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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?

#311

Post by chillfox »

the_af wrote: post #307
chillfox wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say you can do almost anything except the specialist software stuff. By specialist I mean "brand stuff"; for example, the problem with a photo editing course is that instead of teaching you the principles, they often teach you how to do stuff in (say) Lightroom, essentially compounding the problem. I understand why they do this -- it cuts corners and assumes a common ground; supporting a multitude of editing soft…

If they didn’t show how to do it in specific software then I don’t think the majority of people would get it.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#312

Post by war1025 »

Legogris wrote: post #238
war1025 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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…

I'm a dedicated Debian user, and any time I have a question about something, I hope to find the answer on the ArchWiki.

They've got their shit together in terms of documentation.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#313

Post by xet7 »

Izkata wrote: post #147
vladvasiliu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snap is auto-updating and you can't stop it [0]. I actually liked the idea of the snaps on paper, especially combined with Ubuntu Core for running lightweight VMs (via LXD). But the tone on that exchange and the "we know best" attitude put me off it. I have an Ubuntu 20.04 installed for tests on one of my home machines, and from time to time I catch doing who knows what. What tips me off is seeing the drive light goi…

> Snap is auto-updating and you can't stop it Kill the daemon and make it non-executable. Only restore it when you want to manually do an install.

Huh? I think it's easier to just add to /etc/hosts this line:

127.0.0.1 api.snapcraft.io

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#314

Post by xet7 »

vetinari wrote: post #193
simion314 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want something like a PPA? Is flatpack promoting each app will have it's own repo(Skype.Dropbox,Slack,Discord?) Seems to me that you want a way to have applications and updates installed by people and bypass the review process? If you are a distro maintainer you can change the hardcoded values before you build(distros always change this stuff) but if you are not a distro then you should either submit the app f…

> Is flatpack promoting each app will have it's own repo(Skype.Dropbox,Slack,Discord?) Flatpak CAN support the scenario, where each app can have it's own repo. It's an option, not forced down your throat. Or you can self-host your private repo (e.g. applications used inside your network) IN ADDITION to public repos. > Seems to me that you want a way to have applications and updates installed by people and bypass the…

> a major reason why most distributions and users won't adopt snap

What "most distributions" you mean? Snap is already available for many distros.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#315

Post by xet7 »

simion314 wrote: post #295
vetinari wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I don't see Linux users demanding snaps in large numbers

For me, Snap is the best package system.

When I publish new version of Wekan Snap, it's updated very fast to those 8k servers around the world where someone has installed Wekan.

Canonical has paid all that huge bandwidth, server and admin cost to maintain snap build and download servers. For me, publishing Snap version is free.

When Snap is updating on some server, there is very short amount of downtime, and then Wekan is up again.

Wekan Snap is in strict sandbox, and can not write to directories outside of /var/snap/wekan/common.

Compared to Docker, Docker updates much slower and uses much more disk space with all those layers.

Compared to Flatpak, Flatpak uses much more disk space.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#316

Post by xet7 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #120
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they spent several years on Unity8+Mir, and then abandoned it went that went nowhere. They then pivoted to Snaps, where they are so proud of themselves on their echo chamber of a forum that they can't see that the end users are less than impressed. Honestly, I've stopped paying attention because Ubuntu is great at building technology with critical, mind-bogglingly obvious flaws that sink the project every time.

Don't forget Upstart, Juju, and Ubuntu Phone

That OS of Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu Touch https://ubports.com has rapid progress as a community project, it works very well on PinePhone, and there are also other Open Source OSes for PinePhone.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#317

Post by the_af »

School-Cotton wrote: post #309
the_af wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, you can run Docker on a VM for local development, and of course you'll run it on a Linux server on production. But you don't need Canonical gatekeeping for that...

You can, but it's annoying enough that I switched to Linux at work, even though I prefer macOS as a user.

Interesting. I'm a fulltime Linux user, but wanted to try a macbook for my current job so they gave me one. I still haven't done any serious work with docker, but people tell me it runs like molasses on mac. Is that your experience? If so, I might want to switch back to Linux.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#318

Post by xet7 »

geofft wrote: post #21
war1025 wrote: post #9

Semi-related: Does anyone else feel like Ubuntu has lost a lot of its momentum over the past few years? I don't hear about things they're doing nearly as often anymore.

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…

LXC/LXD is very cool. With it, it's possible run many copies of same server Snap like Wekan https://wekan.github.io at same server:

https://github.com/wekan/wekan-snap/wiki/Many-Snaps-on-LXC

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#319

Post by xet7 »

acgkmopvvgvmgv wrote: post #119

It's not for nothing that Snap is considered dangerous by SUSE and is not officially supported. They even fail basic upstream responsibilities. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3906 > A year later, in the Ubuntu 20.04 package base, the Chromium package is indeed empty and acting, without your consent, as a backdoor by connecting your computer to the Ubuntu Store. Applications in this store cannot be patched, or pinned.…

I used to use Linux Mint at many computers. But making hard to use Snap is just shooting itself in to foot.

Currently I prefer Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Debian, where Snap works.

It's like community just complaining about Snap, and not rushing to provide pull requests for alternative package systems like Flatpak.

Without packaging to Snap, I just end up producing separate .deb package for each distro, like:

- Ubuntu 18.04

- Ubuntu 20.04

- RasPi 4

etc. Separate .deb package is needed, because different distros have different versions of dependencies.

Snap works on multiple distros with one package, that saves a lot of time.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#320

Post by School-Cotton »

the_af wrote: post #317
School-Cotton wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, but it's annoying enough that I switched to Linux at work, even though I prefer macOS as a user.

Interesting. I'm a fulltime Linux user, but wanted to try a macbook for my current job so they gave me one. I still haven't done any serious work with docker, but people tell me it runs like molasses on mac. Is that your experience? If so, I might want to switch back to Linux.

My main annoyances are:

* It is slower (might not matter depending on your workload).

* It requires manual tuning to set the correct RAM limit (whereas Docker containers on Linux are just normal processes so they just use however much RAM they need like any other process).

* It's difficult to use the normal administration tools you're familiar with: you can't, from the host, see containers running in top, or attach a debugger to them. You have to either open a shell in the container and install all the typical GNU/Linux tools there, or have some weird remote debugging setup.

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