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Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

forum.snapcraft.io

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Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#141

Post by unmole »

oofbey wrote: post #63
tjoff wrote: post #60

Somehow when googling software snap will often come up and try to push users to install snap and the software. Almost feels like malware on every level. Can't comprehend why they are pushing it so hard. Ubuntu is on borrowed time.

I have been a huge fan of Ubuntu for a long time. But the way they push snap is really making me question this choice. The more I learn about snap the less I like it.

I switched to Fedora after ~14 year of using Ubuntu as my daily driver. Three months in, it's been absolutely rock solid.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#142

Post by bboozzoo »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #135
bboozzoo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you can't really blame Canonical and that makes the wole agument moot.

The argument is that "channels" are not "versions". So inside a channel, you cannot disable updates. And that's the way Canonical operates, they regularly push updates to their "stable" channel. There is no "v1.2.3" channel that will forever stay at that particular version until you switch channels. The point is that you are the mercy of the snap publisher, and as the sysadmin, you cannot prevent the software from up…

Canonical directly maintains only a handful of snaps, and even so it's up to the individual teams to do the relevant QA before publishing a version to the stable.

You'd expect that publishers follow the same process, that a stable channel means it's really stable, whereas version breaking changes really end up in per version channel. Ideally you have the latest/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} which follows the latest version of the software, and eg. v1/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v2/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v3/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} for individual version. A simple concept but surprisingly hard to follow.

Maybe the publishers are really lazy and don't care about the users or the maintenance cost of keeping n versions around is just too high, in which case it's up to the users to make their effort worth it.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#143

Post by ethbr0 »

indymike wrote: post #91

Users are telling the snap team exactly what they want: give us a way to disable automatic updates. Snappy's vision is to take this control away. This is why people hate snaps. They don't fit user workflows, make extra work and even cause show stopping problems. Snaps could be great but the team really needs to listen. For me I'm removing snaps from my configs before I get surprised. (edit: mobile autocomplete typos)

It's the nature of creating a currated experience: saying "No" to a lot of things.

Chrome/Google did the same thing.

Snap clearly has a philosophy. And a lot of people clearly disagree with that philosophy.

Thankfully, instead of "advertised from google.com", Snap has less ability to push itself on users, and users have more ability to choose it... or not.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#145

Post by vladvasiliu »

bboozzoo wrote: post #142
vladvasiliu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that "channels" are not "versions". So inside a channel, you cannot disable updates. And that's the way Canonical operates, they regularly push updates to their "stable" channel. There is no "v1.2.3" channel that will forever stay at that particular version until you switch channels. The point is that you are the mercy of the snap publisher, and as the sysadmin, you cannot prevent the software from up…

Canonical directly maintains only a handful of snaps, and even so it's up to the individual teams to do the relevant QA before publishing a version to the stable. You'd expect that publishers follow the same process, that a stable channel means it's really stable, whereas version breaking changes really end up in per version channel. Ideally you have the latest/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} which follows the latest ve…

I agree with your point, but the issue discussed here is being forced into updating. Sure, that's an issue because some people aren't fully confident that a "minor update" won't break things. They may or may not be right, but that's a separate debate.

The point is that people want to be able to disable automatic updates, even minor ones, and that's not possible.

edit: I can see how my previous comment could have been confusing. To clear it up, I was trying to say that a workaround for the forced updates would be for vendors to publish a "single version channel". So version 1.2.3 would be a dedicated channel, with no updates ever. Version 1.2.4 would be a separate channel, with only that single version. This would of course be impractical, for both the vendor and the user.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#146

Post by pbhjpbhj »

chousuke wrote: post #98
vladvasiliu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, unless I'm missing something about latest or future releases, isn't it still optional? Can't you use apt instead and uninstall snapd altogether? There seem to be more and more things that are only delivered as snaps. I haven't used Ubuntu on the desktop in a while (and even then, it was just trying it out), but I remember that trying to apt install would say "use the snap". I think LXD is in that case, for exa…

I recommend Fedora to everyone wanting a desktop alternative to Ubuntu. It's a well-balanced distribution that is opinionated enough to work fine as-is but doesn't try to force things on you the way Ubuntu does with snaps.

What DEs are common/supported on Fedora, I use KDE (Kubuntu), I'm not keen on snaps and so it seems expedient to switch distros when I next install (as it seems Ubuntu are all in for snaps).

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#147

Post by Brian_K_White »

I really don't understand all these "flatpak is better" comments. It's not.

https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future

Maybe it is better than snap, but it's not good and its not better than a traditional package, on either philosophical or technical grounds.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#148

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mikro2nd wrote: post #104
reidrac wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought, until the other day I realised something I had installed was via snap. I'm afraid the only solution requires stop using Ubuntu :(

sudo apt purge snapd

I think you have to use snap (I can't recall the incantation, snapctl??) to remove the snap mount points (which I think are made when snap packages get installed) first otherwise they don't get removed by simply removing snapd. Only did it once, so far.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#149

Post by Brian_K_White »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #134
Brian_K_White wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wanted full disk encryption, my memory state in swap would sure as hell be one of the things I wanted encrypted.

Of course, you would. And it is. All the partitions, including swap , are on top of a LUKS volume.

ah, ok. Apologies.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#150

Post by FpUser »

henriquez wrote: post #131
FpUser wrote: post #52

Snap was the reason I said goodbye to Ubuntu

Same here. If I want forced updates I can use Windows.

I would have left even without forced updates. I just do not want to waste my computer power on this virtualization crusade. When / if I need it I want it to be explicit and under my control.
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