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Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

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Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#161
post #138

It's interesting how many distros built on top of Ubuntu are explicitly dropping snaps or throwing their support behind flatpaks: - Linux Mint - ElementaryOS - Pop!_OS Take a hint, Canonical. You guys made some great strides towards being less silo'd by dropping Unity and Mir in favor of vanilla GNOME + Wayland, but you're still all-in on snaps for some reason. Are the handful of proprietary software companies that w…

This polemic attitude is really bad for open-source. Snap packages are good, and such efforts may help get the Linux desktop rise over the 3%. Lenovo announced they are fully supporting Ubuntu desktop for two lines of computers.

Okay...so? Lenovo also announced they're going to certify some laptops for Fedora as well:

https://fedoramagazine.org/coming-soon-fedora-on-lenovo-lapt...

If you're suggesting that we all need to rally behind everything Canonical does because Ubuntu has the best shot of propelling Linux into the mainstream, I would say that's all the more reason to hold them accountable for decisions that the Linux community finds unpopular. Many don't like snaps. Don't force snaps on us through duplicitous means like the chromium installer. Why is that bad for open source?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#162

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.

Have a look at LXD. It creates system containers that are based on runtimes of most Linux distributions. You can stick to specific versions and are certain that those do not change.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#163
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the perception (maybe just uneducated guess) that Debian is strictly worse than, say, Arch for personal use. One has to deal with constantly outdated packages, but also with required breaking changes in case of an upgrade from one version to another. EDIT: I was mostly wrong about the "breaking changes", but this seems like a breaking change: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/c... Anyw…

What I really want is a really stable base OS that's managed totally separately from the individual packages I install. It's the experience one gets with MacOS + Homebrew and it's way better than an "... and the kitchen sink" distro that manages your kernel and basic interface-providing software with the same tool & process that installs and updates Super Tux. (yes I know there are ways to use another package manager…

The BSDs have that philosophy AFAIK.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#164
post #108
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have the perception (maybe just uneducated guess) that Debian is strictly worse than, say, Arch for personal use. One has to deal with constantly outdated packages, but also with required breaking changes in case of an upgrade from one version to another. EDIT: I was mostly wrong about the "breaking changes", but this seems like a breaking change: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/c... Anyw…

On sid, I've never had any such issue. I get pretty updated packages and haven't experienced any serious breaking changes, but I also don't do anything that's particularly sensitive or touchy to updates.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#165
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

snapd is a service, therefore it requires an init system.

So? systemd isn't the only daemon-manager.

Is the question whether snapd require an init, or whether snapd should be packaged to work with more init systems?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#166
post #96

Snap 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.

Firefox does that in debian stable. but it's supposed to restore your tabs like they were

Since when?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#167
Pop OS [1] does something similar. Based on Ubuntu, but replaces snap with flatpak. You can apt-get packages like chromium from their PPA [2].

I'm very pleased with their developer centric approach. They also apply very nice UI tweaks, a tiling WM and a useful set of gnome extensions. Loving it.

[1] https://pop.system76.com/

[2] https://launchpad.net/~system76/+archive/ubuntu/pop/

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#168

Snap 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.

It doesn't auto-restore my session either, but I can usually (always?) get it back using the "Restore previous session" item from the menu. (Also, like the siblings say, that's not a snap thing. If I understand it right, snap might just auto-restart without the courtesy "I can't open a new tab" message.)

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#169
post #96

Snap 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.

Firefox does that in debian stable. but it's supposed to restore your tabs like they were

That should only happen if you update from underneath it by doing an upgrade though, which is entirely at your discretion with apt. The snap equivalent is obligatory.

That said, the update auto-restore almost always works in my experience. I've been running the nightly channel for a while (which updates once or twice a day) and it rarely eats tabs.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#170
post #9

I can understand Canonical pushing for snaps. It's their product and they want it to succeed. That said I hate their dirty ways. I find it even morally wrong. How can "sudo apt install chromium-browser" not install the apt package but install instead a snap? How I, as a user and also as a professional, trust Ubuntu if when I use their package manager I'm being tricked? I don't use Windows for a reason, more than one…

Why does it matter that it's a snap? Does the program work?

The really annoying thing about snaps is that they pollute the mountpoints on the system. I’ve had as many as 100 mounts on a box after installing just a few snaps, which is super annoying if you ever want to try to get an idea of disk usage. God forbid you want to figure out what lvm volume can get shrinked.

There’s also not as much screening before an update is allowed, as there would be for the default Ubuntu repos (considering that 1-2 years into a LTS release you’re probably bringing in dependencies from PPAs anyway, I don’t know if this matters much).

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