My preference is to use the default version in Ubuntu repositories... being a desktop user.
One reason for doing it that way, is if I break my system due to problem/mistake, I know I can pretty quickly
non-destructively re-install it and continue working...
I talk about the
non-destructive re-install here , as that install method is something I use myself.
eg. I'm using Ubuntu
development release currently; which is an
unstable system where problems can occur from time to time... last time was August 2023 when two of my five screens became dark (
no image) due to a kernel change.. Strange things like that can happen on
unstable, so I monitored it, next day the issue was present on the
daily so it was bug report with my install being mentioned... Within a week the issue was resolved on the
dailies, however the issue remained on my installed system.. and I couldn't find a
fix to my installed system... thus when bored of it, I just
non-destructively re-installed the system... This involved ensuring my backup of data was good, then just re-install from the latest
daily, reboot & then confirm the system worked as I expected... ie. my data AND
manually installed apps were all there.... I was back fully operational in under 15 minutes.
It's an
easy fix option as I see it, as I like being able to re-install and system, not lose my data, and have my
manually installed or
additional apps auto-reinstall automatically.
The install method I'm talking about assumes its Ubuntu repository software, and I've actually had it re-install
snap packages too (
but also had it fail to install snap packages, unsure of why its not always reliable as I've not detected the pattern), but I know it won't work with
flatpak,
appimage, and no QA is done with any 3rd party software.
Some issues with the type of install were detected in QA of
noble (24.04), which haven't been fixed yet, so the install method isn't available on ISOs using `ubuntu-desktop-installer` for 24.04 & 24.10, but it still works on ISOs using the `calamares` installer.. and the hope is the bug in ubuntu-desktop-provision will get fixed, thus forced format can be removed allowing it to with ubuntu-desktop-installer too.
