Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#81

Post by dancemethis » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

eberkund wrote: post #58

This appears to be an unpopular opinion, but I like snaps and Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. Snaps have been my preferred method of installation for a few years now. I really like how I know where the files are being installed to and if I uninstall the software it will be removed cleanly. I also like how for most software snaps contain…

I don't think I met a functional snap package so far. Granted, I only had the displeasure of dealing with two.

Docker was a complete mess, .net Core was complete hell trying to figure out paths. Certainly stuff not meant for the just-slightly-above dummy, and even less for the actual dummies.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#82

Post by fiddlerwoaroof » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

mrighele wrote: post #48

dima55 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use Debian. Ubuntu is quite literally Debian+bullshit.

My issue with Debian that I don't want a rolling release, and Debian Stable feels more like "Debian Obsolete" to me (at least it was years ago, maybe now it is different...)

Debian testing is basically my distro of choice: if sid is the rolling release, and stable is the LTS version, testing is roughly equivalent to non-LTS Ubuntu: the packages have been tested so you don’t usually get breakage, but they aren’t stale.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#83

Post by simosx » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

canada_dry wrote: post #55

Tip: if you're wondering what SNAP apps are already installed in your system: ls -l /var/lib/snapd/snaps

You can also

    snap list

or have a look into `/snap/`.

The directory `/var/lib/snapd/snaps/` shows the cached .snap packages, including the recent versions in case you want to revert to a previous version.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#84

Post by commoner » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #75

eberkund wrote: post #58

This appears to be an unpopular opinion, but I like snaps and Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. Snaps have been my preferred method of installation for a few years now. I really like how I know where the files are being installed to and if I uninstall the software it will be removed cleanly. I also like how for most software snaps contain…

I like the idea of Snap, but Flatpak seems to be a much better implementation.

Absolutely. The server-side implementation of Snap is closed source and the Snap Store is a single instance controlled solely by Canonical. Flatpak repositories are decentralized and can be hosted on private servers with flat-manager, which is FOSS:

https://github.com/flatpak/flat-manager

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#85

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:12 PM UTC

simosx wrote: post #45

Finnucane wrote: post #10

I've been using Mint now for several years and been satisfied with it. I was afraid that the Ubuntu's snap mishegas would force me to move elsewhere, but this is the message I was hoping to hear from the Mint team.

The Mint maintainer was really unprofessional in his announcement. It is OK to feel strongly about something, but using words like `backdoor` is really bad. With snap packages you get companies like Microsoft to deliver a native package for Skype, Jetbrain to deliver their whole developer portfolio, Spotify their music thing, etc. They can do so because they are basing the work in a common, stable runtime.

> It is OK to feel strongly about something, but using words like `backdoor` is really bad.

Okay, but... It is a backdoor. A user trying to install a deb get snap shoved down their throat.

> They can do so because they are basing the work in a common, stable runtime.

And none of that requires taking control from the user.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#86

Post by sakisv » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

simosx wrote: post #47

chintan wrote: post #34

Hundreds 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. [1]. htt…

You can control when to update, https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date

But that's just part of the problem though. I want to be able to rely on my system and not have a chance 4 times a day for random things to break (the default frequency based on your link).

The argument about "latest == safest" may have some validity when it comes to browsers, but for everything else a notification that there is a new version would be more than enough.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#87

Post by pkulak » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

Sevaris wrote: post #49

dathinab wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have linux experience Arch Linux can be a good idea. Sure the daunting setup process would fall into the "a hobby" category but once it runs it tends to just keep running as long as you update it from time to time. Using it now for ~5 Years and in that time I had two times problems one was that the new kernel version didn't work with my laptop and another which was fully my fault by doing some "special" boot s…

Ugh, no. Manjaro is the no-nonsense "I really don't want to waste time troubleshooting my own shit" version of Arch Linux. I stopped using Arch when I found Manjaro and I'm so glad I did. Arch just requires way too much fiddling for it to ever feel "complete" and or finished.

The cost of Arch over anything else is 100% in the installation. After that, it IS Manjaro except you are using the real thing, not a derivative. I've had to trouble shoot Arch far less than any other distro I've ever used.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#88

Post by simosx » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

L3viathan wrote: post #51

simosx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can I stop one snap from updating (for example indefinitely), while letting the rest update?

I could not find a key for that, that is, per-package keys.

A dirty workaround would be to get the `.snap` package from the store, then install directly from the local file.

       $ snap download hello-world
       Fetching snap "hello-world"
       Fetching assertions for "hello-world"
       Install the snap with:
          snap ack hello-world_29.assert
          snap install hello-world_29.snap
       $ snap install hello-world_29.snap --dangerous
       hello-world 6.4 installed
       $ hello-world
       Hello World!
       $

No updates.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#89

Post by troyvit » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

JaggedJax wrote: post #35

quasarj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

POP!_OS is a fork of Ubuntu though, right? In that case if I try to install chromium using apt-get will it install the snap or the .deb?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#90

Post by adambyrtek » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #54

adambyrtek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle, but it's worth pointing out that Snap is designed for end-user applications, so it's unlikely to be used on a server or in a Docker image built for deployment.

I agree in general, but my work involves website automaton, meaning the now empty chromium package. Plus I want my workstation to be as similar as possible to the deployment container to make debugging easier. So if I feel uncomfortable using Ubuntu 20 for my workstation, I should probably switch my deployment docker base image, too.

Makes sense, I personally don't mind snaps for proprietary applications (mostly Slack and Spotify) which are otherwise hard to discover and keep up to date on Linux, but I don't understand why Canonical would force this for Chromium which is already packaged and open source.