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Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

kevin-custer.com

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Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#81

Post by avhception »

m-p-3 wrote: post #69
avhception wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got an ansible playbook that modifies my ~/.config/lxc/config.yml for certain deployment scenarios. Due to LXC now being a snap, the file is simply not there. I guess it's 5 layers deep in namespaces, overlayfs and other stuff. I was so fed up with this that I removed Ubuntu (and replaced it with Gentoo).

I came to the realization that my home server doesn't need Ubuntu, it needs Debian.

Editing a config file for a program should not be more complicated than opening the file in your preferred editor, no matter your distro. Snaps break that.

I can't understand why they would break such fundamental thing and seemingly don't care about it.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#82

Post by djsumdog »

zimbatm wrote: post #78

Consider any other operating systems out there for a moment. A new upgrade comes along that contains unwanted features. How often is it possible to revert that by uninstalling a few packages? There is a level of care here which I think is great. Some engineer somewhere made sure that the system would still work without snaps. This is a very Debian attitude which Ubuntu inherits from and which I would like to celebrat…

Have you ever tried Void? I've used it on my routers for years, had a media PC with it and recently setup my dedicated server with it. It's really nice, but it is certainly more hands on and missing the management layers found in other Linux distros.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#83

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #66
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, is it still impossible to disable Snap autoupdates? Even if people should be updating regularly, forcing them feels completely antithetical to the Linux ethos of users having control over their devices.

I remember updating Ubuntu once. It bricked my installation for some reason. Ever since then I rarely update software. With Ubuntu I just wait until the next LTS.

May as well use Debian and escape the insanity.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#85

Post by stefan_ »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #15
jaytaylor wrote: post #6

Kudos to the OP, I'm glad this got posted on hacker news because Snap is so ridiculously broken. Since 16.04, Snaps have been a huge pain for me with running LXC in production environments. By default, Snap applies updates and restarts Systemd services anytime it likes, and there's no way to turn this behavior off! The only way to get around it is to download the Snap package binary and install that directly. Then Sn…

Ugh, is it still impossible to disable Snap autoupdates? Even if people should be updating regularly, forcing them feels completely antithetical to the Linux ethos of users having control over their devices.

The Snap team has some experience with this, seeing as how 20.04 has released and you still can't move the fricking ~/snap folder. Creating some generically named top-level folder in the users home directory is a straightforward fuck you to all users.

Since 2017: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#86

Post by djsumdog »

musicale wrote: post #73

> I lean more toward Flatpak as it is more performant What is "performant" supposed to mean here? Is Flatpak faster than Snap? more compact? simpler? more reliable/secure? easier to use? more efficient in terms of cpu/memory/communication/power/etc.? all of the above?

I always had problems with both of them. I use Docker a lot and Flatpak/Snap are intended to be a type of Docker for desktop apps. I know with Flatpak it has some shims to integrate with your system UI libraries so themes try to match up, but there are issues with that too (and flatpak apps just not starting up half the time).

I really hate Snap/Flatpak conceptually. Use the package manager. That's what it's there for. FPM is a way to make package building easier.

Snap/Flat tools feel like they're about the same as Electron cancer; and I bet we'll see more closed source commercial stuff pushed to the Linux world via them as well.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#87

Post by mulmen »

coolspot wrote: post #67
mulmen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have any experience with snaps so this is all new to me. Snaps install software at a system level right? Why on earth would there be anything in a user home directory? What if you have multiple users? Does snap get confused?

Snap stores user-specific application data in /home/user/snap/ folder. Like when packaged application wants to write into $HOME, snap gives it some sub-folder inside /home/user/snap.

Ah ok I understand now. Sibling comments reference the MacOS Library and *NIX ~/.local approaches. Both of those seem to make a lot more sense. Is there a config for Snaps to store user data in a different path, like ~/.local/snap/?

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#88

Post by james_s_tayler »

coleifer wrote: post #49

Canonical always has tried to differentiate themselves, and they just can't execute. Remember Unity, Mir, Juju, upstart and all the other failed shit they've come out with? Snap is just more of the same. I don't want to run that garbage on my desktop. I don't need more daemons and forced auto-updates and all the baggage. I strongly recommend anyone similarly frustrated to check out debian, which is a fantastic distro…

I agree. The last Ubuntu release I actually liked was 12.04? After Unity I've been fighting Ubuntu ever since.

I'm seriously considering not taking the 20.04 LTS release and either using 18.04 until it's untenable or switching to something else.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#89

Post by troyready »

One of the very annoying consequences of the Chromium move to snap on 20.04 is that it will silently fail to launch most external links (e.g. Slack, Zoom).

A workound is posted at https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1776873/comments/29 (simple patch & recompile). May be worth making a PPA for the fixed snapd if we can't get the Canonical dev team to fix the core issue.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#90

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

robocat wrote: post #76
coleifer wrote: post #49

Canonical always has tried to differentiate themselves, and they just can't execute. Remember Unity, Mir, Juju, upstart and all the other failed shit they've come out with? Snap is just more of the same. I don't want to run that garbage on my desktop. I don't need more daemons and forced auto-updates and all the baggage. I strongly recommend anyone similarly frustrated to check out debian, which is a fantastic distro…

> and they just can't execute That’s a bit rich: are they not the #1 consumer distro, which hardly implies they are failing to execute. A successful product has missteps, so what. > I don't want to run that garbage on my desktop. So don’t. Why complain that others do? I use Ubuntu because it works and I can mostly find information about how to do what I want. There are major aspects of Ubuntu I don’t like (Gnome, Sna…

> That’s a bit rich: are they not the #1 consumer distro, which hardly implies they are failing to execute

All the hard work to make it a viable OS is done by Debian. Canonical just adds some polish and then wrecks it all with poor design decisions over and over again.

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