I immediately thought of Linux Mint Debian Edition when I saw this. They describe it as something they are developing just in case, you know, "Ubuntu was ever to disappear." Well, excepting for some kind of Microsoft acquisition of Canonical ("we will be shifting our focus to developing Ubuntu for WSL"), I don't think Ubuntu will disappear, but it certainly might become so unfriendly to downstream distros that they have to move off of it.
Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
51–60 of 538 posts
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#52I'm unclear why ubuntu needs the chromium package in apt. Seems like they should just stop publishing apt packages for chromium, only publish in snap, and steer users into using snap for installs and not apt. Seems less confusing and wins or loses on its merit.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Namely that it would be expensive to open source it with little benefit in return. Would you describe exactly what will be expensive in releasing the source code to software that was developed in house? Does it have lots of dependencies on proprietary software? If so, why? > Namely they want one location to find software, and one location to serve software. And this, is the killer. This is exactly what the people a…
>Would you describe exactly what will be expensive in releasing the source code to software that was developed in house? Does it have lots of dependencies on proprietary software? If so, why? Im not too sure as I don't work for Canonical. However, from an external perspective having worked with bzr and launchpad, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bunch of aspects there that would make opensourcing a nightmare. Th…
> However, from an external perspective having worked with bzr and launchpad, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bunch of aspects there that would make opensourcing a nightmare.
If Canonical, as a Linux company, is not willing to spend the effort to open source their software, then Snap can continue to be rejected by Linux distributions. Canonical's most obvious reason for keeping the Snap server closed source is to lock its users into a proprietary and centralized system that it has full control over. This strategy is no different from Apple disallowing installations outside of the App Store on iOS, and Google disallowing alternative app stores in Google Play.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#54I've been kind of disappointed by Snap. It seemed like it was a way to always have the latest version of software you care about available, but in practice, nobody updates their Snaps. I used it to get a newer version of Go, and while it is more recent than what comes with Ubuntu, it's still not the latest version. Apparently Some Guy updates it on a volunteer basis when he remembers, so it's nearly useless. Even if…
The Go snap looks up to date to me?
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#55From 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…
But Mint are too lazy to build their own packages so they use Ubuntu binaries that are installed as root, this is IMO a PR move and a hypocrisy, if you don't trust Canonical don't use Mint use Debian or some distribution that has the capacity to host and build their binaries.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#56Snap sounds to me like the latest of many decisions by Canonical that are more like what you'd expect from a commercial vendor than a FOSS one. This is Microsoft-level coercing people into your own ecosystem.
I don't doubt for a moment that it makes business sense for Canonical, but I really wonder whether there's a market for this - the huge majority of people who don't care about this kind of thing are on Windows or Mac, or even just working happily away on their phones and tablets.
Linux' selling point for me was always that I was in control and could make the system work the way I wanted to; people more ideologically pure than me have slogans like "free as in freedom" or "binary blobs are bad".
I really don't see the market for "linux, but with commercial vendor practices". I switched from ubuntu to mint a while ago and I'm really happy about that right now.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#57I'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.
What's been fantastic about it? I'm genuinely interested. My only real familiarity with Clear is that I see it dominating those Phoronix benchmarks, but I didn't know it was a complete end-user distro.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#58I 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.
If the goal is to acquire and update to latest versions of your favorite software, I would definitely recommend you to check out nix package manager.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#59I've been kind of disappointed by Snap. It seemed like it was a way to always have the latest version of software you care about available, but in practice, nobody updates their Snaps. I used it to get a newer version of Go, and while it is more recent than what comes with Ubuntu, it's still not the latest version. Apparently Some Guy updates it on a volunteer basis when he remembers, so it's nearly useless. Even if…
> Some Guy updates it on a volunteer basis when he remembers
Blame repo culture. In saner worlds there is no requirement for a middle man between developer and user, so users get the software when the developer releases it to them. For various reasons (only a few of which are technical), Linux has settled on this middelmen-everywhere way of doing things, and because it is FOSS all those middlemen are also volunteers, and then to top it all off there are dozens of repos and packaging formats.
AppImage (and its predecessors) have been valiantly struggling to undo this cultural brain damage.
Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages
#60Earlier 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
If you need this kind of packaging but want to retain freedom, just use an alternative solution like flatpak, which sandboxes from the get-go and lets you control what parts of your system the application can access
> just use an alternative solution like flatpak
Saying "just use an alternative" seems overly dismissive of the complications that entails.
IIUC, the only options for that are (a) abandon Ubuntu, or (b) actively circumvent Ubuntu's software distribution infrastructure, reminiscent of dealing with Windows 10 forced updates.
IMHO this somewhat erodes Ubuntu's value proposition.