10 ms·

Slack comes to Linux as a snap

64 points by artsandsci 9y ago

dsr_ 9y ago
It's still a 150MB web-browser + attached web app, right?
- Spivak 9y ago
  Well yeah, it's not like how it's packaged changed the underlying design. If you want a lightweight version of the slack client and don't fell like using the IRC or XMPP bridges you can use Epiphany (or Chromium) to install the website an an 'App'.
  - quiq 9y ago
    There is also wee-slack[0], a plug-in for weechat specifically that does more than the IRC gateway [0] https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
  - j_s 9y ago
    eul.im is a closed-source commercial lightweight chat client launched 6 months ago; the author spent a few months advertising on related discussions until snagging a bit of critical feedback. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=eul.im&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=eul.im&sort=byDate&type=commen... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597468 (apparently it still downloads a 180MB embedded browser https://github.com/eul-im/eul/issues/60 https://github.com/eul-im/eul/issues/60) There is also https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical (no development since initial October appearance) CLI and: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597508 >nikisweeting: https://github.com/saenzramiro/rambox https://github.com/saenzramiro/rambox [...] https://github.com/meetfranz/franz https://github.com/meetfranz/franz [...] share one Electron instance for all your chat services
  - jerf 9y ago
    I find just pinning the tab (right-click on tab, select Pin Tab) on Firefox does what I need it to do. I mention this because I suspect many people are unaware the feature exists. Pinning a tab gives it permanent priority on the left-hand side of the tab list, and elides the title from the tab, so it is just the favicon. It also blocks CTRL-w from closing the tab; you have to actually right-click and either unpin or close the tab. That may sound trivial, but was the biggest problem I had running it in the browser before, it got caught in my periodic tab cleanups accidentally. Now I never accidentally close it.
- dschep 9y ago
  Filesize on snapcraft.io is right around 150MB[0] [0] https://snapcraft.io/slack/ https://snapcraft.io/slack/
- Jaepa 9y ago
  Yup. Fortunately this is not 2010 where that would more than 0.1% of the storage space on your typical machine.
  - sz4kerto 9y ago
    Still dog slow on my 20C/64G box. :/
    - Jaepa 9y ago
      I can imagine. Then this is probably not the best option for that box. The WebApp, or Emacs-Slack(https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack), or Slackadaisical(https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical) would probably be a better option. But either way its an option that probably wouldn't exist otherwise.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    But you know as well as anyone else that the problem with browser-based apps is that they take hundreds of megabytes of memory. And unfortunately, memory is still scarce (no thanks to Intel for not supporting LP-DDR4 in mobile SKUs).
    - toyg 9y ago
      Meh, LP is nice to have but you can live fairly happily without. My real beef with electron apps is that they invariably lack support for all sorts of goodies (accented-character menus, OS-specific shortcuts, text auto-expansion, etc etc...) that regular desktop apps just get as standard.
Spivak 9y ago
For you Flatpak users out there Slack is also available on Flathub as well. https://flathub.org/apps.html https://flathub.org/apps.html
- mijoharas 9y ago
  What exactly is Flatpak?
  - KerrickStaley 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak
sgift 9y ago
I just run it in the browser (on Windows) ... the slack app has the tendency to consume ever larger amounts of RAM if I let it run for a while. I have the feeling they just append each new message and never clear old messages out of memory, but I never cared enough to actually check. Just banning it back into the browser solved it.
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  https://slack.engineering/introducing-electron-to-the-windows-runtime-4fa789b93d90 https://slack.engineering/introducing-electron-to-the-window... Even when it's the "native" app, it's kind of still running in a browser (it uses Electron).
JeanMarcS 9y ago
« this will open Slack up to users of Linux-based services like ArchLinux, OpenSUSE, Solus, Debian, KDE Neon and others. » I don’t get it. I use the slack app on my Debian for almost a year. Am I missing something ?
- taoistextremist 9y ago
  I literally have it open right now. They've supplied slack in .deb and .rpm files for a bit now AFAIK.
  - owaislone 9y ago
    Their hope is that they won't have to maintain for multiple packaging formats and distros. Just ship 1 snap and cover everything. That's what they hope to get out of it.
- wjoe 9y ago
  Similarly been using it on Arch for a few years. Looks like they only advertise downloads for Ubuntu and Fedora on their sites, but in the end they're just deb and rpm files. And in the end deb and rpms are just archives of files. I guess snaps, flatpak, etc remove the step of needing someone to make a package or otherwise work out the dependencies and steps needed to install it on a given other distro, but chances are non-deb/rpm based distros either have their own maintaners that do these things, or the users are happy to work it out themselves. Technologies like snaps do solve the issue of developers having to think about supporting different distros, but they add extra overhead too. I'd rather they just provide a tar and a list of dependencies and use a package from AUR myself.
  - kahnpro 9y ago
    I think solving there problem of easy distribution is faaaaaaar more important than the small overhead involed.
- subway 9y ago
  It means they're probably tired of maintaining standards such that their application can run on multiple distros, and have decided to shove it in a container. I love the idea of snaps, but good grief they sometimes have really backwards build processes -- start with a traditional rootfs, install packages, delete cruft (pray you didn't delete the wrong cruft), export and call it a day.
arca_vorago 9y ago
More proprietary crap, do not want, both slack and snap.
- teh_klev 9y ago
  Then don't use it. You have the freedom to choose.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Right up until it gets declared a requirement at your job, or some such. I don't have much of a problem with Slack personally, but if my whole team is using it as their sole IM method, then it's hard to say that I "have the freedom to choose" whether or not to use it.
    - teh_klev 9y ago
      I'm not trying to be facetious, but you don't have the freedom to choose in a private company what tools are used. You do however have the freedom to leave if you feel oppressed by being forced to use non-free software.
beal 9y ago
I'd like to hear from anyone that is using snaps. I'm currently using Ubuntu 17.10 and have heard of them but haven't noticed them anywhere. Is it something I should consider using? Generally happy with slack in the browser currently.
- Animats 9y ago
  There's a "bug" which requires a Ubuntu account to load "snaps". It hasn't been fixed, despite claims that a Ubuntu account is unnecessary for that function.
  - toyg 9y ago
    Uhm, i never had an Ubuntu account and am pretty sure I tried a few snaps last time I checked out Ubuntu.
    - TingPing 9y ago
      The software center has the bug, the cli tool works fine.
      - popey 9y ago
        Not any more.
  - popey 9y ago
    That was a bug, it was fixed just before Christmas.
- toyg 9y ago
  They worked fine in my experience. The isolation is a nice concept, although it pollutes /etc/mtab (each app will appear as a mounted volume). It definitely helps developers not having to worry about .deb and .rpm, you configure a snap and then Ubuntu has automated services that will do all heavy lifting for you.
skykooler 9y ago
I wonder if this will give them some impetus to get calling working properly on Linux?
- davidw 9y ago
  Calling works fine in Chrome for me.
- echlebek 9y ago
  I use calling in Linux all the time, including screen sharing. It seems to work fine. Korora on X1 Carbon 5G.
  - maguirre 9y ago
    I use calling too and it works fairly well. However when sharing my screen i have to share "all my monitors" does anyone know why it's done this way?
shiftoutbox 9y ago
Slack came to Linux via teamwords ages ago .
sandGorgon 9y ago
Firefox and Slack are only on Snap and not on Flatpak. Is there a reason why this is happening ?
- bengotow 9y ago
  I can’t speak for Slack, but I ship Mailspring for Linux as a Snap (and not a Flatpak) because snap provides a unified approach to automatic updates and the app is updated frequently. It’s an a major win from a developer perspective, because users that have to install the new deb / rpm / flatpak manually are almost certainly going to fall behind and then file bugs / have issues that take up time to triage. (I know there’s a way to do autoupdate with Flatpak, but it is not tested and maintained as part of Flatpak itself, and when I looked it seemed to be a proof of concept with no production use!)
  - alexlarsson 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by the flatpak comment. "flatpak update" is the (built-in) command update all your installed flatpaks. What is not built in is a daemon that regularly runs this, because the idea is to integrate that with the UI. So, the application installation ui you use (gnome-software or kde discover) will regularly call this update for you, however you configure it.
- TingPing 9y ago
  There has been a Firefox Flatpak for a long time: https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ And there has been discussions about getting an official one from Mozilla.
  - jcastro 9y ago
    Any plans on submitting this to flathub?
    - TingPing 9y ago
      No, Firefox is a security sensitive project so Flathub wants Mozilla to be the official maintainer of it.
moocowtruck 9y ago
is this like nix?
o_____________o 9y ago
This is the first I'm hearing about Snap, what do you guys think of that as a platform?
- toyg 9y ago
  I like it quite a bit, even applied for the related dev-advocacy job (and was resoundingly ignored; rightly so, I might add). It removes the complexity layer of having to deal with multiple packaging systems, and it isolates the app at the user level which helps with dependencies. The only issue I see, really, is that it does not appeal to the traditional Linux userbase, the greybeards and neckbeards who are used to all the packaging esoterica. It’s a user-friendly concept that happens to be very developer-friendly too, but has no appeal for the sysadmin crew, which is still the majority in Linux land. So it risks being ignored.
cmurf 9y ago
I've been using a Slack flatpak for months, from flathub.org
rrggrr 9y ago
Slack's UI makes me insane. As a snap, or otherwise the lack of customizability, lack of minimalism and inability to size the UI to my liking makes me hate using it. I'm stuck with it and it feels like chat prison.
- shimon 9y ago
  You may want to check out https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  There's a lot of third party command line clients : https://github.com/evanyeung/terminal-slack https://github.com/evanyeung/terminal-slack https://github.com/regisb/slack-cli https://github.com/regisb/slack-cli https://github.com/juanpabloaj/slacker-cli https://github.com/juanpabloaj/slacker-cli etc.
  - popey 9y ago
    snap install slack-term ;)
- cmiles74 9y ago
  I've had good luck with this plugin for Weechat. https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
  - WD-42 9y ago
    If you happen to be using gnome I wrote a small script that uses the relay plugin so you can get native notifications even if your weechat is remote: https://github.com/Fingel/weelisten https://github.com/Fingel/weelisten That got rid of the last thing I felt was lacking when I started using weechat.
- WD-42 9y ago
  The fact that they provide an irc gateway is the only saving grace for me. Really not looking forward to the day they retire it. But I'm sure it'll come.
wasd 9y ago
I wasn't able to get it working through software center but this worked. > $ sudo snap install slack --classic
- popey 9y ago
  Yeah, that bug is being fixed and working through the release process right now.
butz 9y ago
1) Wait for browsers to implement adding PWAs to desktop 2) Write once, run everywhere 3) Everyone is happy

64 points by artsandsci 9y ago

dsr_ 9y ago

It's still a 150MB web-browser + attached web app, right?

Spivak 9y ago
Well yeah, it's not like how it's packaged changed the underlying design. If you want a lightweight version of the slack client and don't fell like using the IRC or XMPP bridges you can use Epiphany (or Chromium) to install the website an an 'App'.
- quiq 9y ago
  There is also wee-slack[0], a plug-in for weechat specifically that does more than the IRC gateway [0] https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
- j_s 9y ago
  eul.im is a closed-source commercial lightweight chat client launched 6 months ago; the author spent a few months advertising on related discussions until snagging a bit of critical feedback. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=eul.im&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=eul.im&sort=byDate&type=commen... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597468 (apparently it still downloads a 180MB embedded browser https://github.com/eul-im/eul/issues/60 https://github.com/eul-im/eul/issues/60) There is also https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical (no development since initial October appearance) CLI and: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15597508 >nikisweeting: https://github.com/saenzramiro/rambox https://github.com/saenzramiro/rambox [...] https://github.com/meetfranz/franz https://github.com/meetfranz/franz [...] share one Electron instance for all your chat services
- jerf 9y ago
  I find just pinning the tab (right-click on tab, select Pin Tab) on Firefox does what I need it to do. I mention this because I suspect many people are unaware the feature exists. Pinning a tab gives it permanent priority on the left-hand side of the tab list, and elides the title from the tab, so it is just the favicon. It also blocks CTRL-w from closing the tab; you have to actually right-click and either unpin or close the tab. That may sound trivial, but was the biggest problem I had running it in the browser before, it got caught in my periodic tab cleanups accidentally. Now I never accidentally close it.
dschep 9y ago
Filesize on snapcraft.io is right around 150MB[0] [0] https://snapcraft.io/slack/ https://snapcraft.io/slack/
Jaepa 9y ago
Yup. Fortunately this is not 2010 where that would more than 0.1% of the storage space on your typical machine.
- sz4kerto 9y ago
  Still dog slow on my 20C/64G box. :/
  - Jaepa 9y ago
    I can imagine. Then this is probably not the best option for that box. The WebApp, or Emacs-Slack(https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack), or Slackadaisical(https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical https://github.com/bkanber/Slackadaisical) would probably be a better option. But either way its an option that probably wouldn't exist otherwise.
- danieldk 9y ago
  But you know as well as anyone else that the problem with browser-based apps is that they take hundreds of megabytes of memory. And unfortunately, memory is still scarce (no thanks to Intel for not supporting LP-DDR4 in mobile SKUs).
  - toyg 9y ago
    Meh, LP is nice to have but you can live fairly happily without. My real beef with electron apps is that they invariably lack support for all sorts of goodies (accented-character menus, OS-specific shortcuts, text auto-expansion, etc etc...) that regular desktop apps just get as standard.

Spivak 9y ago

For you Flatpak users out there Slack is also available on Flathub as well. https://flathub.org/apps.html https://flathub.org/apps.html

mijoharas 9y ago
What exactly is Flatpak?
- KerrickStaley 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak

sgift 9y ago

I just run it in the browser (on Windows) ... the slack app has the tendency to consume ever larger amounts of RAM if I let it run for a while. I have the feeling they just append each new message and never clear old messages out of memory, but I never cared enough to actually check. Just banning it back into the browser solved it.

seanp2k2 9y ago
https://slack.engineering/introducing-electron-to-the-windows-runtime-4fa789b93d90 https://slack.engineering/introducing-electron-to-the-window... Even when it's the "native" app, it's kind of still running in a browser (it uses Electron).

JeanMarcS 9y ago

« this will open Slack up to users of Linux-based services like ArchLinux, OpenSUSE, Solus, Debian, KDE Neon and others. » I don’t get it. I use the slack app on my Debian for almost a year. Am I missing something ?

taoistextremist 9y ago
I literally have it open right now. They've supplied slack in .deb and .rpm files for a bit now AFAIK.
- owaislone 9y ago
  Their hope is that they won't have to maintain for multiple packaging formats and distros. Just ship 1 snap and cover everything. That's what they hope to get out of it.
wjoe 9y ago
Similarly been using it on Arch for a few years. Looks like they only advertise downloads for Ubuntu and Fedora on their sites, but in the end they're just deb and rpm files. And in the end deb and rpms are just archives of files. I guess snaps, flatpak, etc remove the step of needing someone to make a package or otherwise work out the dependencies and steps needed to install it on a given other distro, but chances are non-deb/rpm based distros either have their own maintaners that do these things, or the users are happy to work it out themselves. Technologies like snaps do solve the issue of developers having to think about supporting different distros, but they add extra overhead too. I'd rather they just provide a tar and a list of dependencies and use a package from AUR myself.
- kahnpro 9y ago
  I think solving there problem of easy distribution is faaaaaaar more important than the small overhead involed.
subway 9y ago
It means they're probably tired of maintaining standards such that their application can run on multiple distros, and have decided to shove it in a container. I love the idea of snaps, but good grief they sometimes have really backwards build processes -- start with a traditional rootfs, install packages, delete cruft (pray you didn't delete the wrong cruft), export and call it a day.

arca_vorago 9y ago

More proprietary crap, do not want, both slack and snap.

teh_klev 9y ago
Then don't use it. You have the freedom to choose.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Right up until it gets declared a requirement at your job, or some such. I don't have much of a problem with Slack personally, but if my whole team is using it as their sole IM method, then it's hard to say that I "have the freedom to choose" whether or not to use it.
  - teh_klev 9y ago
    I'm not trying to be facetious, but you don't have the freedom to choose in a private company what tools are used. You do however have the freedom to leave if you feel oppressed by being forced to use non-free software.

beal 9y ago

I'd like to hear from anyone that is using snaps. I'm currently using Ubuntu 17.10 and have heard of them but haven't noticed them anywhere. Is it something I should consider using? Generally happy with slack in the browser currently.

Animats 9y ago
There's a "bug" which requires a Ubuntu account to load "snaps". It hasn't been fixed, despite claims that a Ubuntu account is unnecessary for that function.
- toyg 9y ago
  Uhm, i never had an Ubuntu account and am pretty sure I tried a few snaps last time I checked out Ubuntu.
  - TingPing 9y ago
    The software center has the bug, the cli tool works fine.
    - popey 9y ago
      Not any more.
- popey 9y ago
  That was a bug, it was fixed just before Christmas.
toyg 9y ago
They worked fine in my experience. The isolation is a nice concept, although it pollutes /etc/mtab (each app will appear as a mounted volume). It definitely helps developers not having to worry about .deb and .rpm, you configure a snap and then Ubuntu has automated services that will do all heavy lifting for you.

skykooler 9y ago

I wonder if this will give them some impetus to get calling working properly on Linux?

davidw 9y ago
Calling works fine in Chrome for me.
echlebek 9y ago
I use calling in Linux all the time, including screen sharing. It seems to work fine. Korora on X1 Carbon 5G.
- maguirre 9y ago
  I use calling too and it works fairly well. However when sharing my screen i have to share "all my monitors" does anyone know why it's done this way?

shiftoutbox 9y ago

Slack came to Linux via teamwords ages ago .

sandGorgon 9y ago

Firefox and Slack are only on Snap and not on Flatpak. Is there a reason why this is happening ?

bengotow 9y ago
I can’t speak for Slack, but I ship Mailspring for Linux as a Snap (and not a Flatpak) because snap provides a unified approach to automatic updates and the app is updated frequently. It’s an a major win from a developer perspective, because users that have to install the new deb / rpm / flatpak manually are almost certainly going to fall behind and then file bugs / have issues that take up time to triage. (I know there’s a way to do autoupdate with Flatpak, but it is not tested and maintained as part of Flatpak itself, and when I looked it seemed to be a proof of concept with no production use!)
- alexlarsson 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by the flatpak comment. "flatpak update" is the (built-in) command update all your installed flatpaks. What is not built in is a daemon that regularly runs this, because the idea is to integrate that with the UI. So, the application installation ui you use (gnome-software or kde discover) will regularly call this update for you, however you configure it.
TingPing 9y ago
There has been a Firefox Flatpak for a long time: https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ https://firefox-flatpak.mojefedora.cz/ And there has been discussions about getting an official one from Mozilla.
- jcastro 9y ago
  Any plans on submitting this to flathub?
  - TingPing 9y ago
    No, Firefox is a security sensitive project so Flathub wants Mozilla to be the official maintainer of it.

moocowtruck 9y ago

is this like nix?

o_____________o 9y ago

This is the first I'm hearing about Snap, what do you guys think of that as a platform?

toyg 9y ago
I like it quite a bit, even applied for the related dev-advocacy job (and was resoundingly ignored; rightly so, I might add). It removes the complexity layer of having to deal with multiple packaging systems, and it isolates the app at the user level which helps with dependencies. The only issue I see, really, is that it does not appeal to the traditional Linux userbase, the greybeards and neckbeards who are used to all the packaging esoterica. It’s a user-friendly concept that happens to be very developer-friendly too, but has no appeal for the sysadmin crew, which is still the majority in Linux land. So it risks being ignored.

cmurf 9y ago

I've been using a Slack flatpak for months, from flathub.org

rrggrr 9y ago

Slack's UI makes me insane. As a snap, or otherwise the lack of customizability, lack of minimalism and inability to size the UI to my liking makes me hate using it. I'm stuck with it and it feels like chat prison.

shimon 9y ago
You may want to check out https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...
Raphmedia 9y ago
There's a lot of third party command line clients : https://github.com/evanyeung/terminal-slack https://github.com/evanyeung/terminal-slack https://github.com/regisb/slack-cli https://github.com/regisb/slack-cli https://github.com/juanpabloaj/slacker-cli https://github.com/juanpabloaj/slacker-cli etc.
- popey 9y ago
  snap install slack-term ;)
cmiles74 9y ago
I've had good luck with this plugin for Weechat. https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
- WD-42 9y ago
  If you happen to be using gnome I wrote a small script that uses the relay plugin so you can get native notifications even if your weechat is remote: https://github.com/Fingel/weelisten https://github.com/Fingel/weelisten That got rid of the last thing I felt was lacking when I started using weechat.
WD-42 9y ago
The fact that they provide an irc gateway is the only saving grace for me. Really not looking forward to the day they retire it. But I'm sure it'll come.

wasd 9y ago

I wasn't able to get it working through software center but this worked. > $ sudo snap install slack --classic

popey 9y ago
Yeah, that bug is being fixed and working through the release process right now.

butz 9y ago

1) Wait for browsers to implement adding PWAs to desktop 2) Write once, run everywhere 3) Everyone is happy