Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store • Hacker News Board

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#81

Post by anuragsoni » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #54

tux1968 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're moving to Fedora then Gnome really is the path of least resistance, and highest level of integration and support. But you can make KDE work, or even use a tiling WM like Sway and customize it to your taste. In any case, you get to enjoy the benefits of a really well done distro.

Alright. Will give it another go. Hopefully it’s easier to setup a side bar and top bar than last time I used it.

FWIW, I've used Fedora's KDE spin [1] and its very polished. That said, if I was still using linux on the desktop these days I'd go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed[2]. With KDE my experience was that they made big improvements with every release, and tumbleweed was a nice way to get a stable-ish rolling release distribution that gets all the nice KDE updates without me having to wait another 6-8 months.

[1] https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/kde/

[2] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#82

Post by hotpotamus » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

I'd be curious to hear a good explanation as well from someone who knows more about this than me. My feeling (and feelings/suspicions are all I've really got) is that there are 2 factors driving it - maintaining repos is mundane work, and containers are fashionable again.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#83

Post by MiddleEndian » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

ComodoHacker wrote: post #33

user3939382 wrote: post #6

> The issue that makes us resist the idea of simply disabling updates altogether is that very often that will mean never update rather than update at someone’s discretion, and then we’re getting back to some of the problems that got us here in the first place. I’m sorry, who owns the machine here?

I see they're honestly trying to ease life for technically illiterate users (or, put it another way, to chase Apple's "just works" experience). But ignoring the needs of professional users (who are influencers) is a sure way to divert all users.

Many technically illiterate users don't like forced automatic updates either. Having your software behave one way one day and another the next day is user-hostile. The only people it helps are organizations that wish to lower support costs.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#84

Post by emerongi » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

Flatpak's benefits:

- Cross-distro packaging (no need to provide N package formats - this one runs on all distros)

- Faster update cycle for each app, if the package is maintained by the original developers

- Sandboxing

- Better compatibility all around, as the package runs the same on all distros (as opposed to some too-old or too-new module breaking something on X distro)

- Some other goodies, like checking new releases of the source on Github etc

Flatpak's drawbacks:

- Modules are not shared, which can result in somewhat larger packages and potential vulnerabilities

- Many packages are community-maintained by people who are not necessarily experts in the Linux ecosystem. Distro-provided packages usually have tighter requirements

Personally, I use Flatpaks for the sandbox. I restrict all apps very heavily.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#85

Post by bubblethink » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

Snaps are an attempt to move away from the distro managed software concept to the windows/android like vendor managed software paradigm. It removes the intermediate distro layer between third party vendors and users. It can also improve security in theory, but there are a lot of caveats to that currently.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#86

Post by MiddleEndian » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

ctxc wrote: post #17

user3939382 wrote: post #6

> The issue that makes us resist the idea of simply disabling updates altogether is that very often that will mean never update rather than update at someone’s discretion, and then we’re getting back to some of the problems that got us here in the first place. I’m sorry, who owns the machine here?

Counter point for general software: some people don't upgrade software for _years_, due to which vendors have two problems - 1. Open security vulnerabilities 2. Necessity to maintain backward compatible infra To offset this, two channels of releases can be maintained - one for security fixes, another for general features etc. But again here, we run into problems where maintenance of two channels isn't economical, and…

Make updates that are appealing enough that users want them.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#87

Post by nvrspyx » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

Snap is terrible in every sense, so you should never use it in my opinion.

As for Flatpak, I'd say use it if you need a more up-to-date version of a piece of desktop software than is in your distro's repository or desktop software that isn't in your distro's repository at all.

For example, I use the Firefox flatpak on Fedora to have the most up-to-date version (98.0.2) since the current version of Firefox on Fedora (98.0.0) was giving me some issues like crashing when downloading something and choppy gifs.

I also use it for some proprietary software like Spotify and a game called Vintage Story. Adjusting their sandbox permissions with Flatseal is useful in this case.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#88

Post by ctxc » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

cerved wrote: post #77

ctxc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point for general software: some people don't upgrade software for _years_, due to which vendors have two problems - 1. Open security vulnerabilities 2. Necessity to maintain backward compatible infra To offset this, two channels of releases can be maintained - one for security fixes, another for general features etc. But again here, we run into problems where maintenance of two channels isn't economical, and…

1. Open security vulnerabilities sounds like a user problem

A user problem that can have a very real impact on your product.

"x ProductX users impacted by Ransomware" will make headlines, your "well yes, we fixed it in v2.7.8 months back" won't.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#89

Post by _0w8t » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

account-5 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

In theory one gets better security. Distribution or manual apps can access and modify everything the user can do. Flatpack and Snap tries to address that with a security model similar to mobile apps.

In practice for many apps the security protection is non-existent or very limited for compatibility reasons. So for now the benefits is indeed mostly a store model and auto updates.

If one really needs to run an untrusted app a VM is probably the only practical way. It is also possible to run apps in various containers, but truly secure setup is rather nontrivial with those.

Re: Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

#90

Post by hn_version_0023 » Sat, Mar 26, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

danamit wrote: post #28

user3939382 wrote: post #6

> The issue that makes us resist the idea of simply disabling updates altogether is that very often that will mean never update rather than update at someone’s discretion, and then we’re getting back to some of the problems that got us here in the first place. I’m sorry, who owns the machine here?

You will get the updates, and you will be happy.

“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”