I know Snap maybe offered tighter sandboxing, but why didnt AppImage take off? It seems like it solves the problems of deb/rmp/etc war and is easy to create for app devs...
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
81–90 of 645 posts
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been a very faithful Ubuntu user for 12 years now but if there's no easy way to disable this abomination then my current one (18.04) will be the last. Whose idea was it to replicate one of the worst features of Windows?
Gnome has been replicating the worst parts of windows (the registry comes instantly to mind) since the release of Gnome 3.
gconf is like the windows registry how? is it just because its a centralized config store? how evil is an annotated, easy to use, non archaic file that some apps put their settings into?
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#83The 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.
Yeah, it's almost as bad as the calculator in Window 10. It's completely ridiculous for ANY calculator app to take that long to load on a modern PC.
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#84Is there any sensible documentation on this somewhere?
I've been running Debian, and then Ubuntu, for a quarter-century now, largely because things just worked. .deb is nearly perfect.
Having used Docker, it's the last thing I want on my desktop, for a whole slew of reasons.
It's odd, Windows and Linux switched spots in that time. Windows 10 is faster, more stable, and more understandable than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is increasingly layered, convoluted, and bloated. Windows runs on light systems. Ubuntu requires a ton of RAM and CPU.
I think this might be the thing which will makes me give up Ubuntu.
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wish all software would auto-update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome? Updating everything has always been one click in Ubuntu (and I'm sure there's an option to have it go automatically). > 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 t…
> Updating everything has always been one click in Ubuntu (and I'm sure there's an option to have it go automatically). And what percentage of users do that? From your experience in software in general how much of the general population manually updates their software? It's almost always a low number and that creates problems. A different set of problems than new updates that cause bugs, but IMHO worse ones. > Maybe…
The auto update because users can't make the decision themselves is just copying windows 10 model.
Do applications break after auto-updates? of course they do and that is something that is important to ubuntu users because they have to manually fix. Given the choice I would rather choose when to upgrade so I could set aside time for fixes.
Ubuntu users are not windows 10 users. Why treat them in the same way?
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#86Maybe 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…
It is wrong to frame this as people not liking auto-updates. That is not the issue. The issue is FORCED auto-updates. Or even just obfuscating how to turn off updates.
I've always said that if your updates are such a benefit, then surely users would almost never even need to turn them off without a good reason, so why not give them the option? Most of the time this happens, it is because a company is doing it to maintain their platform, at the expense of their users.
Don't say it is just for safety. Why is it easier to install an outdated kernel than an outdated web browser?
Operating systems and toolchains are FRAGILE. If I have a computer doing anything important, I have to be vigilant about keeping rolling images of it. Updates break things all the time, if you are doing more than just the basics.
I travel a lot. Sometimes I have to reschedule a flight from a 2G cellular connection and can't share that bandwidth with updates. I have computers that run proprietary CNC machines, use specialized musical hardware, or need to have ancient toolchains to build highly specialized software (like J2ME and other embedded toolchains) for internal use for some of my clients. This self serving evergreen mentality is filled with contradictions. Like that I can't use an insecure version of SSL to fix a SCADA device on a secured closed network because they would be insecure, but nobody has a problem with me using telnet or HTTP, without any warnings whatsoever.
It's my computer, I don't have to justify why I want to say no to updates! We should not even be having this conversation about why it is not ok for Google or Microsoft to make permanent changes to my data when I have said no.
Yes, I probably should make more backups, and I have had to become way more careful about that. But the response to a lot of botched updates is just to blame users for trusting them and not making backups. I shouldn't have to worry about data loss or loss of functionality from updates -- it used to be unheard of for updates to not to have built in rollback functionality.
And don't get me started on Google. They are the worst offender. And what bothers me even more, is that they lie about why they are doing it. They've treated their users as unwilling beta testers for years. They installed a persistent menu bar widget without my consent on my mac, which you could either hide, or disable using obscure undiscovered flags.[1]
It is only because I got fed up and made Chrome.app immutable and completely removed and locked their Keystone updater, that my Mac wasn't rendered unbootable by Google's recent involuntary update.[2]
This should tell you everything you need to know. They have such hubris that not just are they modifying their users's computers, but they are making it nearly impossible for the average users to say no.
If companies were truly being honest and stood behind their updates, then there would be a clearly labeled and discoverable checkbox to disable updates, like what OSX has. I'm fine with putting that checkbox behind a bunch of scary warnings, and having the OS check back to make sure you really want to keep updates disabled. But what Google and Microsoft are doing with updates is blatantly dishonest and immoral.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/26eorb/chrome_notifica...
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The calculator was a snap in Ubuntu 18.04 as an experiment.
I was wondering why the calculator took so long to start on 18.04. I thought there was some problem with my system. Doesn't bode well for 20.04. I've been with Ubuntu for a very long time, I like that it just works most of the time. May be time to try out another distro if all the applications are this sluggish.
The good news is that 18 is one of the super-LTS releases, so you don't have to upgrade until 2028.
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#88For largely this reason, I've just switched to Manjaro after over two decades (ouch!) of using Debian and Ubuntu. I'm very happy with it!
Package installs are unbelievably fast. But mostly, the AUR repository of user contributed packaging scripts is awesome! Although I'm a bit worried about installing packages from random internet people, they are generally short and very easy to check for unwanted *ware. Haven't been disappointed yet!
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#89Maybe 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…
I'm still on 18.04, but I agree. Discord and VSCode keep occasionally prompting me to manually download and install .deb files. I'd really prefer if they just updated automatically. Discord gives a full page "download this update to keep doing things" message that interrupts everything. (i think only on larger updates? i havent seen it in a while) A quick google is telling me that both have snap packages - I guess I'll probably be switching to those when I setup 20.04. Hopefully the snap versions work as well as the non-snaps.
I think its interesting that they are pushing snaps so hard on this LTS release though. I always thought of the LTS versions as getting stuck with older versions and being very strict about updates not breaking things. I guess perhaps with the snap-sandboxing this should work smoother? Personally, as long as my system works I don't care. If the software gets updated, that's fine with me.
Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Updating everything has always been one click in Ubuntu (and I'm sure there's an option to have it go automatically). And what percentage of users do that? From your experience in software in general how much of the general population manually updates their software? It's almost always a low number and that creates problems. A different set of problems than new updates that cause bugs, but IMHO worse ones. > Maybe…
The auto update because users can't make the decision themselves is just copying windows 10 model. Do applications break after auto-updates? of course they do and that is something that is important to ubuntu users because they have to manually fix. Given the choice I would rather choose when to upgrade so I could set aside time for fixes. Ubuntu users are not windows 10 users. Why treat them in the same way?
Auto updates have existed long before Windows 10.
It's great that you are diligent about updating your software regularly. But how many people do? If you agree that it's a low percentage, then why is not better for the ecosystem as a whole to improve security and compatibility?