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Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

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Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#201

Post by autocorr »

Darmody wrote: 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…

I started using Ubuntu in 2006 and really appreciated the ideals of "Linux for Human Beings" and accessibility (I get a bit nostalgic at that drum sound lol). Over the last several years though I have been migrating my systems to Debian. I like the greater commitment to free software and, nowadays at least, it's just as easy to install. A lot of knowledge carries over too, not surprisingly, and you can get away with most of the same troubleshooting solutions. I'd really recommend giving it a shot!

The process for installing proprietary drivers like NVIDIA is the same for both. I just added an extra buster-backports channel then apt installed it. I chose KDE[1] as the default desktop at install time and I was off to the races for my workstation. It was also easy to install Debian on my Dell laptop too, I just had to use the special firmware-ISO to have the Intel WiFi driver built into the image.

All of that's to say: one of the reasons to use Ubuntu for a while has been that they made installing proprietary drivers easy, and that could be a serious pain-point worth alleviating. But now it's just as easy on other distros too, perhaps due to the relevant drivers being better packaged/supported for Linux by hardware companies.

[1] I was also really surprised how nice and smooth the latest KDE experience is after being on tiling window manager setups for years. It's fast, looks good, can configure absolutely everything, which I like, and it is really complete in terms of application coverage.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#202

Post by kjs3 »

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.

"I'm the HN shill for snap, posting dozens of times about how awesome snap is in a single thread, and since the Mint maintainer doesn't think snap is as awesome as I do, I'll call him unprofessional". FTFY.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#203

Post by andai »

voqv wrote: post #184
hak8or wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples of such packages that were missing? I've been using arch for maybe five years at this point and am an embedded developer. I had maybe oneor two times that I had to install something that was not in the aur.

For me, that was ROS (in Robotics). Some people I worked with had issues with Anaconda. I miss Arch though, I learned a lot about Linux through it, but every hour spent fixing something is an hour less spent on actual work.

What do you use now?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#204

Post by beefbroccoli »

henriquez wrote: post #3

I dumped Ubuntu over Snap. Maybe I’m just ignorant but it seems like allowing developers to push software updates without any review invites the same sorts of issues we’ve seen on npm, with very high risks for certain use cases. I don’t want that kind of relationship with my OS, forced updates are why I ditched Windows in the first place. Aside from the philosophical concerns I ran into a lot of glitches with various…

haven't had that issue for years with npm/yarn, thanks to lockfiles.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#205

Post by vermilingua »

Sevaris wrote: post #142
nsajko wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why in the fuck is dialog an optional dependency? Not all people who use netctl want wifi-menu. > it isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation It sure is. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_configuration -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netctl And there on the top of the netctl page it lists in a table dialog as a dependency of wifi-men…

Please tell me you're fucking joking. You can't be serious. This ties into one of my other comments about how god awful the documentation is for beginners (or even intermediates) after scrapping the beginner's guide. > Maybe, but not all people have the same opinions... Yes. And that's fucking fine. Arch Linux isn't opinionated. Which is great, but not what I (or others) might be looking for in a distro.

On the other hand, it’s the RTFM approach of Arch documentation that forced me and others I know to actually learn Linux, and step up from beginner use to power user status.

Sure, if you want to remain a Linux beginner forever, the Arch docs would be terrible.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#206

Post by [deleted] »

dathinab wrote: post #157
Sevaris wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, upstream packages aren't changed by Arch maintainers. It's the whole point of using Arch. And if you're using AUR, you'd better be checking the PKGBUILD (because no, it isn't verified by anybody). At the very least, you need to be checking where the package is being downloaded from.

The PKGBUILD of packages in the official repository can be changed, which people theoretically could use to inject malware. That's what I meant.

[deleted]

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#207

Post by Finnucane »

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.

They could also do that with flatpak or appimage.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#208

Post by rumanator »

hvis wrote: post #148
Darmody wrote: 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…

> How can "sudo apt install chromium-browser" not install the apt package but install instead a snap? Simple: they decided that maintaining the chromium .deb takes too much effort, and that snap is making that easier. So they moved it to Snap. But there are many users out there with existing installations who have selected chromium as one of their installed packages. And so as not to keep said users without updates,…

> Simple: they decided that maintaining the chromium .deb takes too much effort, and that snap is making that easier. So they moves it to Snap.

Their whole distribution is copied from Debian. Is it too much effort to just copy and distribute the upstream package, like they have been doing from the very start?

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#209

Post by rumanator »

jimhefferon wrote: post #15
Darmody wrote: 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…

What distro? I use Ubuntu because I just want an OS, not a hobby.

> What distro? I use Ubuntu because I just want an OS, not a hobby.

That's very ironic, because I've found that Ubuntu's shenanigans always end up requiring more time and effort from the user than, say, install Debian and just get on with your life.

Re: Linux Mint Dumps Ubuntu Snap

#210

Post by detaro »

rlpb wrote: post #181
amaccuish wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like snaps too but snap has a habit of killing my open apps when it wants to update, rather than waiting. Especially Telegram. Also Telegram was really buggy a few versions back and it took several releases for notifications to start working again. It would have been nice if I could roll back and pin while they went through the first few 2.0 releases.

This is a bug that is being worked on: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1616650

Opened 2016. Ouch.
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