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Ubuntu in 2026

Table of Contents
  1. What Works Really Well
  2. What’s Missing
  3. Being a Nerd Is Required
  4. Still My Daily Driver

In January 2025, I decided to take the plunge and see if Ubuntu could be my daily driver for personal computing. While I still use MacOS for work and for the machine itself, I wanted to see if the basic pieces of what I want out of a personal computer are possible on Linux.

The verdict remains mixed in 2026. On the one hand, I’m still using Ubuntu and it runs most of what I want just fine.

On the other hand, upgrading to 26.04.01 was not painless and involved unsticking some mono packages I installed for some otherwise-forgotten-to-me reason. Printing remains a problem (though I squarely blame HP for that). Video decoding is spotty, though that’s partially because I try to avoid installing DRM plugins in my Linux environment.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain:

Linux for climate, MacOS for company.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

What Works Really Well

  • Web Browsing: For any application in a web browser, the Zen Browser is terrific. Just use it and forget your troubles.
  • 1Password: Surprisingly good on Linux! I’d still like to move to Proton Pass, but I’m hoping they get PassKey import support so I don’t have to regenerate all my passkeys.
  • Zed: At first, Zed support was terrible on Linux. Now, it’s caught up.
  • It stays out of the way - no senseless ads,

What’s Missing

  • I don’t love OrganicMaps and wish Apple Maps had tabs again (where did all the tabs go in MacOS???) but on Linux
  • Printing, because printers are the worst
  • Sometimes video decoding can be weird
  • I don’t love LibreOffice despite trying. I still find Zed + plain text formats superior to using a word processor, especially when using Typst. Maybe that’s not a problem?
  • iCloud calendar support (This is kind of on me - I need to just move over to something Linux can support)
    • As an extension of this point, I don’t love Thunderbird and am using webmail these days
  • It still requires being a nerd to use safely

Being a Nerd Is Required

I still think this is the hardest bit. On MacOS you can generally trust that it’s going to work the way someone expects it ought to. Maybe if I only used the GUI to get things done this would also apply on Linux, but to get 1Password or other stuff installed involves CLI magic.

Beyond that, hardware compatibility for things like sound and graphics remains complicated. I run my Ubuntu in a VM, so this makes things harder than they need to be. Even so, it seems like I couldn’t recommend this to a non-techncial user in good faith still. I don’t know what has to change for that to no longer be the case?

Still My Daily Driver

I’m still sticking with Ubuntu desktop for personal use. It’s solid, works, and I know how to tinker with it. I’m exploring Guix as I love the concept behind it, though the learning curve for how to install something remains elusive.