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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?

#321

Post by freeone3000 »

coreblocks wrote: post #291
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.

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 20.0…

People who need cuda will be running the nv blob anyway, not the noveau driver. Linux's obsession with open-source is holding it back from usefulness.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#322

Post by freeone3000 »

ColanR wrote: post #191
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.

That's the wrong bet to make, because those are the people that will end up using the Microsoft WSL. From what I can tell, the problems with Canonical will sort themselves out when the market they've created for themselves is eaten by Microsoft's incorporation of Linux into Windows. The only people left using 'pure' Linux/Unix will be those who care about quality software, FOSS, and privacy. I hope that day comes soo…

Canonical is the #1 distributor of Linux on Windows. It seems to fill that niche perfectly.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#323

Post by simion314 »

xet7 wrote: post #315
simion314 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Sorry, what I meant is that people that don't run Ubuntu don't seem interested in having snap by default in their distribution , at least I only see the voices shouting that deb is enough or flatpack is better. So in the end if I were Canonical leader I would say fuck them and now put my few developers on implementing a different store for the other distributions.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#324

Post by the_af »

chillfox wrote: post #311
the_af wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. Though I think the main problem is that an instructor cannot be expected to provide guidance for a dozen different tools. I understand the problem, I just wish they could approach this from an angle of general principles instead of specific tools.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#325

Post by vetinari »

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

There is a demand for a way to package and distribute applications independently of distribution and with sandboxing. Hence Flatpak, who are doing it right.

> I need to first ask all the linux users and all the distros for approval and implement and support all of them.

Did you ever worked with some folks doing system-level work? Adoption by distributions is definitely a concern for them. They don't want to work on something that no one would use and by being mostly independent, they can not cram it into distribution as Canonical is doing. Even Redhat people have to prove worth of their solutions.

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

Because you never met them. Both teams do listen to what users want. Just do not mistake what users want with what a few loudmouths want.

> 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

Even if you had your own distro, you would be probably interested in it's adoption, right? It is a bummer to have a distro that nobody would want to use ;).

But I understand; it is a different thing to work with people who have an idea what they are doing, vs. listening to bikeshedding.

However, this is not a case of snap and Canonical. They are doing the wrong thing, because they have different objectives than the ones publicly communicated, and they know it (they communicate technical hows, but not business whys).

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#326

Post by vetinari »

xet7 wrote: post #315
simion314 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

> Compared to Flatpak, Flatpak uses much more disk space.

Flatpak has content-based deduplication via ostree. Snaps are squashfs images. They both have a concepts of shared common parts, runtimes.

They both take about the same space on disk. However ostree has a hardlink farm for it's content store, so if you do not know how it works and how to measure it, you might have an impression that it takes more space. It does not. IN addition, if you have multiple applications, anything they have in common at file-level granularity will get deduplicated.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#327

Post by vetinari »

xet7 wrote: post #314
vetinari wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And the ones based on Ubuntu are removing it.

On the rest, available doesn't mean anything, it is a low quality packaging. On any distro that doesn't run apparmor, the snap sandbox doesn't work, for example. That's not something you would use outside of experiments.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#328

Post by Shared404 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #292
Shared404 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are of course correct. I'm sorry about my outburst.

I've had too many experiences with "Haha linux on desktop bad nerd haha" people, and let it get to me. I apologize.

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#329

Post by twicetwice »

the_af wrote: post #213
sevensor wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my money, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2008. It's just that nobody noticed. Since 2008, Linux has had the best combination of performance and hardware support on older machines, and the advantage has only grown since then. Windows and MacOS keep falling further behind in usability on machines older than four years, and that's the only hardware I would purchase for personal use. Why throw your money away on p…

I noticed! I've been using Linux for decades, and Ubuntu since... 12.04 I think? It's the Linux Desktop for me. I game, I work, I watch movies, play music, connect to wireless stuff, I do pretty much everything I want -- it's a joy. (I always like telling how my wireless HP printer is easier to set up on Ubuntu than on OSX. It simply works on Ubuntu, but the Mac has trouble discovering it...)

I've been slowly moving that way for years. I started dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu, Ubuntu for coding and Windows for everything else -- but over time I've been spending more and more time in Ubuntu, until I looked up one day and realized I used Windows for gaming and Ubuntu for everything else. I was going weeks without booting into Windows.

And then last week after getting my computer back from repairs I did a clean install of Pop!_OS. No more Windows at all -- I have a fully Linux desktop.

Granted I ended up leaving unallocated space for a Windows partition (shrinking a LUKS partition was not very fun, it took me two attempts) for when I eventually want to play some game, but who knows when that will be.

Anyway, yeah, point is, for a sufficiently tech-savvy user, the year of the Linux Desktop has arrived. (And I could be wrong, but I think that threshold is actually pretty low. I'd guess that as long as you're not afraid of technology, you can handle installing Linux. Pop!_OS has a great installer and app store, too.)

Re: Why is there only one Snap Store?

#330

Post by simion314 »

vetinari wrote: post #325
simion314 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 There is a demand for a way to package and distribute applications independently of distribution and with sandboxing. Hence Flatpak, who are doing it right. > I need to first ask all the linux users and all the distros for approval and implement and support all of them. Did you ever worked with some folks doing system-level work? Adoption by distributions is…

Because I am developer and I have experience with different technology and with different kind of users, no I would not try to get the largest number of users. What we need is more science and data, I would not do X because some designer things looks cool or some here developer wants to play with some cool tech.

For example a few years ago KDE Plasma had a maintainer in charge with a big ego(yeah, KDE has some people like this not only the other DE), users wanted an option to disable a thing on desktop (the cashew https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/10/kde-kills-desktop-toolbo...) .We had patches but (similar to GNOME devs) the maintainer ego was too big and it took years for normality to happen.

IMO is snap is bad or this feature is really needed it will happen or snap will die, same for tray icons in GNOME they will add them back when the big ego guy that is against it will find something else to focus on(not sure we will ever have UX study and use data for decisions)

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