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Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

techtudor.blogspot.com

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Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#171

Post by zrm »

ric2b wrote: post #153
zrm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want all of the QT libs embedded in the package. I don't understand why anybody wants this. Libraries should have major versions and the latest of each major version should be compatible with anything using that major version, because that's what major version means for a library. You might then need to have more than one major version of the library installed, but any two applications using the same one should b…

> Libraries should have major versions and the latest of each major version should be compatible with anything using that major version Should, but accidental breaking changes are a thing. Plus flatpack more or less solves this by having standard runtimes (base collections of libraries/dependencies that flatpack apps target) that get security updates. > That requires the person configuring the app's container to have…

> Should, but accidental breaking changes are a thing.

They're a thing either way. If a library has a security update that breaks your app, your choices are to have a security vulnerability or to have a broken app, until somebody fixes whatever is broken in either the library or the app. The only good option is to fix the breakage quickly -- or do better testing to begin with.

> Plus flatpack more or less solves this by having standard runtimes (base collections of libraries/dependencies that flatpack apps target) that get security updates.

At which point they might as well be their own packages so that you only have to install one copy of that version, since they're the same for every application anyway.

> With Snap, developers explicitly ask for the permissions they need and the approval process evaluates if it makes sense for that app to have those permissions (and by default or not).

This is not a solution to the hardness. If the developer doesn't understand the permissions model well enough to know to ask for a given permission they need, the app is broken. If they ask for permissions they don't need, either the approvers need to understand the app well enough to know it doesn't need that, or they approve permissions it doesn't need.

It doesn't get you out of needing somebody who understands both the app and the permissions model well enough to be able to correctly specify which permissions the app needs and doesn't.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#172

Post by olafura »

Am I missing something isn't https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft and https://github.com/snapcore/snapd Free Software under the GPL3.

I had seen some discussion before about the server not being open source but I can clearly see the store api there. I'm just looking at the code now and haven't taken any time in testing it out for myself yet.

Regarding debian packages and apt as we have seen with the amount of PPAs, there really has to be some solution for that. I like the snap format I believe it's heading in the right direction. It still has some problems with desktop software but that seems to be addressed as it has progressed.

There is this strange cold war between Red Hat and Canonical and Red Had seem to have most of the NIH problems if you look at the history. I really don't think Red Hat or some of it's developers possible like relying on code from Canonical.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#173

Post by im3w1l »

schmichael wrote: post #114
zrm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want all of the QT libs embedded in the package. I don't understand why anybody wants this. Libraries should have major versions and the latest of each major version should be compatible with anything using that major version, because that's what major version means for a library. You might then need to have more than one major version of the library installed, but any two applications using the same one should b…

> I don't understand why anybody wants this. Because creating debs is largely a completely distinct undertaking from the dependency and build management the developer of an app does. Bundles, whether via images or static binaries, allow app developers to distribute their app against the exact dependencies it was developed against -- potentially using the same build system. There's obviously tradeoffs to each approach…

Mobile apps are a hellscape. It's an example of how wrong things can go. Apps treat their privilege model as a license to abuse all their privileges as much as possible.

Ability to read Contact list? Location access? Great let's upload it all to the Googbook analytics for data mining our customers.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#174

Post by D2187645 »

catalogia wrote: post #87
dilandau wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally have to install a special tool to configure the look and feel. Did you miss the whole thing about how gnome devs don't want user themes to be supported? Or how they are forcing csd and dropping menus and config left and right? I'm guessing you weren't a gnome 2 user because it's night and day.

Trying to explain to a non-technical user that GNOME doesn't let them reconfigure something because the GNOME developers think they're an idiot who will be confused by configurability is a nightmare. I ended up telling my dad to install XFCE and he's not looked back since. The problem isn't that GNOME devs are trying to make user friendly software for non-technical users; that intent is commendable. The problem is th…

Yeah, its targeted for the ederly if you guys werent aware.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#175

Post by woofie11 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #93
Darmody wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any Canonical employee is around here they should be taking notes or this will blow in their face like Upstart, Mir, Unity 8, etc. Or maybe Shuttleworth doesn't care at all and he just wants the big bucks from MS.

When they moved from Unity to Gnome shell, you could read all over the OMGUbuntu comments that people actually liked Unity and wished they would keep it. It's always the same, you hear people complaining the most. Ubuntu has been a success because they took some risk. The first one has been to make installing proprietary drivers easy. Something they got a lot of heat for. And since they managed to become the most pop…

I was annoyed at many of the moves Ubuntu made and voiced that, but at the end of the day, I kept using it. When 20.04 came out, I uninstalled snap. If I'm forced to use snap, I'm gone.

There's no comparison.

The recent I ran Debian and now Ubuntu will be gone. Evaporated in a poof of smoke. I'll be elsewhere. Probably back to Debian.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#176

Post by the_af »

afiori wrote: post #162
htns wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. My go to has been to use Qubes if you at all can, because it's actually secure, and then to use Ubuntu, because it actually works. To me most of the bad reputation of desktop linux seemed to come from people refusing to use Ubuntu for demented reasons... But I have must not have been following distro news at all in recent years, because I only just now learned snap is not fully open. That's quite the cynical wa…

> To me most of the bad reputation of desktop linux seemed to come from people refusing to use Ubuntu for demented reasons... My experience is completely different. I spent 7-8 years using linux on a laptop about 4 of those using either ubuntu or derivatives, my experience was that after about 6 months it was time to reinstall the OS. Since I have installed fedora and it has been the most stable and resilient system…

Reinstalling every 6 months? Why on earth?

I'm still using Ubuntu 16.04, which I think I might have reinstalled once (after I upgraded to an SSD, so it doesn't really count), and dragging my feet about upgrading because it simply works marvelously and I don't like change. It does everything I want, coding, watching movies, gaming.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#177

Post by the_af »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #161
SweetestRug wrote: post #5

I had been an Ubuntu user for almost 16 years, on servers, laptops, and recently containers. The snap situation with Ubuntu is just plain unpalatable, both in principal and in practice. I became so disappointed in the move by Canonical that I finally left Ubuntu altogether and no longer recommend it to friends and colleagues. It takes years to cultivate a garden, but only minutes to destroy it.

Welcome to the ranks of "old fogey." :-) More seriously, this is not an unexpected response if you've been using a system for 10 years or more. If you were new to the system you would just say "oh, interesting, this is how it does self contained packages" but your perspective of having a system you understand well, has worked for all your needs, and you know all the ways in which to work around it if you can't get ex…

You made me chuckle. I mostly agree with you [1]. Though, to be fair, Ubuntu has been accused of being an open source Windows (or rather, OS X) almost from the get go.

I'm really conservative about software and I want to keep my apt, dammit it! I did like Unity, but only because I was never too attached to Gnome.

----

[1] I still remember when KDE devs broke that desktop for me, I think it was KDE4? They decided you just couldn't place desktop icons -- "you're doing it wrong", foreshadoing Steve Jobs -- and there was much gnashing of teeth, and I and many others ragequit to Ubuntu. Little did we know, of course :P

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#178

Post by Myrmornis »

afiori wrote: post #162
htns wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. My go to has been to use Qubes if you at all can, because it's actually secure, and then to use Ubuntu, because it actually works. To me most of the bad reputation of desktop linux seemed to come from people refusing to use Ubuntu for demented reasons... But I have must not have been following distro news at all in recent years, because I only just now learned snap is not fully open. That's quite the cynical wa…

> To me most of the bad reputation of desktop linux seemed to come from people refusing to use Ubuntu for demented reasons... My experience is completely different. I spent 7-8 years using linux on a laptop about 4 of those using either ubuntu or derivatives, my experience was that after about 6 months it was time to reinstall the OS. Since I have installed fedora and it has been the most stable and resilient system…

When I used to maintain a linux machine about 10 years ago, upgrading the kernel was a huge pain on a fedora system (basically required reinstalling the entire OS IIRC) but could be done using the package manager on ubuntu and thus was incomparably less painful. Has this difference gone away?

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#179

Post by Ericson2314 »

ahnick wrote: post #167
Ericson2314 wrote: post #132

....6 years of NixOS, and I kinda forgot remember that elsewhere unprivilaged users and admins can't manage packages the same way.

How is the package situation on NixOS nowadays? Do you find you have to custom install a lot of software or are there native Nix packages for most everything you need? What kind of learning curve should one expect if migrating from debian/ubuntu based distributions?

There are existing packages in Nixpkgs for almost everything. Home-manager has firmly emerged as the "configuration per user" tool. I might say, in fact, get comfortable with home-manager and then switch to NixOS, if cold turkey sounds like a lot.

Its a very, very different sort of distro, but if you know basic function programming and are willing to do some "unlearning", you should be fine.

Re: Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

#180

Post by krastanov »

dilandau wrote: post #157
krastanov wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is dead wrong. I run Gnome and my language shortcut is CapsLock. I used the Tweaks configuration software which is part of Gnome (it is the one you are supposed to use for more invasive configuration). I do find Gnome plenty configurable. You just need to go in order of Settings -> Tweaks -> their weird registry -> custom extensions. I would agree this is convoluted, but I do not mind it (as a power user…

You must be really new to Linux. I mean, wow.

This is a rather childish way to respond to my comment... What is the point of being antagonizing like this? How do you see the conversation progressing or what point are you trying to make?

For context, I have used Linux and other Unixes for 14ish years, spanning the spectrum from embedded devices to supercomputers, with (or without) a variety of graphical shells.

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