Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

lwn.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 538 posts

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#331

Post by fractal618 »

pjfin123 wrote: post #84

If desktop Linux is ever going to be mainstream there needs to be an easy to use "app store" where users can use a GUI to install apps which need to be sandboxed like on a mobile phone with defined permissions. Snapcraft is way ahead of Flatpak on this and the current Ubuntu setup works well. On Ubuntu you can go to the Ubuntu software app (gui) search for software and it blends apt results with snap results. This re…

Or a kick ass software manager that automagically integrates with flatpak, snap craft, and all the others. Maybe even Steam.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#332

Post by galgalesh »

chimen wrote: post #133

The fact that you have to post on a forum and argue with people why you need permission X for your snap package was enough for me to abort publishing on this platform. I should ask permissions from the users not from the platform publishers on a forum post.

> The fact that you have to post on a forum and argue with people why you need permission X for your snap package was enough for me to abort publishing on this platform. I should ask permissions from the users not from the platform publishers on a forum post.

The only reason to go on that forum is to ask for automatic permissions. If you do not do that, then it's your users who have to give you that permission.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#333

Post by gitgud »

Snap isn't too bad, at least Ubuntu are trying to make it easier for new software to run on older machines... they might even swap it out if they get enough backlash

I've used Ubuntu since 2014 and have been impressed at most of the decisions they've made, mainly:

- [1] Sticking to 6 month release cycles. Any features not ready, go into the next release. (Windows copied this, but constantly miss release dates)

- [2] Trying Unification of all applications, across desktop and mobile OS. But abandoning the project when it became clear it wasn't working.

- [3] Trying their own desktop manager Unity, then abandoning it when everyone was complaining and focusing on better Gnome integration.

I especially like how they try developing a technology and if it's not working or being adopted/liked, then it's abandoned by the core team... which is better than focusing on hated/dead technology...

[1] https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39490848

[3] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/05/ubunt...

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#334

Post by Barrin92 »

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…

>People run linux because they want visibility and control into what is happening on their systems. Canonical seems to want to take away that visibility and control from their users.

tbh I just run linux because I want a good dev machine and I personally don't care if canonical abstracts updating software away, as far as I'm concerned they can keep everything up to date and do their thing, for me that's a plus for snaps, I generally find them pleasant to use.

In my experience people on HN in particular tend to vastly overestimate how much people value control vs features/abstracting routine tasks away.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#335

Post by arminiusreturns »

still_grokking wrote: post #138
lawl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but from the User perspective it seems like FlatPaks[1] are much better and address the issues that this article raises This is interesting, because the last few days I was actually working on packaging an application of mine as a snap/flatpak. From my PoV, they both have their fair share of issues. Snaps enforce a sandbox, which I think is actually a good idea, because the desktop security model is somewhat broken…

As a user I don't like neither Snaps (that for sure as this is Cannonical only) nor FlatPaks (as they seem conceptually a "80% solution" which combines the problems of package systems with the problems of self-contianed apps, but don't improve on anything). For me the only acceptable solution besides proper .debs are AppImages. AppImage doesn't try to "replace" the package management for desktop apps like the former…

AppImages are the only thing I run also, as a full time linux user and admin. I just hate the proliferation of questionable services, especially in systemd land. A lot of my focus is on minimization of stack, and snap and flatpak just don't stand up to scrutiny imho.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#336

Post by philliphaydon »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #73

It's interesting in that I quite like the idea of snap packages, just not their implementation. I recently purged snaps from my Ubuntu Mate machines after a few years of use because of the realization of only using two: 1. The micro terminal editor. 2. Chromium, because it was forced. Well, #1 was packaged for 20.04 so I didn't need it any longer. That left Chromium. For that single package, I had to tolerate my syst…

Just install chrome without snaps?!? Works fine?!?

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#337

Post by coronadisaster »

emerongi wrote: post #220

Snaps are super laggy. GNOME calculator on Ubuntu runs in a snap and it is baffling that whoever made the decision to package it in a snap by default was OK with the fact that it takes 2 seconds to launch a basic calculator on a 2017 laptop (edit: re-tested, it took 5 seconds). To top it off, a couple months ago my calculator disappeared. For some reason I have been having problems with snap applications disappearing…

not sure if it is only snaps... my galculator takes a couple seconds to open and it isn't a snap... maybe gnome is the issue

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#338

Post by galgalesh »

d1plo1d wrote: post #132
lawl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but from the User perspective it seems like FlatPaks[1] are much better and address the issues that this article raises This is interesting, because the last few days I was actually working on packaging an application of mine as a snap/flatpak. From my PoV, they both have their fair share of issues. Snaps enforce a sandbox, which I think is actually a good idea, because the desktop security model is somewhat broken…

I'm in a similar boat with regards to launching a new, unknown product in the snap store. As an interim solution I'm planning to ask users to do use the beta flag: `snap install my-app --beta` which gets me around the secure sandbox requirements.

Did you mean devmode instead of beta?

Just wanted to easy one worry of you: the age, popularity and maturity of your application has no influence on whether or not these permission requests are granted. The approval process is formally defined and mostly depends on what your application does exactly.

You can find the specific processes in the docs at the bottom of this page: https://snapcraft.io/docs/permission-requests

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#339

Post by personalcompute »

_y5hn wrote: post #229
danudey wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an IT perspective: I can set up an internal APT mirror for my users, servers, test systems, etc., but I can't set up an internal snap mirror as far as I can tell. This means that despite having an internal repo that I can whitelist, some package installations will now arbitrarily require internet access. I can no longer install chromium on a system without access to the internet, and package installation will fa…

Snap can't seem to access my mounts. They're not very special mounts, but it happens in linux that you mount something, but snap just won't access. That made "no-go" a no-brainer.

I have the same problem. Snaps are confined to only files within $HOME. I keep almost all data under /media/ and this caused snaps to be mostly unusable for me, at least unusable for productivity apps where I need to process data. Some apps though are self contained, e.g. Spotify, for example, works fine for me as a snap.

The limitation stems from a design problem, details at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1643706.

Re: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

#340

Post by ReallyOldLurker »

petre wrote: post #188
still_grokking wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy. It should be officially in Debian. ;-) Stuff like AppImage, static binaries, Docker & Co are for me at least a kind of "last resort". Even I'm using Docker a lot[1] to try things out I first look for an AppImage in those cases. But when I decide that some app should become part of my system I will look for a proper package. One source to rule them all… [1] Docker is a big problem on it's own. But as I ca…

Debian has a lot of rules, some of which prevent statically linked binaries, like Go programs, from being packaged and shipped with it. A notable example is lxd. Appimages are great but there's no sandboxing or updates. But hey, we used to downlad debs and install them by hand on Debian 1.3, before apt was a thing. Maybe appimages could be signed and distributed in a similar fashion.

"Appimages are great but there's no sandboxing or updates"

Actually there is sandboxing and updates, if you want to take an extra steps.

I prefer AppImages over Flatpack and Snaps for essentially the same reasons commented above.

I typically launch them with Firejail for the sandboxing. i.e. "firejail --appimage /path/to/appimage" instead of just the appimage alone. Seems to work just fine. Firejail has additional options that can be done.

Some AppImage creators do provide an update method that can be installed using zsync2, but I've not tried it since the whole point is disposability.

Post reply on HN