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I really don't see the use case at all for Snappy. I mean FlatPak makes sense for devs who want to "package- once, run everywhere", but Snappy is Ubuntu-only. T

I really don't see the use case at all for Snappy. I mean FlatPak makes sense for devs who want to "package- once, run everywhere", but Snappy is Ubuntu-only. The thing is Ubuntu through Debian is really good at having lots of up-to-date packages. Why abandon that for some crummy app store?

evand 8y ago
The "Users by distribution" table at the bottom of the Spotify page is worth a look: https://snapcraft.io/spotify https://snapcraft.io/spotify Snaps are not Ubuntu-only. You can find install instructions for many distros here: https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install
- alsadi 8y ago
  Snap is a proprietary format that is canonical-centric, don't tell me that the community make choice to make client opensource but official store both hardcoded (initially) and closed source. On the other hand,flatpak is a freedesktop project, done using open standards like OCI and ostree.
  - popey 8y ago
    No. Snap is not a proprietary format at all. It's a squashfs file with a small amount of metadata. You can make a snap by plopping a file in a folder, add a simple snap.yaml which describes the application and then "make" a snap with the common mksquashfs tool. There is room in the world for flatpak and snap to co-exist. We created snaps as an evolution on from clicks on the Ubuntu phone, and it covers use cases that flatpak wasn't designed for.
    - alsadi 8y ago
      Remember ubuntu one storage solution? An opensource client does not make the whole thing free software and open standard.
- matthewbauer 8y ago
  Thanks I did not realize it was cross platform. It still disregards too many free desktop standards for me however. Feels like Unity when it comes to Canonical’s NIH syndrome.
Izkata 8y ago
A month or two ago I went digging because I wanted to disable auto-update for something I installed through snap (it stores configuration inside the versioned directory, so one day everything was just gone because snap auto-upgraded it the night before). Completely disabling auto-update is apparently not possible, and by design. According to the devs involved, on mailing lists and bug reports, the point of snap over apt/etc is the auto updates can't be disabled, so end-users can't put off or forget about security updates. Even adding a way to delay or configure when an update happens seemed to take a lot of convincing before it was added. (In the end I just disabled the snap service entirely to stop auto-updates. Only downside seems to be that I can't query or install new things through snap without it.)

evand 8y ago

The "Users by distribution" table at the bottom of the Spotify page is worth a look: https://snapcraft.io/spotify https://snapcraft.io/spotify Snaps are not Ubuntu-only. You can find install instructions for many distros here: https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install https://docs.snapcraft.io/core/install

alsadi 8y ago
Snap is a proprietary format that is canonical-centric, don't tell me that the community make choice to make client opensource but official store both hardcoded (initially) and closed source. On the other hand,flatpak is a freedesktop project, done using open standards like OCI and ostree.
- popey 8y ago
  No. Snap is not a proprietary format at all. It's a squashfs file with a small amount of metadata. You can make a snap by plopping a file in a folder, add a simple snap.yaml which describes the application and then "make" a snap with the common mksquashfs tool. There is room in the world for flatpak and snap to co-exist. We created snaps as an evolution on from clicks on the Ubuntu phone, and it covers use cases that flatpak wasn't designed for.
  - alsadi 8y ago
    Remember ubuntu one storage solution? An opensource client does not make the whole thing free software and open standard.
matthewbauer 8y ago
Thanks I did not realize it was cross platform. It still disregards too many free desktop standards for me however. Feels like Unity when it comes to Canonical’s NIH syndrome.

Izkata 8y ago

A month or two ago I went digging because I wanted to disable auto-update for something I installed through snap (it stores configuration inside the versioned directory, so one day everything was just gone because snap auto-upgraded it the night before). Completely disabling auto-update is apparently not possible, and by design. According to the devs involved, on mailing lists and bug reports, the point of snap over apt/etc is the auto updates can't be disabled, so end-users can't put off or forget about security updates. Even adding a way to delay or configure when an update happens seemed to take a lot of convincing before it was added. (In the end I just disabled the snap service entirely to stop auto-updates. Only downside seems to be that I can't query or install new things through snap without it.)