Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#41

Post by commoner » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

There is no downside to Flatpak's support for multiple repositories and ability to self-host repositories. GNOME Software and KDE Discover both set Flathub as the default repository, which serves as the primary software source, and users can optionally add more repositories if they choose to do so. Users who don't want additional repositories can simply stay with Flathub without having to do anything.

The Snap server's closed-source nature is not a benefit to users, and there is no excuse that can justify this from the users' perspective.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#42

Post by ufo » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

I'm curious... what is that Java PPA that you are talking about? I tried searching for it but I couldn't find anywhere that had a list of the most downloaded PPAs.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#43

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #20

ncr100 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no way to sandbox these packages - "have you cake and eat it too?" I'm a noob to modern Linux. Edit: Are snaps images? ...like containers? Edit 2: answer: > mounted dynamically by the host operating system, together with declarative metadata that is interpreted by the snap system to set up an appropriately shaped secure sandbox or container for that application

The main (and better supported) competitor is Flatpak, which at least doesn't have the terrible marketing.

Depending on the qualities your after, AppImage is also really great. Advantages over Flatpak are that they are completely portable (you can store them anywhere and run them from anywhere), and they don't require a special runtime or package management infrastructure of any kind.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#44

Post by kd913 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #42

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

I'm curious... what is that Java PPA that you are talking about? I tried searching for it but I couldn't find anywhere that had a list of the most downloaded PPAs.

This is the PPA. https://launchpad.net/%7Ewebupd8team/+archive/ubuntu/java

For years it has been recommended as the mechanism for installing Java on Ubuntu installs.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#45

Post by berkes » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #24

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

> The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. I just think it's weird that a supposedly open source company like Canonical would build close source infrastructure. Like, just develop it in the open to begin with?

Better even: design it to be self-hostable from scratch. Edit: by making it a self-contained executable, a .deb or even a set of ansible scripts.

I understand that some complex interconnected ball-of-spaghetti of microservices makes little sense to open-source, b/c no-one can run it.

But that is essentially saying: we never wanted people to run it themselves, and now we are at a point that no-one can run it, so why bother?

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#46

Post by jefft255 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

bhhaskin wrote: post #29

jefft255 wrote: post #23

I wonder if it is finally time for me to give Arch a try. It's a shame that all my lab's machines run Ubuntu; although I find it solid, this sort of controlling behavior by Canonical seems against the spirit of FOSS.

I am honestly thinking the same thing. Still a bit hesitant as I mainly use Linux for work.

Same for me. ROS in particular only supports Ubuntu officially; although I know people can run it on Arch, it’s much more hacky and you have to build every package from source.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#47

Post by Shared404 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #28

aphexairlines wrote: post #10

This seems like a problem: > Snap packages are effectively black-boxes; they cannot be reproduced independently as the packaging data is controlled by the package maker alone. One of the nice properties of debian packages is the ability to `apt-get source` and build it locally. Would be a shame to lose that. Maybe Nix and Guix can provide the best of both worlds here: self-contained software but reproducible builds t…

Any distro where you have to write a little haskell-ish 30 line script to set up an environment just to be able to start compiling (or even running!) things is not going to be widely popular for desktop use.

Indeed. I am however curious to see if there will be a Nix made easy type distro, similar to Ubuntu's relation to Debian.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#48

Post by curt15 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

kd913 wrote: post #12

The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Canonical already spent a large amount of investment opensourcing launchpad and nobody other than them operate it. Mainly because the majority of the costs are for operating an instance which most other distros aren't willing to…

>The reason for why the backend for the snap store hasn't been opensourced has been explained multiple times. Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return.

Perhaps a business reason left unsaid is that an open source snap store would undermine Canonical's paid "enterprise edition" snap store. Why would an organization pay $30000 (https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things) for a private app store if they could easily set up their own snap store?

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#49

Post by Shared404 » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

fractal618 wrote: post #14

I'm hoping they will switch their base to Clear Linux. I have been using Clear Linux on my personal laptop, and it's been a fantastic experience so far.

Why would they switch to Clear Linux? They already have a Debian edition for those who don't want an Ubuntu base.

I personally don't see the issue with using Ubuntu as a base, _if_ you remove all of the offensive bits. iirc one of the Pop!_OS dev's was asked if they were going to rebase on Debian. The response was something akin to "We already change everything on the end user facing side, so there's not really a need."

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#50

Post by craftinator » Wed, Jul 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

psanford wrote: post #7

From the linked announcement: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3906 > Applications in this store cannot be patched, or pinned. You can’t audit them, hold them, modify them or even point snap to a different store. You’ve as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it…

All that, and it takes Ubuntu's default calculator program 4 full wall clock seconds to open on my laptop. Nothing grows in this desert.