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Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

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Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#321

Post by alias_neo »

sockaddr wrote: post #259
Saris wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite experience with snaps is Firefox just closing in the middle of doing something because it wanted to update, and it didn't even bother to check if I was using it first.

This also happened to me. So I decided to uninstall the snap and “apt install firefox” Guess what I got? A freaking snap. Yes, try it. I’m done with Ubuntu

It is possible to get an apt package, you have to jump through a few hoops but it can be done; I do it every time I install Ubuntu (frequently) because I won't touch that snap shite again.

I can't move work off of Ubuntu; it's too embedded now, but I'm looking for something else for home. Switching distro-base isn't so easy when you've been using it for decades though; I tried NixOS but it wasn't comfortable (Nix is a steep learning curve), though their community is top notch, and everything I do is deb based.

Looking for a way to get a modern debian (something akin to non-LTS Ubuntu) or just go all out and switch to something Arch based like EndeavourOS.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#322

Post by 7speter »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #304
wankle wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had issues recently with WiFi on multiple different machines on Debian 11 and switched back to Ubuntu, is WiFi working for you?

What wifi chip are you using? Debian by default has no unfree wifi drivers included, so that can cause issues with them. If you have a good wifi adapter by a vendor that pushes drivers upstream like Mediatek, it should work just fine out of the box.

Would using debian non free address this?

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#323

Post by unicornporn »

sockaddr wrote: post #259
Saris wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite experience with snaps is Firefox just closing in the middle of doing something because it wanted to update, and it didn't even bother to check if I was using it first.

This also happened to me. So I decided to uninstall the snap and “apt install firefox” Guess what I got? A freaking snap. Yes, try it. I’m done with Ubuntu

Looking at the responses to this post, a more expected headline would've been “Ubuntu stops shipping Snap by default”.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#324

Post by qbasic_forever »

Steltek wrote: post #277
qbasic_forever wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's best practice not to have any shell tools in your app container, including package managers. It bloats the image and can be a security vulnerability if a zero day exploit hits the app. Ideally a container is something like distroless which just has the libc and dependencies you care about and nothing else, not even bash.

But where do your dependencies come from? Your compiler? Are you building everything from source after libc?

If you're shipping modern code like go or rust you have a static build with no real dependencies. If you're shipping a scripting language like python you're probably going to use their base images, and if you're shipping native C/C++ you have to figure out your risk tolerance for trusting a distro to ship good dependencies vs. just building them yourself. It's not hard to build all your deps in a container, and arguably is the best security practice so you have total control and knowledge of their versions.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#325

Post by 7speter »

Jnr wrote: post #174
wilonth wrote: post #161

Wow they're still pushing snaps, the project with some the worst engineering I've ever seen. - Extremely slow at doing anything, even the most basic commands. - Ridiculous auto-update mechanism (you can't even disable it wtf). - Random, nonsense limitations (why can't I open dot files and dot directories???). So terrible that for most apps that I installed with snaps I end up installing the deb version later on. What…

For some reasons they ship it with servers as well. So the first task after getting ubuntu up and running, you have to uninstall snap.

Well snaps are supposed to be this great server feature because you can install whatever great program from whatever other distro ecosystem using snaps… or something

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#327

Post by colonwqbang »

goodpoint wrote: post #126
colonwqbang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building apt packages isn't the issue, libraries is. Debian ships very old libraries, forcing applications to run in docker. Or bring their own copies of system libraries. Look at Arch Linux, we just write a short AUR script and the package is integrated. Once the script is written, everyone can use it. This is possible because Arch always ships recent libraries.

It's called stability and it's a good thing. And no, nobody is forced to use docker.

But what's the point? You install debian stable, where every library is at around 2 years old. Now you want run SomeApplication (Blender, Gimp, video games) as that's what you actually use your computer for.

If you wanted to run a 2 year old version of SomeApplication, that would work just fine. Is that what you really want? Is that what most users want?

If you instead install a snap/flatpack of the latest version of SomeApplication, you are installing also new libraries instead of the good old stable libraries your distro provides. So what's the point then?

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#328

Post by slim »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #304
wankle wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had issues recently with WiFi on multiple different machines on Debian 11 and switched back to Ubuntu, is WiFi working for you?

What wifi chip are you using? Debian by default has no unfree wifi drivers included, so that can cause issues with them. If you have a good wifi adapter by a vendor that pushes drivers upstream like Mediatek, it should work just fine out of the box.

or install from non-free ... which will not be needed anymore for next release

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#329

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Steltek wrote: post #227
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Maintainers are useless middlemen (at best) who only exist because of Linux userland's particular diseases and a desire for distros to rule over their own little repo fiefdoms. No other desktop OS has done it like Linux and for good reason. People have been citing this as a reason they don't want to use Linux as a desktop for decades to mostly deaf ears, who then turn around and wonder loudly why no one want…

I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. For decades, Linux package managers have been the killer app for Linux. They made installing and updating every single one of your applications trivial. You didn't google for sketchy download sites and unsigned exe's. You didn't have to fight the system to cleanly uninstall things. Even release upgrades were the smoothest thing ever. In 25 years, I've never had a Deb…

What's wrong isn't so much the package managers as the necessity for them and for an army of third party volunteers to maintain packages and all the problems that predictably arise from that. Linus famously complained about how things work at DebConf 14[0], but I guess he's an idiot for doing so? That's a pretty hot take but whatever.

If a package is not in the repo? Sorry, you have to compile from source. Want a newer version? Compile from source and hope that the build environment dependencies are in the repo. Want an older version for some reason? Break out docker or KVM so you don't break your system.

None of this is fundamental to the model, that much is true, but in practice it is how all Linux distributions using a package manager/repo model without things like Snap, AppImage, and Flatpak work.

Here's the best part though: Even with Flatpaks and AppImage you can still use a repo! In fact Fedora Silverblue, which uses an immutable base system and installs everything through Flatpak and Toolbox, uses a Fedora controlled Flatpak repo by default.

[0] http://saimei.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2014/debcon...

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#330

Post by wankle »

thomasvm wrote: post #247

So, for a developer, what's currently the best hassle-free desktop Linux Distribution?

There's no easy answer, the Linux Desktop world is more fractured today than ever. I use and like Ubuntu, Debian 11 has had driver issues for me. I don't like RPM distros. For Ubuntu, I had to uninstall snapd and pin it to never be installed. For Firefox, I downloaded it, unpacked it and use its Help menu to update it. I don't use Chromium because Ubuntu only ships it as a snap now, I use Chrome.
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