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Why is there only one Snap Store?

merlijn.sebrechts.be

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Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#231

Post by School-Cotton »

unixhero wrote: post #135
coreblocks wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think it’s simpler than that. The Linux desktop experience is just terrible... I have never successfully installed a Linux distro without having to fiddle with some boot flag or some config file. Every major Linux desktop environment has been unreliable at best. Software support is fragmented across dozens of distros. I think WSL has been the biggest win for Linux on the desktop, but ironically it’s on win…

What year is this? Linux desktop experience is fantastic in 2020. It has been for several years. That's bordering FUD you're spreading.

Example from 2020: Running Ubuntu with two displays each of which has a different scaling factor requires switching to Wayland, because on X11, any window that touches the edge of one of the displays will run unusably slowly. (I don’t know why.) A non-technical “typical desktop user” would never have figured this out.

This is on a fully supported Linux machine (XPS 13 9300 Developer Edition).

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#232

Post by julianlam »

the_af wrote: post #219
kunai wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Linux is fantastic for that, until you come across a use case that is outside those typical bounds. Say your mom decides she likes photography one day and decides to buy a camera and take some lessons. Say her teacher says "we use lightroom and photoshop so you'll need to have these because they're industry standard" and she has no idea what to do and why the Adobe CC launcher won't load on Linux. Then she'll cal…

That is a real problem, but in my opinion unrelated to whether an OS is "ready for the desktop". That's just a business problem, not a technical problem: Adobe cares about platforms where the money is. It's not a technical problem because people like my mom can learn to use GIMP (note: people who use photo editing software are "pros" of a kind, anyway; "regular" users don't know how to edit photos, either) or Krita o…

Valve has been making amazing in-roads into the Linux gaming sector with Proton.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#233

Post by School-Cotton »

the_af wrote: post #216
im3w1l wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canonical is betting on there being people who want to run some Linux exclusive software but don't care about idealism. Edit: In hindsight I think this comment was too cynical. I like canonical mostly.

> run some Linux exclusive software Like what? I run Linux because I want control of my computer. The minute a distro starts gatekeeping, the moment I switch to a different distro. Increasingly, you can run Linux software on non-Linux OSes, if a piece of software is all you care about.

Docker is the most major example I can think of of something that only runs on Linux.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#234

Post by Cyphase »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #123
blendergeek wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same "you are dead to me" ragers are often knee deep in google account / xbox account / netflix go anywhere accounts etc. While I am not GP, I am what of these people. I stay as far away as I can from cloud accounts unless I have the option to self host. I self host Nextcloud and I am soon going to self-host Matrix. I use F-Droid for my phone apps.

> [...] and I am soon going to self-host Matrix. I self-hosted and later switched to having the Matrix staff maintain my chat server [0]. I assume this is a reasonable middle-ground between self-hosting maintenance headaches and giving up your ownership for a free Discord server. [0] https://element.io/plans-and-pricing

Especially since the software is FOSS and you can presumably migrate to another provider or back to fully self-hosting if you wanted to.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#235

Post by nickstinemates »

michaelmrose wrote: post #226
nickstinemates wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With more than 1 (high end) video card?

Graphic performance is excellent if you don't insist on say using Nvidia hardware with the open source Nouveau drivers everyone knows sucks. Open source AMD and closed source Nvidia both provide good performance. Going with just US figures the average spent on a computer in 2020 is 632 usd total. A high end card on the other hand is $400 to $800 each. a 2000-3000 pc with 800-1600 in graphics hardware is probably some…

I appreciate you proving my point. High end desktops are not viable on Linux, which is a shame, because I really wanted it to work.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#236

Post by chillfox »

the_af wrote: post #215
kunai wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of usability, yes, but the problem with Linux in recent years has rarely been usability, it's the lack of workstation-level applications that are readily available on Windows and MacOS. As long as Linux lacks native support for Autodesk, Adobe CC, Office 365, FL Studio, Pro Tools, etc. and dozens of other niche programs by ISVs it will never approach the mainstream with any sort of widespread appeal. Current…

That seems like a moving goalpost to me. First, it wasn't usable. Then, it didn't have drivers. Then, it crashed a lot. Now it doesn't have Autodesk stuff? For the record, my mom doesn't know what Autodesk is. A "desktop" for me is where you can play movies, edit documents, browse the net and check email.

Those are just the common stuff that everyone does with a computer, but I think most people ends up adding one special thing to that list. For some that is gaming, others it's doing tax, photo editing, programming, or some specialty software for a niche hobby that few people think about.

Even my mum ended up using specialized software software for her knitting hobby.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#237

Post by Legogris »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #156
unixhero wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What year is this? Linux desktop experience is fantastic in 2020. It has been for several years. That's bordering FUD you're spreading.

My experience aligns far more with parent's than yours. The Linux Desktop experience is still pretty garbage.

My guess is the contrast in experience can come from difference in hardware. Drivers can be a big hassle for desktop if you're unlucky. Occasionally when I get new hardware that's not a laptop it can be frustrating with GPU or (curses) Bluetooth drivers. It's been improving a lot, though. Lenovo and Dell have really gotten better over the years.

Funnily enough, Windows is going to phase out drivers from Windows Update, so I can see the scales shift.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#238

Post by Legogris »

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.

While most of my systems are on Debian, the installation experience could really use some work, especially the partitioning part. I've had several occasions when I had to resort to fully manually partitioning my drives because of some hickup.

Even in Debian 10, swap is enabled by default in the installer (maybe depending on system RAM) and the encryption guide will refuse to proceed in that case. Only way out of that is switching to another TTY and disabling it manually. The situation and docs around networking and DNS are a bit of a mess with regards to the not-yet-complete migration to systemd services from ifupdown and resolveconf. At least it's not defaulting to networkmanager.

At the same time, selecting UTC as timezone from the installer is weirdly hard to find, a lot is predetermined from "select your location".

It's like it's still designed with the use case of non-technical desktop users from 15 years ago in mind

I'm suspecting very few Debian lovers actually use the installer and instead prepare their own installation with self-built images ready for flashing or upload. It says something that Arch Linux, which doesn't have a guided or graphical installation, is a smoother installation experience for a user new to the distro. The wikis for each are night and day.

Don't get me wrong, I love Debian too but there's some areas where it's unnecessarily confusing for those who haven't grown accustomed to its quirks over the years.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#239

Post by curt15 »

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.

ChromeOS still uses upstart.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#240

Post by heavyset_go »

1_person wrote: post #67

That reminds me of the stake Ubuntu Core was born with in its heart: > An Ubuntu SSO account is required to create the first user on an Ubuntu Core installation. They just keep flinging shit at nothing and hoping to hit a wall they can build a gate in. They're trying to boil the frog slowly with Snap on the Server/Desktop branches. There is no possible genuine motive for these maneuverings to be in the position of ga…

> If anyone at Canonical is listening, you should be aware it doesn't matter how slowly and carefully you approach this, or how you justify it, the first time I'm forced to kiss the ring to get my software to work, your software is gone from any system I own or manage, immediately and forever.

They're taking a look at how Microsoft is slowly doing this with Windows, and following suit.

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