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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

jatan.blog

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Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#11

Post by Matt3o12_ »

dopeboy wrote: post #7

> I hate that Chromium’s snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds. Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

Apparently, snaps are compressed to save disk space, which is why they take so long to start:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/9scoif/snap_package...

Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps, however, your web browser (and any other frequencely used apps), shouldn't be compressed, especially if there is ample disk space.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#12

Post by ordinaryperson »

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Snaps. I wish all software would auto-update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome?

The author of this article claims it's too difficult to find Flatpak apps and that the Ubuntu software center prioritizes Snaps over .deb. Are platforms never allowed to migrate to a new standard? Why is it Canonical's fault that authors of individual applications have yet to migrate Snaps?

If we all agree that on the whole auto-updating software is generally better and more secure than manually updated software, why not single out the applications that haven't migrated instead of blaming the whole standard?

Maybe I'm just naive and not doing advanced super user stuff these Snap haters are doing but from a distance to me this resembles the systemd vs init controversy. One which, IMHO, Linux super users seemed unusually attached to an older standard for not always clear reasons. Snaps offer real benefits: maybe instead of complaining that 'this sucks' users could offer constructive criticism about how to improve the new standard.

Just my opinion tho.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#13

Post by kleiba »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #11
dopeboy wrote: post #7

> I hate that Chromium’s snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds. Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

Apparently, snaps are compressed to save disk space, which is why they take so long to start: - https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/9scoif/snap_package... Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps, however, your web browser (and any other frequencely used apps), shouldn't be compressed, especially if there is ample disk space.

Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps

Is it really? I can't recall the last time I ran into disk space issues, must have been in the 1990s.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#14

Post by JonoBB »

aritmo wrote: post #4
hedora wrote: post #3

The last time I installed the Ubuntu, I noticed gnome calculator took over a second to start in a VM on a new >$2500 laptop. I switched to a .deb, and it was instantaneous. Then I switched back to devuan and have been happy since.

The calculator was a snap in Ubuntu 18.04 as an experiment.

Ah, this makes sense now! I've always wondered why the calculator (of all apps) was by far the slowest to start on 18.04 for me.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#15

Post by bobmaxup »

dopeboy wrote: post #7

> I hate that Chromium’s snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds. Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

Boots slow for me, but it isn't a big deal in my opinion. I like the prompts that Chromium is trying to open files, etc.

Overall, snap doesn't seem terrible to me, but I haven't really read into the complaints everyone is sharing.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#16

Post by bluedino »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #12

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Snaps. I wish all software would auto-update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome? The author of this article claims it's too difficult to find Flatpak apps and that the Ubuntu software center prioritizes Snaps over .deb. Are platforms never allowed to migrate to a new standard? Why is it Canonical's fault that authors of indiv…

Chrome auto updates cause issues on the Mac. No thanks.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#17

Post by saurik »

kleiba wrote: post #13
Matt3o12_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, snaps are compressed to save disk space, which is why they take so long to start: - https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/9scoif/snap_package... Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps, however, your web browser (and any other frequencely used apps), shouldn't be compressed, especially if there is ample disk space.

Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps Is it really? I can't recall the last time I ran into disk space issues, must have been in the 1990s.

Yeah... and when something is truly large it generally doesn't compress well anyway as the large assets are embedded media files; I don't understand the point of compressing stuff like this :/.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#18

Post by greendave »

> Auto-updating of snaps can only be deferred at best, until at some point, like Windows, it auto-updates anyway. Even on metered connections, snaps auto-update anyway after some time.

This attitude is obnoxious. Yes, not everybody is on a metered connection or running a mission-critical system, but some are, and it is hardly unreasonable to accommodate them.

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