Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is currently super popular for servers. Any thoughts on whether 20.04 is a worthy upgrade for servers, or just a pain? Snaps in particular sound good for desktops but not servers.
Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
31–40 of 297 posts
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#32The main reason why I use Linux for some of my work is reproducibility. A docker image with the same apt packages installed in it will work the same every time. Snap breaks this. A snap package can update itself whenever it wants and then you the user are just screwed when things don't work together anymore. So in effect, snap breaks the main benefit of Linux for deployment and the reason why I use Linux in the first…
There are keys to control when these snap updates will happen,
https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date
It is immutable systems that help you with reproducibility.
There is no actual change between the snapd setup in Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04. Where do you get info on unreliable docker deployments?
It looks to me that the dislike is emotional in nature.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#33Snap for me means Firefox suddenly says “I won’t open a new tab until you update me and I will drop all tabs on restart”. It also means cached content and configs in many new obscure places. It doesn’t mean any visible improvement so far. So hey, kudos Mint and hey, Ubuntu stop that already.
There is a snap package for Firefox, but in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Firefox comes from the Deb package.
Did you switch to the snap package yourself?
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#34Hundreds of organizations, including ours, rely on Rocket.Chat for their internal messaging. It all went down when a release was pushed and snap decided to auto-update [1] I can imagine it resulted in a huge loss of productivity at all these orgs in the Covid era.
Just learnt from this thread that apt-install will install snap! I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 + i3 (Dell Developer Edition) but will change to Debian.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
What distro? I use Ubuntu because I just want an OS, not a hobby.
I'm not OP, but I tried Pop!_OS recently, and was quite pleased. It's basically just Ubuntu without the bad parts.
The latest POP!_OS release integrated Flatpak instead of Snap into their package manager. It's very well done in that you can choose if you want the deb or the flatpak version and it defaults to the deb as long as one is available.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#36We've only had problems with snap so far, constantly. Kudos to Mint for doing the right thing for their users.
What problems did you have?
The dislike on snap packages looks to be too emotional.
It resembles the issue with people feeling that 5G affects their health. Obviously, it does not. But the belief is so intense that they get actual observable symptoms.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#37I noticed that Mint is working on LMDE which uses Debian as its base directly without using Ubuntu; I wonder if this is one of the reasons motivating that project and what the other reasons are.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#38snap has problems that exist for years. It will upgrade a running application without telling the user. Then it will remount all folders in use by the running application in read only mode. As such, your chromium will start misbehaving, crashing, extensions will start failing, it won't save cookies or remember tabs after restart. DBeaver won't be saving your .sql scripts. Snap developers think users are precogs. That…
Snap support is evolving.
There are keys to configure when, and if, you get updates, https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date
The total Linux desktop installation base is around 2.7%. Without automation, the Linux desktop does not look like it will attract any significant number of Windows users.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#39While I understand the concerns over Snap, you can't blame Canonical for trying, because lets be honest, rpm/deb packages are a mess.
I see in the comments a complaint that you don't want the developers upgrading their apps whenever they want ... really? Because that's my number one complaint for debs/rpms too. You can't install specific versions, you can't install multiple versions side by side and installing a newer version of one package can break your system due to its dependencies. Snaps can't possibly be worse than this and they aren't.
And on the server-side I understand wanting to review each updated package, but on your laptop, how often does one do that anyway?
For the general population automatic upgrades are a net win. The same moaning happened when Firefox switched, following Chrome, to automatic updates and fast releases and people now love that, including me. You trusted the app developers as soon as you installed that app on your computer with full privileges. And most apps don't have reproducible builds, even if the app is open source, trusting the binary you're installing is also a leap of faith. Unless the OS can sandbox that app, installing any app is about trust in a brand and faith. And debs aren't sandboxed.
When I switched to MacOS, 6 years ago, I missed Ubuntu's repository, I hated Homebrew, I hated installing apps by copying them from volumes mounted from .dmg files. But not anymore. I rarely have issues now. Experience could be improved of course, I sometimes want versioning, I want reproducible environments, which is why I'm experimenting with Nix (see https://nixos.org/). The first thing I did on a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 LTS box, couple of months back? I searched for "Firefox Developer Edition" and failed to find a PPA for it or a beta channel that seems to be up to date.
Speaking of which, people complain about Snap being insecure, however I've never seen an Ubuntu/Debian workstation that doesn't make use of insecure PPAs.
Also packaging apps via DEB files is hard. I tried building DEBs for my server-side apps, but unless the process is automated via tools that are not language/platform agnostic, I found it hard, with documentation severely lacking.
---
This is one big reason for why Docker is now the preferred distribution mechanism for self-hosted apps on Linux servers. It's very easy to create a Dockerfile and the result won't infect your system with crap.
I have yet to try out Snaps, maybe some of the critiques are warranted, but it can't possibly be worse than the status quo. The only problem, a major one, is that yet again we've got no agreement between vendors. But that's sadly the Linux ecosystem, a genuine Tower of Babel.
Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
What distro? I use Ubuntu because I just want an OS, not a hobby.
Just use Debian. Ubuntu is quite literally Debian+bullshit.
Seconding the recommendation for Debian. I switched from Ubuntu Mate to Debian (buster) and the experience is quite smooth; most everything works the same, which is no surprise.