heard so.)
IIRC, historically, it was (one of) the first to do so. It took a significant time for (most^[Slackware, famously, continues to not have a dependency resolver. Though, they got their reasons.]) others to catch up.
Maybe. I honestly don't know either.
Linux mint Debian Edition, and just install KDE yourself ig, otherwise MX linux KDE
It's not KDE, but I think Linux Mint Cinnamon is a no-brainer for somebody who really just wants to use ubuntu.
However, as a long time Mint fan I recently had reason to switch to Debian 13 w/ KDE Plasma and it is pretty great.
Debian Sid!
What's wrong with Debian?
I already know about it, so there's no need to tell me.
Fair enough.
There's also Pop and Mint, though I don't know if their update model differs from Ubuntu at all.
But if you're already familiar with Debian, why not use it? It's widely recommended for a reason, it's hard to beat.
Pop!_OS uses COSMIC (a modified GNOME), not KDE.
Linux Mint uses Cinnamon (a modified GNOME 3) or MATE (a modified GNOME 2), not KDE.
The answer to "why not Debian" is that I try to install Debian first every time, but if it doesn't work for whatever reason I grab Kubuntu instead of trying to troubleshoot it. 3 of the 4 desktop computers I've tried to install Linux on lately ended up with Kubuntu instead of Debian.
(For my personal desktop that tends to have a bleeding-edge graphics card at the time of building/installing, that's understandable. For the other computers, for other members of my family who don't need the latest and greatest, Debian's failure to support several-year-old hardware -- at least in the installation environment, without fiddling -- was less forgivable.)
I'm sure you can install KDE on either of those.
I'm surprised Debian doesn't Just Work for you though. I recently converted my laptop and desktop and had no issues.
Debian should be great on old hardware too. Longevity is part of their mission. The installation environent might be a bit tricky if you have really old or uncommon hardware, but in those cases I just pick the text installer, which has much fewer dependencies.
Its objective superiority puts others off.
Fedora offers apt. AFAIK not by default, so it has to be installed via dnf first but then it's available.
It's been like that for years.
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+shouldn%27t+you+use+apt+on+fedora&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&safe=active
It's a really bad idea to have two package managers overlap (this is also why more "cross-system" package managers like nix and brew are okay: they consciously install to separate paths to avoid overlapping)
Fedora does not offer APT repositories, so if you somehow don't overlap and pretty much exclusively use APT, you're pretty much just converting your distro to Debian (or whatever's providing your repos). In the forums we call this a Frankenstein; support is seldom given for raising the dead.
Is your answer whatever Gemini happens to hallucinate on a given day?
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+shouldn%27t+you+use+apt+on+fedora+-ai
do yourself a favor and just block the overview: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1crc47m/is_it_possible_to_use_ublock_to_remove_googles/
Would MX Linux with KDE fit your needs?
Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use on up to five machines.
Also note that Universe is the community-maintained repository, sort of like the AUR but the community also reviews package creations. The Main repository is maintained by the Ubuntu Project and has always had free security updates.
If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
Debian is free for any use for an unlimited number of machines without corporate tracking which packages you install.
So I guess with Debian, you are the product.
Debian is a community, not a product.
Interesting. I can use a community for my OS? So every time I hear someone say "install debian", they're telling me to install a community?
Either way, it's free, so I'm still the product.
it's free, because people have decided to come together and volunteer to create something that is beneficial to them, allows them to express themselves, and distribute it for free to better other people's lives and contribute to human existence. Part of their motivation to create such a thing is to not have the users be the product.
When there is a soup kitchen for homeless people, the homeless people are not a product.
alex is comparing Ubuntu Pro to the soup kitchen
Debian is a community.
Debian GNU/Linux is a non-commercial Linux distribution, ergo not a product.
Client-side data collection is opt-in and open-source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/canonicals-ubuntu-telemetry/ If you're talking server-side collection we don't know about, I'd call for burden of proof since neither Ubuntu nor Debian have relevant history of collection and that would probably violate the Privacy Policy.
You need to log in to use Ubuntu Pro. Obviously.
that doesn't really change what I've said
Saying this is like screaming "I don't know anything about Ubuntu except that I hate it!!!!"
I posted a screenshot from Ubuntu's own blog. So they hate themselves and lie to the world?
It's maintained by my hardware OEM (Tuxedo) and I'm not even sure it has Universe - most things are flatpaks.
I strongly suggest looking it up.
Novel got Suse pretty stable now too. I'm still a Fedora fan but it's an option.