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Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

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Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flatpak is focused on GUI apps only, for CLI apps you'd use whatever you're used to.

What makes a GUI app worth containerizing and CLI tools not worth containerizing?

> What makes a GUI app worth containerizing and CLI tools not worth containerizing?

Agree 100%, and podman/docker already exist.

The way I do it is to use [Distrobox](https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox) to use whatever distro's userspace has the thing I need (I use either the newer devel version of ubuntu or alpine), so if I need a newer version of a CLI tool I can get that without conflating it with the OS layer. It's a similar workflow to how OSX and Windows WSL do it.

So I'm just using the normal debian packages for everything, except it's in a nice split out container just for my userspace with access to all my data. This is the workflow from Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE's MicroOS and EndlessOS, which kind of forces you into the cloud native mindset, but you can run any distro this way.

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to defend snap with the idea that it makes sense for some apps, i.e. "firefox" where updating firefox while its running is bad news. Except, snap can't update applications while they are running! i.e. try to do a snap refresh while firefox is running, nothing to update, because its running, quit it wait for all processes to die and then refresh, and it will update and cause you to wait 30-60s while it does it,…

I've been on Ubuntu 22.04 for a few weeks now, and every now and then Firefox will create a popup notification that says "Firefox needs to be closed to update (12 days left)". When I close it and re-open, Firefox is still not updated. Even when I go to the Software Center and update all apps, it apparently doesn't update snaps. I'm not entirely sure if Firefox is updateable via the UI. It's truly awful; and that's co…

Yup, you need to shutdown firefox, open a terminal, run ‘sudo snap refresh’, wait for it to complete, then re-open firefox.

Agreed that the process sucks :)

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#133

I used to use Ubuntu for everything and was very happy in the massive Ubuntu ecosystem with a .deb for everything till I was forced to use Snap a few releases ago for installing even some basic utils I used on a daily basis. I then had Snap constantly hang on installs and just break for no apparent reason and waste my time debugging it. It didn't "just work" anymore. Swapped to Arch and haven't looked back yet, Arch…

I used to defend snap with the idea that it makes sense for some apps, i.e. "firefox" where updating firefox while its running is bad news. Except, snap can't update applications while they are running! i.e. try to do a snap refresh while firefox is running, nothing to update, because its running, quit it wait for all processes to die and then refresh, and it will update and cause you to wait 30-60s while it does it,…

in the specific case of firefox, two different instances of firefox (no matter their version) cannot both use the same firefox profile at the same time (i tried).

You either have to ask the user to restart firefox (that would be the sane choice) or corrupt user data.

But i agree that snap sucks. Snap sucks particularly bad because they also push it where it's not only unnecessary but also detrimental to the user experience.

Simple dumb example: i had gnome-calculator in my toolbar. I sometimes need to make basic calculations, it's easy and I keep it handy. I realized that gnome-calculator (a 500k binary) was taking 30 fcking seconds to appear. Turns out it was "updated" to a snap, and now launching it meant for stuff to be mounted around and for snap to do whatever it wanted with my time.

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#134

I used to use Ubuntu for everything and was very happy in the massive Ubuntu ecosystem with a .deb for everything till I was forced to use Snap a few releases ago for installing even some basic utils I used on a daily basis. I then had Snap constantly hang on installs and just break for no apparent reason and waste my time debugging it. It didn't "just work" anymore. Swapped to Arch and haven't looked back yet, Arch…

I'm a "power" Ubuntu user, strongly anti-snap, but Ubuntu doesn't force users to use snaps.

22.04 has been very invasive by defaulting Firefox to a snap (there is still an alternative though, which is easy and well known, but still), but the repositories are still there in apt/deb format, with all the usual (thousands of) programs.

There may be a few exceptions, but they're very likely programs that have never been in the standard repositories; Subsync is an example. This is a decisions of the developers more than Ubuntu.

I can see another case being programs whose developers did not want to update dependencies, but I've never found such case.

That said, I'm definitely afraid of a real push of snaps, although I'm not sure if Ubuntu itself will be involved more. At the very end, containerized packaging programs take space, and there's only so much that a distribution can provide (before enraging users).

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#135
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also use Ubuntu a lot, and while I'm disappointed about this Snap thing, I'm still not looking for alternatives. At least until 22.04 I could dodge snaps pretty easily, but now, since Firefox is now a snap package, things went worse, at least for me. I gave it a try and, while the experience was not as bad as I feared, I soon encountered problems with things like trying to use a smartcard reader for signing documen…

Firefox ESR is available in a PPA that is maintained by Mozilla. Even though that's a third party, that's as close to an official package as it gets. I'm just hoping that it will remain available until this snap thing subsides, or until I make the switch to GNU Guix or something. Edit: It seems that the latest stable Firefox is available, too.[1] I thought it was only ESR and that Ubuntu's switch to snap was requeste…

It seems like they've been including stable, non-ESR builds for at least the last few releases (I only went back a few pages of previous builds). Launchpad is confusing for me, but my impression is that they're using that PPA to build the stable release using the Launchpad service and then packing that build as a snap. It seems like they're just uploading the snap package rather than building it using Launchpad.

If that's the case, maybe it's a limitation of Launchpad?

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to defend snap with the idea that it makes sense for some apps, i.e. "firefox" where updating firefox while its running is bad news. Except, snap can't update applications while they are running! i.e. try to do a snap refresh while firefox is running, nothing to update, because its running, quit it wait for all processes to die and then refresh, and it will update and cause you to wait 30-60s while it does it,…

I've been on Ubuntu 22.04 for a few weeks now, and every now and then Firefox will create a popup notification that says "Firefox needs to be closed to update (12 days left)". When I close it and re-open, Firefox is still not updated. Even when I go to the Software Center and update all apps, it apparently doesn't update snaps. I'm not entirely sure if Firefox is updateable via the UI. It's truly awful; and that's co…

Ubuntu 22.04, got fed up with snap firefox, removed it and installed it from a ppa, pinning appropriately

I still get notifications that to update the snap ai need to close firefox, so I wonder what is really happening…

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#137

I used to use Ubuntu for everything and was very happy in the massive Ubuntu ecosystem with a .deb for everything till I was forced to use Snap a few releases ago for installing even some basic utils I used on a daily basis. I then had Snap constantly hang on installs and just break for no apparent reason and waste my time debugging it. It didn't "just work" anymore. Swapped to Arch and haven't looked back yet, Arch…

I used to defend snap with the idea that it makes sense for some apps, i.e. "firefox" where updating firefox while its running is bad news. Except, snap can't update applications while they are running! i.e. try to do a snap refresh while firefox is running, nothing to update, because its running, quit it wait for all processes to die and then refresh, and it will update and cause you to wait 30-60s while it does it,…

Flatpak updates work pretty much the same way. The new version is installed into a parallel directory and takes effect the next time the application is restarted.

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#139
post #106

I used to use Ubuntu for everything and was very happy in the massive Ubuntu ecosystem with a .deb for everything till I was forced to use Snap a few releases ago for installing even some basic utils I used on a daily basis. I then had Snap constantly hang on installs and just break for no apparent reason and waste my time debugging it. It didn't "just work" anymore. Swapped to Arch and haven't looked back yet, Arch…

I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed which is also rolling release, and the one thing that bugs me is that sometimes your tools are so cutting edge that it makes it hard to get older stuff. For example it's super easy to get python 3.10 working in Tumbleweed but super hard to get python 3.6 working. I needed specifically Python 3.6 to test something, and man that was hard to get working in Tumbleweed. First of all, it is not av…

I've also been using TW for a while now (6 or so years) and I've taken to using GNU Guix as an environment manager when I need a specific version of some software.

Re: Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu

#140
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft will buy Canonical before the decade is out is my thought. People have said this for a decade and it still hasn't happened... IMO it won't either. It's privately owned and even if they do go public it's doubtful they'll give away so many shares that they can be taken over... It's Mark Shuttleworth's baby and he doesn't seem to want to sell it.

I think the ship sailed. Prime opportunity was when Ubuntu for Windows was launched.

>when Ubuntu for Windows was launched.

embrace

extend extinguish

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