Yesterday I tested a future move from a VM with Ubuntu16.04 ESM, a nine-year-old system to a VM with the Ubuntu Core Desktop 24 or 26?
I used yesterday to run my Ubuntu 16.04 applications for banking on the Ubuntu Core Desktop development edition and IT DID RUN. IT WAS EASY, basically Ubuntu 16.04 and the Ubuntu Core Desktop do run the same snap versions of Firefox and Thunderbird. It also did run the same snap version of LibreOffice (Calc) till one month ago, when that snap refused to run on Ubuntu 16.04 ESM. Currently on 16.04 I did fall back for LibreOffice on its original deb version 5.1.6.2.
I had to spend some time on LibreOffice, because of lay-out issues, I needed more than 1080 pixels for the spreadsheet, related to the toolbar icon size and the Arial fonts installed on 16.04.
The major issue was to transfer the spreadsheet using the terminal command scp, that I used for the first time. I first tried the Nautilus snap and the Remmina/SFTP snap of Core 24 and SFTP did show all the files and folders of the server, but it refused to download them
Nice moving from16.04, a nine-year-old system to Core 24 development edition with only 2 issues:
Still limited support in some application snaps (Nautilus; Remmina/SFTP) for using the network in the Ubuntu Core Desktop 24.
Layout issues between an ancient deb and up-to-date snap spreadsheet
Notes:
I did write a bug report for the LibreOffice snap on Ubuntu 16.04 ESM, but I do not expect it will be solved due the limited remaining life time of Ubuntu 16.04 ESM.
The system is workable, but it has some missing features like the network support for Nautilus and Remmina/SFTP and personally I miss snaps for VBox Guest Additions and Conky
The transfer to a system, released 9 or 10 years later, has been very easy, because both systems used the same up-to-date stable snaps.
After I wrote my user impression, the pc-kernel snap got updated from Linux version 6.8.0-50 to 6.11.0-17 without a major problem, but it did not indicate in the app-center, that the update had been completed. After a restart the system booted and everything was fine and the kernel had been updated.
Note that this text has been produced on the Ubuntu Core Desktop 24.
I use the Core Desktop VM daily, like I also use my (a)social media VM (Xubuntu 24.04 LTS) daily. I have used it a few times to check out the read-only weekly shopping bank account and that worked fine. I have installed and did set the firewall UFW as needed and I introduced a primary password in Firefox. To complete the security I encryted the Core Desktop vdi file in Virtualbox. Afterwards it failed to boot and for the moment I did give up. I tried it on a VM with a BIOS boot and an uefi boot (Xubuntu 24.04 LTS) and both worked. The Desktop Core uefi boot failed again. I will raise an issue to the Core Desktop team.
I did spend some quality time together with DeepSeek-AI to develop a snap for conky. The snapcraft command failed due to time out on the network replies. DeepSeek-AI and I opened a port for lxcbr0, but that did not help. Maybe there is some compatibly issue between the lxcbr0 and the virtualbox network. However DeepSeek denies it.
Seeking in google for the correct spelling of lxdbr0, I detected, that there is however a significant difference between the older lxcbr0 and the recent lxdbr0 (Ip6 by default). So I have to investigate that first. Sometimes you have to correct DeepSeek, because it chooses to believe outdated data. For example it refused to believe, that Virtualbox had an encryption function for VMs, until I told it, it was wrong. Afterwards it excused itself like a polite Chinese bot and provided the correct data .
DeepSeek and I are not smart enough to create snaps, it keeps giving network errors on the Ubuntu 24.04 VM and in the Host OS. I also get the impression, that you might need some of the supporting snaps that are specific for the Core version and the snapcraft tool is not available on the Ubuntu Core Desktop. Probably I need a course of a week on lxd and snapcraft to solve the issues, I run into. But than I still have to wait for the snapcraft support on the Core Desktop.
Installed some extra snaps from the official internet snapstore; YouTube Music Desktop App; Calculator; System Monitor and Sayonora to play music copied to the Core Desktop.
I added a simple script to make it slightly easier to copy files and folders from my server to the Core Desktop. I copied 2 ABBA CDs (wma copies, that I made with Windows XP around 2004).
In VLC the music stutters. In Sayonora a little bit in the begin.
I used Firefox on Ubuntu Core Desktop 24 to book and pay (debit card) an airline ticket without any issue.
The pc-kernel snap has been updated a few days ago to Linux 6.11.0-18-generic
Hey, Lammert, keep up the great work and reporting on Core Desktop. Your use is likely exactly what I’m aiming for, with financial security, and secure enclaves. Please keep telling about your updates because 24.x had Kiwi-NG added, and that means I want to use it to try to add more applications into an ISO or xz.
I’m trying to choose which image file to install and it may be the xz as I read in another thread.
I’m hoping to get kiwi-NG running, but that’s beside the point. I really want SecureBoot or encrypted memory, so booting with uefi is necessary. I’m pretty paranoid about rootkits, or changing system files, so an atomic os like Core Desktop matters to me. Keep trying to get the security to work, this is cutting-edge to me.
I installed it from an ISO file in the experimental section of the Ubuntu CD section, the image is from October 2024 and I kept it up-to-date with the App Center. The App-snaps I use are the same I use on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, so they are the latest stable versions, so most Apps work fine, except:
Firefox has an issue, that it does not free its memory very well, so after a few hours it creates problems. In a VM it is more serious than on real HW, because my VMs have less memory. The problem seems to be too difficult for the Firefox maintenance programmers, because it exists everywhere and has been reported years ago.
Firefox sometimes ignores an input and you have to switch the tab of the page to another and back before it processes the input.
I installed the WhatsApp alternative, called the “signal-desktop” snap and that did not run. On the next boot the system failed to boot, so I had to go back to an earlier ZFS-snapshot of the Ubuntu Core Desktop OS.
Most Apps I tried, work without issues.
My installation is with a UEFI boot not with a secure boot. I wanted to encrypt the vdi file (virtual disk image) with Virtualbox, but the boot did not work. For encryption of VMs I prefer Virtualbox, because it is the same for every VM and you can do it directly or after 1 or 6 months. Encryption or decryption takes 1 or 2 minutes.
I like Ubuntu Core Desktop 24, because it is very reliable for an experimental system, I think it is more reliable than the 25.04 development edition of Ubuntu and my 2 installed flavors. I think it is more reliable, because it is using snaps and on top of that the same stable app-snaps are used everywhere.
It is missing many features like network support, I have to use the scp terminal command to copy file and folders from my server. For me it is missing Virtualbox support, especially the Guest Additions, but you can use it in a VBox-VM with the default video drivers. I miss support for conky, that I use for system management. If you have an App without snap support, you have a problem.
It is an experimental system and they normally are the worst. The fact that I ordered our airline tickets using Firefox and core desktop, basically was hubris. I took the risk, because I knew the issues of Firefox and how to overcome them
