Imagine flatpack did smth like this
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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I don't have a problem with snaps as a technology. If you want to use them, then who am I to judge?
But what I do have a problem with is when I don't have a choice and I am being forced to use what the distro maintainers think is good for me. That is what finally made me quit Ubuntu and switch to Fedora.
Also, Snap is proprietary. That alone is reason enough for me to steer clear.
Well snap itself isn't proprietary, the backend server distributing the snaps is.
Explain how this distinction matters in the real world?
Snap distribution is as much a part of snaps as Snapd.
Who cares that part of it is open source if other parts aren't?
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I do have a problem with them, the same problem was solved, better, with other technologies like appImage (which doesn't litter your mount list with 100 meaningless entries).
Even flatpak is better, snap is an also ran they're trying to force on us without being as good as any of the competitors.
Couldn't the same argument be made for any distro? They give you what they put in their repos. If you want a deb package, use the mozillateam PPA (which is built on Canonical's hardware, same as Mozilla's snap of it).
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when I don’t have a choice and I am being forced to use what the distro maintainers think is good for me.
That's the case on literally any distro.
And just like on literally any distro, you can also install Firefox from FlatPak, the Mozilla repo or from source.
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ok, what is snap and why should I care?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(software)
As to "why should I care", you don't have to... unless you use Ubuntu.
I didn't really understand what I just read, but it sounds like flatpack but different. I'm on mint, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect me. The memes I've seen on the subject give me the impression that people don't like it.
Snap is far more like nix. Flatpak deals with a limited subset of what nix and snap do (e.g. it can't distribute kernel packages).
While snap is certainly not without its problems, people repeatedly make massive negative claims about it that, while often based on a core of truth, are highly embellished to the point of being misinformation. (This is the same tactic I see with bad-faith political trolls, and with a similar result really - they'll consistently try to use that core of truth to make far stronger claims than are defensible and, when it's pointed out to them, they move the goalposts to a smaller, more defensible claim, only to repeat the bigger, debunked, claim later.)
Yeah, it's basically flatpak but with more problems and bugs. It's from Canonical and some parts of it are closed source.
One of my friends spent like a month distrohopping just to find a debian-based distro that fits these two criteria:
-
First-class support for KDE
-
Isn't broken all the time
Ubuntu fails both. KDE Neon excels on the first one, but fails harder than ubuntu on the second one. Kubuntu as well. Debian has horridly outdated packages, and he refuses to use nix/flatpak. Tuxedo OS is obscure and broken. Mint is great, but installing KDE takes some effort.
He finally settled on Ubuntu Server with the native KDE package. Still has to do some weird incantations to banish snap tho.
How did things get this bad?
I'd love to know what's consistently breaking on KDE Neon for you. I've got some specific bugs I'm working through with their team, but I've never found it to be "always broken" (although I will say it is easier to break than Kubuntu IME).
Why not try Void. It's fairly up to date regarding all packages, including KDE and it's rock solid.
He really insists on debian-based, I don't really know why. And, while Void IS really solid, it isn't exactly known for the most expansive package collection. Xournal, for example, is not available through XBPS (there is a xournal package, but it just installs xournal++), which is one of the programs he likes a lot. I told him it's on nix, but he doesn't want to use nix.
But I agree, Void is amazing, I use it on my laptop. One little-known cool feature of Void is that its official docker images come in busybox/musl libc, busybox/glibc, and coreutils/glibc variants, it gives you a nice scale from most minimalist to most compatible.
He could make his own templates for the packages... he doesn't even have to rebuild. If he could at least find a .deb or .rpm package of the app/package he likes, he could use that and just repackage. That's what I do for stuff I can't find... and update them from time to time (like every few months or so).
How did Pop!_OS fare?
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
But speaking seriously, I think he tried it for a while and didn't like it either... not sure why specifically tho, I'll ask him
When I used Mint, it felt like packages are outdated just like on Debian (based on Ubuntu LTS + needs time to rebase onto a new one).
This is why I switched from Ubuntu to Debian.
Same here. What especially irritated me was that even though I installed the .deb firefox and followed the directions to disable snap firefox, occasionally Ubuntu went ahead and reinstalled snap firefox for me.
Ubuntu was great, until Unity debacle, when I switched to Mint DE. Few years later I returned to an Unity free Ubuntu just to be welcomed with snaps and Ubuntu pro.
Canonical have made the same mistake three times as far as desktop environments are concerned, IMO:
- 2004: went with GNOME
- 2010: made Unity as a way to rid themselves of the hostility of the GNOME devs
- 2017: Instead of leaving GNOME in the dust, they went back.
IMO using GNOME is an abusive relationship.
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8.10 was the last good Ubuntu. (It also had the best default wallpaper ever)
If you look at the "improvements" in every release since, you'll notice that shit like they do currently isn't an accident:
9.04 integrated web services into the main user interface.
9.10 integrated Ubuntu One (Ubuntu's OneDrive, upgradable for money) by default and introduced the slooooow Ubuntu Software Center
10.04 integrated an interface to post on social media
10.10 added app purchases in the Software Center
11.04 made Unity the default
11.10 removed Gnome as fallback to Unity
12.04 introduced the buggy HUD
12.10 added the famous Amazon ad lense to it by default
and it goes on like this...
Looks like a NiN album cover.
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This is literally the reason why I switched over to Debian. At least back then, snaps wouldn't work if the home folders were not under /home/, breaking all computers on the system I helped run.
At least back then, snaps wouldn't work if the home folders were not under /home/,
Do you mean that it literally had /home/ hard-coded instead of using $HOME? That's crazy if so.
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Installed ubuntu on an rpi and firefox there ran snap. Was not very usable. Everything was so slow. Forcing an install of the dep package was the only way to use it. Not very well thought through bu cannonical.
Wait... I'm just about to switch over to Linux on a laptop and was going to use Ubuntu. This looks kind of cursed though?
Tbf, Unbuntu works, but they're ran by a company which has made some questionable choices. You can still go with it if you don't care too much, it has the advantages of being user friendly and well documented.
If you'd rather not, but you want something not too far and equally easy, you can go with Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu but disables snaps. They also offer differently choices of desktop environments, the default being Cinnamon (which looks a bit more like windows), and another being Mate, which is closer to Gnome.
They also have a "Debian Edition", which aims to stop being dependant on Ubuntu and may or may not replace the default edition someday, but so far it's not the one they recommend for new users.
Switching to Ubuntu is way, way better than staying on Windows.
That being said, Ubuntu is maintained by the Canonical company, and they have made some really sus decisions in the past. Things like putting Amazon ads in the application launcher and then trying to gaslight people when the inevitable backlash arrived.
The meme above refers to Canonical's own Snap packaging format (think of it like UWP/Microsoft Store apps vs. "regular" Win32 apps), and the way they're pushing for its adoption. Snap is installed by default on Ubuntu and official Ubuntu flavors. You can uninstall it manually, but Canonical has modified the APT package manager so that when an application is available as a Snap package, it automatically installs the Snap back-end and the application as a Snap package without notifying the user (instead of installing the .deb-packaged applications, which is what happens on all other distributions that use APT). Canonical recently also ordered that official Ubuntu flavors (which are maintained by independent groups) can't include Flatpak, a universal packaging format that directly competes with Snap, in their default installations.
You could try out Linux Mint¹, they're Ubuntu based and disable Snap by default².
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