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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

#571

Post by diffeomorphism »

Firehawke wrote: post #385
littlestymaar wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debian used not to work easily on hardware that require proprietary drivers, did it change recently ? I left Ubuntu almost ten years ago, after 5 years of using it, when they started using MIR instead of Gnome2 and I replaced it with Linux Mint and I haven't looked back. This whole snap thing looks like the new weird decision made by Canonical to make their faithful users leave :/

If you have proprietary drivers, you'll need to prepare a USB stick with them downloaded onto it. They won't be on the installer image. On my older 2011-era laptop, that's the wifi and wired network that need those drivers. It's a bit of a pain.

> you'll need to prepare a USB stick with them downloaded onto it

Not really. Debian also offers one with all the firmware included but explicitly labels it "unofficial" (though very much official in practice and hosted on debian servers). The "pain" is thus literally to click on another download link.

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

#572

Post by Twirrim »

koheripbal wrote: post #287
nromiun wrote: post #285

> Snap applications auto-update and that’s fine if Ubuntu wants to keep systems secure. But it can’t even be turned off manually. OMG. Is this real? This is the exact reason I use Linux instead of Windows 10 or macOS. I am not a grandma who can't stay up to date on tech news. At the least there should be a toggle for power users. But no, you can only defer it. Am I the only one who doesn't like it when your already s…

...dumb question: Does this apply to Ubuntu Server as well??? Because if so, I'm sticking with 18.04.

Yup, snaps are littering Ubuntu Server 20.04. They're in 18.04 as well, for that matter. Maybe not quite as much, but they're there.

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

#573

Post by qilo »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #21
bluedino wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

OK, what issues does it cause? And are those issues outweighed by the security and standardization issues raised by non-updating software? I don't know who all remembers having to develop websites compatible with outdated versions of Internet Explorer but I do and still have nightmares about it.

Google has confirmed a Chrome update is at fault for a mysterious reported wave of unbootable Macs. The update was causing issues by corrupting an operating system folder, which prevented those impacted from being able to log in to macOS.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/09/26/goog...

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

#574

Post by diffeomorphism »

cortesoft wrote: post #72
kanox wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MITM should be completely illegal. Why does this even need to be stated?

Should you not be able to MITM your own machines?

Not if other people are using them.

There are different value tradeoffs in different countries. The US says it is okay to spy on employees for no reason at all as long as you use company equipment. The EU says that employees like every other human being have rights and you better have a good reason and do so in a respectful way and be clear about it.

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

#575

Post by diffeomorphism »

darren0 wrote: post #143
ohazi wrote: post #115

If you're looking for an alternative to Ubuntu but want to stick with a Debian-based distribution, I'll continue to recommend Debian testing. It's a rolling release, so you don't have to stop what you're doing every 6 months - 3 years to install a huge update that changes the way everything works. It's more stable than the name would suggest, as long as you follow a few reasonable best-practices [1]. Software availab…

I tried going this route and the desktop experience was rough. Debian doesn't seem to have reasonable defaults for fonts so I spent way too much time learning and configuring all the font systems. So literally just the font configuration was enough for me to switch back to Ubuntu and just only install the stuff I like (no snap, gnome).

How many years ago was this? Debian used to have different settings than ubuntu for legal reasons, but since a few years at least is idential.

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

#576

Post by chrisandchris »

searchableguy wrote: post #198
chrisandchris wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There‘s a simple reason: speed. Have you ever tried to use WSL 1 with npm? I doubt do, because it just takes 10 times more time than on „real“ linux. Also, it‘s way easier to work with multiple desktops and windows position better than on Windows where it seems that they are opening always there where you don‘t look. There are also quite a lot of others, IMHO.

I have. It wasn't called wsl but bash on windows back then. You had to disable bunch of services related to scanning files (windows defender?) to make it barely usable but since v2, they are using a lightweight vm so the speeds are significantly better compared to what you got on bash on windows or wsl 1. I don't have anything to say about your other nitpick. A good reason to use windows is games, Adobe and office. G…

I agree, gaming and Office are major bonuses for Windows.

And IMHO, the discussion about which OS one should use is probably older than any OS at all. It comes down to personal preferences and experiences. I would not for any longer time want to use only Windows for a couple of reasons. I use it for some office stuff (we have SharePoint and OneDrive for Businsess does not exist for Linux).

I did a quick search and here are two references about the WSL speed:

[1] https://vxlabs.com/2019/12/06/wsl2-io-measurements/ [2] https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197

It seems that they already improved a lot bur are still nowhere near native FS speed because of some technical limiations on how to embed the FS.

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

#577

Post by viraptor »

foobarian wrote: post #548
nromiun wrote: post #285

> Snap applications auto-update and that’s fine if Ubuntu wants to keep systems secure. But it can’t even be turned off manually. OMG. Is this real? This is the exact reason I use Linux instead of Windows 10 or macOS. I am not a grandma who can't stay up to date on tech news. At the least there should be a toggle for power users. But no, you can only defer it. Am I the only one who doesn't like it when your already s…

I just upgraded to 20.04, and minutes later my machine is on its knees OOMing and unable to process remote connections. Apparently there is now yet another new file system indexer to play whack-a-mole with like updatedb in the old days except this one is hooked into systemd and harder to stop. Search for "tracker-extract disable" if you want the full details.

What do you mean by "hooked into systemd"? It seems completely standalone. Do you mean it's activating when new devices are plugged in?

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

#578

Post by iknowstuff »

Ok, a central store is a problem, but I don't get hn's bitterness about autoupdates.

I don't mind autoupdates of apps, especially sandboxed ones like Snaps, and especially when they can be rolled back if issues arise. Snaps do, in fact, allow for easy reverting to a previously used revision:

    $ sudo snap revert vlc
    vlc reverted to 3.0.5-1
It will even remain on the reverted version without updating until another version is published.

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

#580

Post by pnako »

Jedd wrote: post #562
pnako wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally it's not the drivers but the firmware for those devices, i.e. code that runs inside the device. I think it's an over-zealous position from Debian not to redistribute firmware. Even systems that are very strict about licensing, like OpenBSD, redistribute firmware, because they have some common sense.

> I think it's an over-zealous position from Debian not to redistribute firmware. Even systems that are very strict about licensing, like OpenBSD, redistribute firmware, because they have some common sense. OTOH I believe it's a position fully aligned with their ethical standpoint. Equating common sense with your personal preference isn't very gracious. If you want something that's less zealous about respecting (and…

I don't see how it aligns with their ethical standpoint. Firmware is just a blob you load into the device. The alternative is to have it already burned into ROM.

What exactly do you achieve by refusing to load it? Are you more free in one case and not the other?

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