This is a four year old thread.
Snaps. Why? Please Stop
31–40 of 115 posts
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#32I use Ubuntu and i'm sick of having snaps forced on me. When I next install, i'm either completely ridding the system of snap or i use another distro. I'm fed up with it. The kicker is sometimes when you use apt to install a package, sometimes it installs a snap! It's madness!
I recommend Pop!_OS (despite the stupid name). It is basically Ubuntu without the annoying bits.
Pop!_OS is good, but going from Ubuntu to Pop!_OS doesn't really help with the Snaps issue.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#33Can confirm, snap / flatpack / appimage has been nothing but slow bulky disjoint nightmare.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#34Ignoring Snaps - what are Flatpaks like today?
Totally understand the value in a distribution model like Flatpaks and am willing to adopt them but I haven't had the smoothest experience with them in the past so I tend to avoid them right now.
The last time I tried them was longer than 12 months ago - I installed Discord and it was missing some features at the time due to sandboxing (I don't remember exactly, it was either push-to-talk, hot-mic, or showing what game you were playing that didn't work).
I also had some other issues with other Flatpaks - I think there were theming issues.
How is it today? Can I install VSCode, Chrome, VLC, Steam, Discord as flatpaks and have no idea they are Flatpaks?
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#35This is discussion at 2019-2021.
There are many distros where snapd is not installed by default, including Linux Mint:
https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd
Nobody is forcing you to use distro that includes snapd by default.
Snap has advantages for server software that are using Snap strict sandbox:
- Strict sandbox does not allow read access outside of /var/snap/APPNAME/common . Only common directory is writeable.
- Snap code at /snap/APPNAME is read-only and can not be modified
- When new version is released, for example with security fixes, it is automatically updated worldwide, keeping servers secure.
Linux Mint has MintUpdate, that has options to enable automatic update of .deb and FlatPak packages, keeping everything up-to-date and secure without any clicking. Windows and Mac does not have that, you need hundreds of clicks to update each software separately, having many apps still vulnerable.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#36Package managers are not a sustainable solution to application distribution. It puts way too much on package maintainers, which is a thankless job. Whether or not you like Flatpaks, Snaps, etc, it's clear that we need some sort of cross distro (and preferably cross platform) application format that's simple for developers to target. Personally I ship static executables, but that doesn't work for GUI apps.
Godot can save GUI app to static executeable, mobile and web.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#37This is discussion at 2019-2021. There are many distros where snapd is not installed by default, including Linux Mint: https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd Nobody is forcing you to use distro that includes snapd by default. Snap has advantages for server software that are using Snap strict sandbox: - Strict sandbox does not allow read access outside of /var/snap/APPNAME/common . Only common directory is writeab…
I have ~8 self-hosted services with docker-compose and one with snap (nextcloud). While I get that snap gets some flak for how cavalier it can be with your system, ultimately my nextcloud is always up to date and I've had very little effort to put into it in over 7-8 years, which is not something I can say from my running docker containers. It might not be for everyone, but from a security standpoint it's much less fussy than basically everything else that I've tried.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#38Package managers are not a sustainable solution to application distribution. It puts way too much on package maintainers, which is a thankless job. Whether or not you like Flatpaks, Snaps, etc, it's clear that we need some sort of cross distro (and preferably cross platform) application format that's simple for developers to target. Personally I ship static executables, but that doesn't work for GUI apps.
I think having a standard way to specify exact program dependencies (not package names, but e.g. pkgconfig files, command binaries, deps for specific languages, etc, so they can be translated back to the package name for each distro), as well as allow packagers to check for updates, would go a long way in easing sustainability. We already have other metadata covered by metainfo.xml files.
Packaging software is almost automatic these days. If the program uses the standard build system for their language, and the language's build system cooperates with the way of linux (e.g. C, C++, python, perl, ...), packaging software is as easy as telling the package manager what build system to use and giving it a download URL.
I figure that if we manage to have some standard like that, you could easily have a set of docker containers build your program for every major distro and publish it in a repository, without much distro-specific fuss. Of course, flatpak is probably better if publishing to all distros is your specific goal, but it'd make the life of distribution developers significantly easier.
My biggest fear with regards to flatpak is that people will use it as an excuse to create bespoke and broken build systems that only work on a very specific system, patch all their libraries or require very specific git versions that cannot easily be updated, or etc etc. I've already seen this happen with a few flatpak apps I've tried to package.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#39My concern is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives and all these sandboxed programs take up a lot of space. So if you buy cheap laptop with 256GB storage and start installing snap/flatpak/appimage eventually you’ll run out of disk storage and won’t be able to upgrade it (storage, that is). And the only solution is to buy upgradable laptop or a laptop with a lot of storage upfront.…
>is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives Other than Apples, which are those "a lot of laptops" that come with soldered storage?
New Dells are using fixed storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBk9sIK-PQ
Most (all?) Chromebooks use eMMC storage attached to the board.
Even laptops with M.2 connectors still require a hundred screws, guitar picks, heat guns, and other insane things to "replace" storage.
Re: Snaps. Why? Please Stop
#40seriously, I don't understand why would any linux user use them. If I need some bleeding edge software I would install it through docker
> If I need some bleeding edge software I would install it through docker
Or if you use Arch, just install it using pacman or the AUR.