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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?

#291

Post by coreblocks »

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.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, I've had it on my machines in many different flavors, ever since 2010. However for at least the past 3 desktops I've had, there were always some issues during installation or fiddling to do after installation to get things running smoothly.

For example, my current home PC has a Intel i9-9900ks on a nice gigabyte motherboard and a NVIDIA 2070 Super. When I try to boot into Ubuntu 20.04, the display driver always fails (black screen / a mess of pixels). I had to boot with some grub flags in order to get to a stage where I could install the proprietary drivers. This is because of the open source drivers for NVIDIA GPUs being terrible, it's not the fault of Linux but that's not the point, it's a bad user experience for at least half of the users with a fairly modern discrete GPU.

A few months ago my girlfriend (who has a degree in computer science and is currently getting her Phd in mathematics) tried to install Ubuntu on her Razer Blade 15 (2018). Initially the she had some trouble with getting the NVME drive to show up (it was an issue with UEFI settings), we eventually fixed that but after installation, the wifi didn't work. At that point she gave up and ended up going with WSL, she was up and running 30 mins later.

Maybe if you buy a dell developer edition or thinkpad, you will have no troubles.

The average user is not going to want to hear that they have to either return their NVIDIA card and get a AMD one (a nonquestion for people who need CUDA / tensorflow) or go read some wiki about how to resolve the issue. They will just go back to windows/mac.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#292

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Shared404 wrote: post #185
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm thinking it's been a few years, and/or you and the parent decided to install arch/gentoo instead of ubuntu/fedora.

Maybe Linux would get wider adoption if its evangelists weren't so condescending? Maybe instead of assuming everyone who's had a bad experience with your OS must be missing something obvious, you should give the benefit of the doubt?

Until earlier this year I ran Lubuntu on 4/5 of the PCs I own. I've tried other distros but that one worked the best for me and it was still a giant pain in the ass. There's only 1 Linux PC left in my fleet now and it is mostly because I haven't turned it on in 6 months.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#293

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Legogris wrote: post #237
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Updat…

My pains with Linux rarely have to do with hardware. It is a gigantic complex incongruent mess of an operating system where software routinely requires hours of my time to make it work properly, google searches have a tendency to land you on 5 year old pages, which in Linux terms means they are now 3 major revisions out of date, and the community is full of condescending evangelists.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#294

Post by Google234 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #233
the_af wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And Mac

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#295

Post by simion314 »

vetinari wrote: post #283
simion314 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are a user then you use a distribution, say Debian,Arch. This distro could setup whatever store, repo and keys they want and Canonical is not forcing themselves on other distributions (it is not systemd). I am looking at this from a dev point of view, you are asking to prioritize a feature that almost nobody will use over other high priority tasks. The article mentions Canonical did this mistake in the past wi…

> This distro could setup whatever store, repo and keys But only one. And changing it is a matter of replacing binary/entire package. If is a far cry from `flatpak remote-add $url`. > Canonical is not forcing themselves on other distributions (it is not systemd) Systemd did not force itself on distribution either. Systemd was solving real problems distributions had, and others were ignoring them. Including Upstart, w…

I don't see Linux users demanding snaps in large numbers so it seems to me that is some lay that if I create a Linux related project I need to first ask all the linux users and all the distros for approval and implement and support all of them.

I do not remember GNOME or systemd listening to what users want, they had a team with a big ego and implemented their vision.

If I would be a billionaire and I want to create my own DE or distro I would never waste time to make sure my stuff gets approval from people that think they know things because they follow steps from a wiki or read some blog post about stuff. I would respect the GPL and if some dude wants to add a feature he can fork it and add it, I would be focused on the goal (the goal would not be to destroy other distros or projects or force my vision on them)

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#296

Post by inshadows »

> Snap is designed so each device only connects to a single store for three reasons: > users can easily discover new applications, > developers can easily publish their apps, > and developing Snap itself is easier.

Just a PR bullshit to cover for lack of freedom and need for control. Disregard.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#297

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

symlinkk wrote: post #181
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let’s hear some specific examples.

Installing software that isn't in your distro's repo, either because it is too new, too old, or was just never adopted by a maintainer, is usually a pain in the ass.

Software routinely requires tiresome google searches that largely land you in out of date non-documentation in order to get basic functionality (like say, drag and drop) working.

Getting help from the community is basically impossible because whatever you're trying to do you're "using the wrong software/distro" or "don't really want that".

Oh yeah, and any time you bring up these sort of things someone like you shows up to do their damnedest to dismiss these complaints. Often by comparing these problems to similar problems in Windows, as though that is somehow changes anything.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#298

Post by swiley »

jakear wrote: post #184
swiley wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My “cloud account“ is on linode and it’s cheaper, less of a hassle, and more feature complete than Microsoft’s/google’s/apple’s offerings.

Nope - setting up an iCloud account is filling in a username and password. Your approach doesn’t even come close to being anywhere near that easy.

It also requires buying an iPhone and almost none of the features work with your desktop (unless it’s a mac) so IMO that’s not so easy.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#299

Post by School-Cotton »

Google234 wrote: post #294
School-Cotton wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And Mac

Not natively. Docker for Mac is a thing, yes, but it’s just a wrapper around a Linux VM.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#300

Post by School-Cotton »

StavrosK wrote: post #285
m4rtink wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, thats mostly due to Ubuntu still defaulting to X. Fedora switched to Wayland by default back in 2016 and even RHEL 8 (released 2019) defaults to Wayland.

Is there a way to use Wayland in Ubuntu? I run Kubuntu, not sure if that comes with Wayland by default.

Ubuntu ships with both, so you just need to choose a different desktop session at login time.
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