Why is there only one Snap Store? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#51

Post by simion314 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #50

simion314 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a competent patch submitted about keys and was this discussed in public? I imagine you can't just drop the keys in a random text file, it must be protected like the passwords file.

They're public keys so they can be in plaintext and protected by 0644. They don't really have to be different from apt keys.

You still need to protect from getting updated by errors or malicious code. For apt you have utilities to edit the keys you don't edit a test file by hand.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#52

Post by CameronNemo » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #35

geofft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LXC/LXD folks at Canonical are doing great work with adding kernel features for namespaces etc. I think the "problem" is that Canonical has figured out - correctly - that all their worthwhile stuff needs to be done upstream of Ubuntu. Even their packagers know to try to get things in Debian first and to reduce diffs when they can. Unfortunately, that means that the unique Ubuntu secret sauce is all the weird stuf…

I got so excited about LXD ... until I found out it requires snap. My first "cup of ubuntu" was well over 10 years ago now and I've always wanted to see it succeed. It's repeated squandering of so much potential. Edit: I was referring to LXD usage on Ubuntu-20.04 and versions going forward (I should have made that clear in the post). Sure, snap isn't technically required since you can "change distros" or "compile it…

The following distros package LXD:

* Void Linux

* Alpine Linux

* Arch Linux

* NixOS

* openSUSE

* Gentoo

There could be more. None of those distributors are using Snaps for LXD.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#53

Post by spanhandler » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

AsyncAwait wrote: post #40

katbyte wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno exactly but my coming back to Debian for a server recently the apt experience hasn’t been as nice as brew in terms of discovery and use

I am personally a fan of more lean solutions than apt, but there are several on Linux, like pacman (Arch), apk, (Alpine), Portage etc. Search: pacman -Ss Install: pacman -S Remove: pacman -R Pacman is not tied specifically to Arch either.

Oddly enough, my favorite package management experiences, by far, have been Homebrew on Mac and Portage on Gentoo. Talk about polar opposites.

I do think, unfortunately, that the experience of a very stable base of macOS with Homebrew on top would be nearly impossible to replicate on desktop Linux, because Linux's GUI layer is so intertwined with user software, and is so... uh, "free and libre", I guess, is a nice way to put it. You'd end up with a bunch of copies of KDE and Gnome libs and probably multiple competing IPC buses or god knows what, in no time. Maybe multiple sound daemons stepping on each other. You'd probably have issues like different apps deciding to do scaling or font rendering differently, or who knows what, because lots of "basic features" on macOS are instead choices on Linux.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#54

Post by abrowne » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #30

acoard wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you list some examples? The more the better. Much appreciated.

Red Hat: Hires Alex to work on Flatpak. Loved by Community, almost a dozen distros supporting Flatpak as a next-gen package format by default. Snap: Loved only by Canonical devotees. Zero distros supporting Snap exclusively by default. Red Hat: SystemD Canonical: Upstart, dead to SystemD. Red Hat & Others: Wayland Canonical: Mir. Dead to Wayland. Red Hat & Others: GNOME 3 Canonical: Unity1-7. Dead to GNOME.

Red Hat did use upstart before adopting systemd FWIW.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#55

Post by boogies » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

kelvie wrote: post #37

AsyncAwait wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so impressive about Homebrew specifically?

Also curious. I'm waiting, or even begging for something like flatpak on mac os just due to the number of times pip/npm/python in general has broken due to homebrew.

What's wrong with elementary OS? (pls don't kill me HN — Edit: yup, downvoted for a simple question)

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#56

Post by boogies » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

EE84M3i wrote: post #47

aiphieng wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"many packages" as in "less than 10 out of 10s of thousands".

notably, I thought ripgrep became a snap?

doesn't look like it: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep#installation

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#57

Post by Animats » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

Control.

1. Get market share with free product.

2. Start charging once monopoly is achieved.

3. Profit!

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#58

Post by renewiltord » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #51

renewiltord wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're public keys so they can be in plaintext and protected by 0644. They don't really have to be different from apt keys.

You still need to protect from getting updated by errors or malicious code. For apt you have utilities to edit the keys you don't edit a test file by hand.

Sure. I only hope to answer "like the passwords file".

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#59

Post by ewzimm » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #24

dyingkneepad wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things they're currently doing that benefit the larger Linux community as a whole: - still engaging with vendors into making hardware work on Linux - they're contributing optimizations to gnome 3 - their still massive user base is testing stuff, discovering bugs and then those things get fixed upstream or at least get into Debian - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distr…

> - making bad decisions so people jump off Ubuntu and go back to Debian, my beloved distro Amen. Debian is the best.

When I fist started using Debian, it was a bit of a potato. It improved over time but still felt a little wooden. Ubuntu brought a lot of people back into the Debian ecosystem, ensured that it improved constantly to the point where it's a corporate power buster, and I feel like the next release will hit the bullseye for sure.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#60

Post by msla » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #42

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish, but the signature is actually compiled into the snapd (the software on your system)'s binary. Deliberately impossible to reconfigure. Like I said, you can change the signature... by distributing a forked binary to users that would be incompatible with the main store.

Isn't this good? I mean if you are a distribution you compile the software yourself so you can add the distribution keys (there are some that don't compile stuff ). Probably you are thinking there should be atext file in your home where you could add new signature to be sued, but that could be a security issue so probably needs to be something more safe,did any serious patch was sent to improve this and was it reject…

> Probably you are thinking there should be atext file in your home where you could add new signature to be sued, but that could be a security issue so probably needs to be something more safe,did any serious patch was sent to improve this and was it rejected or why we expect Canonical to prioritize this over other issues?

If someone can replace that text file, they can replace the binary the key is compiled into.