The topic Tuxedo OS ditches Ubuntu, citing Snap packages and AI as some of its major pain… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies’ decisions and competitors’ reactions can quickly change the picture.
With the arrival of AI, different distros have approached the new tech with different stances. Canonical, with its Ubuntu distro, has been pretty pro-AI, as long as any added tools serve a useful enough purpose. However, not everyone agrees with this stance, including Tuxedo OS, which cites it as just one of several reasons why it’s ditching its Ubuntu core in place of Debian.
As spotted by OMG Ubuntu, the developers behind Tuxedo OS wrote a blog post explaining the swap. As it turns out, there’s an entire laundry list of problems that Tuxedo OS has with using Ubuntu LTS. One issue is how slowly LTS build updates occur, with Tuxedo OS saying that backporting newer apps is getting trickier and that the newest dependencies just aren’t available.
However, Tuxedo OS’s gripes aren’t just with Ubuntu itself, but with how Canonical are handling things:
Additional reasons relate to Canonical’s strategic direction. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the Snap packaging system out of the operating system, as Canonical is distributing more and more applications exclusively as Snap packages while gradually pushing traditional DEB packages into the background.
Another factor is the AI roadmap announced by Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth during the Ubuntu Summit 26.04. At this point, its concrete implementation remains insufficiently transparent. In addition, we believe that security updates occasionally take longer to reach users than necessary.
To remedy this, Tuxedo OS will strip away the Ubuntu layer and use Debian 13 “Trixie” instead. In fact, the Tuxedo OS devs say they’ll put the distro on the Debian Testing branch and then keep it there for the foreseeable future, a move they’re calling “Continuous Debian.”
The devs say Tuxedo OS won’t be radically different after the change, since Ubuntu already uses Debian. However, without Ubuntu, Tuxedo OS can now use a Btrfs file system, which then allows the distro to ship with the excellent Snapper restoration tool. The Tuxedo OS team hopes to begin an extensive beta testing phase “in the coming weeks.”
After a decade of loyalty, I finally bid farewell to Ubuntu, but not without a heavy heart.