I don’t think I’ll ever use ubuntu again. The continued forcing of snap is killing it for me.
I moved to PopOS for exactly this reason and have no regrets. Essentially Ubuntu with Flatpak.
Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
51–60 of 152 posts
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#52There's a very strong reaction here from users, but overall if more software became snap-only (or FlatPak-only, or anything-only), it would solve one of Linux's biggest pain points as a software developer. MSI on Windows is completely fucked, PKG on Mac has a few footguns, but at least they're universal, decades-old standards supported by mature tooling. You release an MSI/PKG, and you're done. Works on every Windows…
> it would solve one of Linux's biggest pain points as a software developer.
Maybe true for proprietary software, but for FLOSS it is a non issue once your software has traction and gets picked up by distributions. I wrote a piece of open source in ~2002 and it is still found in pretty much all distros AND I never spend a minute in pain over packaging difficulties.
IMHO, the basic package managers work REALLY well for FLOSS. The gave me a peak into the AppStore/PlayStore(tm) experience (but then without all the spyware), waaaaay before they even existed.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#53Another good reason to ditch a distro once honest, well done, but things change, now just a distro that push commercial crap . It's not a bold statement, snap, flatpack, appimage exists ONLY for commercial purposes. The FLOSS world works with - devs :: who write and publish code without the need to support any specific distro, packaging etc, many also package for their own favorite distro but that's a mere choice, ma…
That's a lot of text without giving any motivation for your main point. What makes an app package created by the app developer more "commercial" and anti-FOSS than an app package created by a distro-specific packager? What's the difference between an RPM package and a Flatpak package? Proprietary software and FOSS software both get distributed in both kinds of packages.
In short: what are you talking about?
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#54There's a very strong reaction here from users, but overall if more software became snap-only (or FlatPak-only, or anything-only), it would solve one of Linux's biggest pain points as a software developer. MSI on Windows is completely fucked, PKG on Mac has a few footguns, but at least they're universal, decades-old standards supported by mature tooling. You release an MSI/PKG, and you're done. Works on every Windows…
I'm willing to bet that desktop linux's market share is not going to move one way or another with any packaging format changes. The best hope currently is steam deck, which may bring a new generation of users to linux, although in a pretty limited capacity.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#55There's a very strong reaction here from users, but overall if more software became snap-only (or FlatPak-only, or anything-only), it would solve one of Linux's biggest pain points as a software developer. MSI on Windows is completely fucked, PKG on Mac has a few footguns, but at least they're universal, decades-old standards supported by mature tooling. You release an MSI/PKG, and you're done. Works on every Windows…
DEB is working fine for most users, for the corporate/Fedora users RPM also is good enough. Flatpak works great for GUI applications as well, it integrates nicely with most "app store" interfaces on Linux.
DEB vs RPM is an ancient debate, each comes with its pros and cons. Flatpak and Snap try to solve a different problem (sandboxing + dependency hell vs stable system-wide dependencies).
MacOS has PKG, but most software I've seen actually comes through DMG images or ZIP files. Windows has MSI, which, if you use it correctly, actually elegantly solves most problems; the features that were added to allow developers to bypass the declarative installation process are what usually breaks MSI installers.
But then modern Windows now features has packages installed through .appx, .appxbundle, .msix, .msixbundle, and plain old .exe. Windows Mobile (based on Windows CE) had .cab; Windows Phone 8/8.1 (based on Windows 8) had .xap; Windows 10 Mobile had .appx. Now Windows 11 also supports .apk files from Android!
In the end, the package method doesn't matter. Users don't care where the package comes from, they just want to install the application and run it. Deb, Flatpak, RPM and Snap all work fine from tools like Discover or GNOME Software; it really doesn't matter to normal users what kind of packaging system they use.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#56I don't like this at all. The Firefox snap has really bad crashing issues, and the filesystem sandbox makes using the file picker confusing especially for my nontechnical family members.
I tried using the snap, I really gave it an honest attempt, and it stinks. The final straw was when removing and reinstalling the snap deleted my Firefox profile. That was really unacceptable. Removing Firefox via apt doesn't wipe out ~/.mozilla
Snapd is now removed and pinned with negative priority on my Ubuntu systems so it will never be installed.
I'd like to find a PPA that builds vanilla Firefox but so far I've only come across ESR and Beta.
I've considered switching to Chromium over this nonsense though I'll try running tarball Firefox first, I didn't realize it could update itself. Maybe Librewolf is an option too.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#57[deleted]
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#58There's a very strong reaction here from users, but overall if more software became snap-only (or FlatPak-only, or anything-only), it would solve one of Linux's biggest pain points as a software developer. MSI on Windows is completely fucked, PKG on Mac has a few footguns, but at least they're universal, decades-old standards supported by mature tooling. You release an MSI/PKG, and you're done. Works on every Windows…
DEB is working fine for most users, for the corporate/Fedora users RPM also is good enough. Flatpak works great for GUI applications as well, it integrates nicely with most "app store" interfaces on Linux. DEB vs RPM is an ancient debate, each comes with its pros and cons. Flatpak and Snap try to solve a different problem (sandboxing + dependency hell vs stable system-wide dependencies). MacOS has PKG, but most softw…
Everybody I know strongly dislikes snap because of the machinery it brings and how untidy it is. Also it's forced upon the users.
AppImage and Flatpak are fine, and AppImage is the first choice amongst this "everything included" bundle formats.
However, Ubuntu is forcing snaps as a power move. Both the software, and the treatment from Canonical is off-putting a lot of enthusiasts right now.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#59I generally try to keep a pretty open mind about new approaches to traditional systems, and I think it's honestly pretty obvious that there is scope for a whole new approach to distributing applications on Linux platforms.
All of that said, snaps are unfortunately not a good solution. The implementation sucks, the tooling sucks, the distribution channels suck. Ubuntu Core is an abomination. The lack of ability to control updates or publish a private repository are basically unforgivable and obvious manipulations of the platform. I don't think it's possible to say too many bad things about how bad the ecosystem is generally and how poorly Canonical have behaved.
The whole situation honestly sucks, because there there really is a need for a comprehensive and open solution for the challenges that the "snap" ecosystem is trying to address. All it's currently managing to do is get me off of Ubuntu as quickly as possible, which is probably not the goal.
Re: Firefox now only available via snap on Ubuntu
#60Euch, so what happens in Mint/Ubuntu which has so-far avoided this snap nastiness?
Nothing will change for Mint.
They are committed to continue distributing Firefox as a .deb package, following upstream as closely as possible.