[Discuss] Ubuntu 17.10: As messed up as it appears in first impression?

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

Disclaimer: I'm just booting it off a thumbdrive and played with it for 
like 30 minutes.  Definitely not exhaustive, and running from thumb 
drive some things aren't gonna work.  But I've been a long-time Kubuntu 
user trying to see if I could adapt to the new Gnome/Wayland-based version.

First thing I noticed is that Software Center is... lacking. I 
understand it's for less sophisticated users.  so I try to install 
synaptic.  "sudo dpkg-query -l synaptic" shows it but with no version 
number, no arch and uninstalled. "sudo apt-get install synaptic" says 
the package has no installation candidate.  Same goes for 
gnome-tweak-tool, which seems similarly essential. Separately, I know if 
I do manage to install synaptic I will run into easily-solved problems 
running it as root, according to the Internet.  Yes the machine is 
connected to the Internet.

I tried installing some other packages, and ran into the error 
"snap-confine has elevated permissions and is not confined but should 
be..." when I run them from the command line. They don't do anything 
when I click on the icon in the application list. Google isn't helping 
me with that one either. The applications don't launch.

Other opinions on it welcome, but specifically:

1) Is Ubuntu 17.10 ready for casual use?

2) Are others seeing the problems I'm seeing above? It's effectively 
useless to me as is, and mysterious that there aren't a lot of hits on 
these messages.

3) Is it likely these problems are being caused by running from a thumb 
drive?  I have a feeling any spare machines I have to try it on are 32 
bit, and I would rather not blow away my main laptop install only to 
find out I don't like the interface.

Thanks.