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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

jatan.blog

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Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#171

Post by Achshar »

dTal wrote: post #157
Achshar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford. Customer is mostly right. Not always. Use your best judgement as a business owner. Innovate where necessary and stick to customer feedback where you think it makes sense.

I think there's a pretty big distinction between the customer lacking the imagination to see a better solution until it is presented to them, and being denied a choice while being in full possession of the facts.

The auto update certainly falls in the former you mean? These (older, less tech savvy) people clearly lack the imagination. That's why auto update has to be mandatory. This is again for consumer facing OS and not for the server infra.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#172

Post by microtonal »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #97
ken wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has silently compressed files (including executables) since Snow Leopard [1] -- to increase speed. Did Ubuntu pick the wrong compression algorithm? [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6/3/

I see two mentions of "increased speed" in that article: 1. Increased installation speed. This one's obvious; less data takes less time to install. This is mentioned in your parent comment. 2. "But compression isn't just about saving disk space. It's also a classic example of trading CPU cycles for decreased I/O latency and bandwidth. Over the past few decades, CPU performance has gotten better (and computing resourc…

It's an interesting point, but seek times and rotational delays don't apply to SSDs.

There is another reason to do compression on SSDs: you have more storage free and thus less write amplification and your SSDs will last longer. In fact some SSD controllers (e.g. SandForce controllers used to do this) compress data to reduce write amplification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SandForce#Technology

The trick that they applied is that say, if you had a 500GB SSD and you stored 400GB uncompressed which the controller compressed to 200GB, the drive would still report only having 100GB free, giving it an ample 300GB of free blocks, thus greatly reducing write amplification.

(Of course, the benefit of controller-level compression is gone with full-disk encryption. But I guess FDE was less popular when SandForce SSDs became popular.)

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#173

Post by KozmoNau7 »

paride5745 wrote: post #151
koolba wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s beyond obnoxious. It’s your computer and there’s no way to disable it from mutating without file system hacks?

You can cleanup Ubuntu from snaps: https://www.kevin-custer.com/blog/disabling-snaps-in-ubuntu-... However, Canonical pushes snaps via deb packages (e.g. Chromium). The best option is the use an Ubuntu-based distro, like PopOS or Linux Mint or Elementary OS.

Or KDE Neon, which is by far the best distro I've used in 20 years of messing around with Linux.

I wish they would have based it directly on Debian instead of Ubuntu, but I just stay away from Snaps and get on with my life.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#174

Post by s_tec »

daenz wrote: post #98
greendave wrote: post #18

> Auto-updating of snaps can only be deferred at best, until at some point, like Windows, it auto-updates anyway. Even on metered connections, snaps auto-update anyway after some time. This attitude is obnoxious. Yes, not everybody is on a metered connection or running a mission-critical system, but some are, and it is hardly unreasonable to accommodate them.

I guess it's finally time to switch to Arch. This is an absolute deal breaker for me as well, as I use an ubuntu system for live visual performances, and I need to ensure that no unexpected auto-updates take place.

As a long-time Arch user, I can say that the switch is not for the faint of heart. Arch won't do anything automatically, including installing basic things like a window manager or a browser - Arch is more of a "build your own OS" experience.

On the flip side, this is incredibly empowering. If something breaks, you can just fix it, since you were the one who put it together in the first place. That's a big jump from Ubuntu, where everything just works, but you have less control. Arch is worth it if you think of it as a future investment, rather than a short-term easy fix.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#175

Post by josteink »

dopeboy wrote: post #7

> I hate that Chromium’s snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds. Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

> Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

Chromium was converted from deb to snap already in 19.10 if not earlier.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#176

Post by Spooky23 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #120
Spooky23 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a bad implementation. You can run inline compression on latency sensitive workloads like VDI without issue. Compression makes a lot of sense as the cost for fast high capacity SSD is usually much higher than the extra CPU cycles required to decompress.

And decompression is typically very fast. What I don’t understand is why they’re not using something like zstd if they care about speed. It’s a supported compression algo for squashfs, but still they insist on using a single threaded compression (xz iirc?) algo.

I think there is a cultural bias in this type of application that favors disk space to reduce overheads on mirrors.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#177

Post by bspammer »

pengaru wrote: post #74
greendave wrote: post #18

> Auto-updating of snaps can only be deferred at best, until at some point, like Windows, it auto-updates anyway. Even on metered connections, snaps auto-update anyway after some time. This attitude is obnoxious. Yes, not everybody is on a metered connection or running a mission-critical system, but some are, and it is hardly unreasonable to accommodate them.

With that Ubuntu has become useless trash joining the ranks of Android and its impossible to disable constant Play Store updates funneling endless unknown changes onto a machine you supposedly own.

I've had no problem disabling automatic Play Store updates on my phone. It's in the top level of the settings.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#178

Post by jimbob45 »

harrygeez wrote: post #160
GekkePrutser wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft did have a choice. They could simply have hidden the disable auto update (and telemetry for that matter!) somewhere deeper in the OS where non-techie users will never find it. Or even a registry key or whatever.

I haven't been using Windows for a while, but I think there's a way to disable via Group Policy or registry now?

There is. Hard, but possible, just the way it should be.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#179

Post by Marsymars »

harrygeez wrote: post #160
GekkePrutser wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft did have a choice. They could simply have hidden the disable auto update (and telemetry for that matter!) somewhere deeper in the OS where non-techie users will never find it. Or even a registry key or whatever.

I haven't been using Windows for a while, but I think there's a way to disable via Group Policy or registry now?

There always has been (though perhaps not for Windows Home Edition). My Windows systems have never, and still don't auto-update.

Re: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS’ snap obsession has snapped me off of it

#180

Post by shaan7 »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #12

Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Snaps. I wish all software would auto-update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome? The author of this article claims it's too difficult to find Flatpak apps and that the Ubuntu software center prioritizes Snaps over .deb. Are platforms never allowed to migrate to a new standard? Why is it Canonical's fault that authors of indiv…

> Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Snaps. I wish all software would auto-update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome?

FWIW Snap isn't a requirement to do that. You can set Ubuntu to update .deb packaged software automatically.

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