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This appears to be an unpopular opinion, but I like snaps and Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over co

This appears to be an unpopular opinion, but I like snaps and Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. Snaps have been my preferred method of installation for a few years now. I really like how I know where the files are being installed to and if I uninstall the software it will be removed cleanly. I also like how for most software snaps contain the latest release of the software which has not been my experience with distro specific apt repos. I can even install beta, nightly or previous releases very easily using snap store channels. I've never experienced any package manager on any OS that has made it this easy. I've also developed about a half dozen snaps, some of them were open source contributions to existing software, others were my closed-source projects and one was some contract work for a third party who wanted to snap their existing software for easier distribution. And although there were some pain points, I found the process and YAML based manifest file to be far better than most tools. My only gripe with snaps at this time is that there is no system like PPAs so if you want to use snaps for your privately distributed app then you need to do it through Canonical and more advanced control features will cost you extra.

lame-robot-hoax 6y ago
I like the idea of Snap, but Flatpak seems to be a much better implementation.
- commoner 6y ago
  Absolutely. The server-side implementation of Snap is closed source and the Snap Store is a single instance controlled solely by Canonical. Flatpak repositories are decentralized and can be hosted on private servers with flat-manager, which is FOSS: https://github.com/flatpak/flat-manager https://github.com/flatpak/flat-manager
  - m463 6y ago
    Right - it's a control/monetization strategy.
- simosx 6y ago
  snapd does much more.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    Such as?
  - type0 6y ago
    yeah and it does all of it behind your back without asking
dancemethis 6y ago
I don't think I met a functional snap package so far. Granted, I only had the displeasure of dealing with two. Docker was a complete mess, .net Core was complete hell trying to figure out paths. Certainly stuff not meant for the just-slightly-above dummy, and even less for the actual dummies.
- simosx 6y ago
  I have been using the LXD snap and it worked just fine. The complexity should be similar to that of Docker.
amaccuish 6y ago
I like snaps too but snap has a habit of killing my open apps when it wants to update, rather than waiting. Especially Telegram. Also Telegram was really buggy a few versions back and it took several releases for notifications to start working again. It would have been nice if I could roll back and pin while they went through the first few 2.0 releases.
- rlpb 6y ago
  This is a bug that is being worked on: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1616650 https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1616650
  - detaro 6y ago
    Opened 2016. Ouch.
    - rlpb 6y ago
      IIRC the fix is available and being tested under a feature flag or similar right now. I can't find a link immediately though, sorry.
    - rlpb 6y ago
      If you're still interested, I found the link: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/wip-refresh-app-awareness/10736 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/wip-refresh-app-awareness/10736 and https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/projects/3 https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/projects/3 It is actively being worked on.
simosx 6y ago
You may distribute those .snap packages directly to the users. Granted, you need to pay for your own separate Snap Store, unless someone makes the effort to create a third-party implementation.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  My understanding is that you want to distribute via your own store you need to develop your own distro, reverse engineer their backend, develop your own backend. Develop your own forked client that actually searches in more than one store and then you can distribute to only those people running at minimum your forked client. Basically if you have multiple millions of dollars you would be able to distribute your software to probably nobody. Compare this to making a repo for any platform that allows multiple repos where this is fantastically trivial.
littlestymaar 6y ago
> Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. I don't know the Apple ecosystem, but adding a 3-second-delay to every opened app because of a questionable sandbox whose security benefits are hypothetical doesn't sounds like “caring about usability” at all… Appimage is a better solution than snap overall, and it solves your issue with having yo go through canonical, but the whole point of snap is forcing you going through canonical…
- ronsor 6y ago
  >adding 3-second delay to every opened app But that's exactly like the Apple ecosystem![0] [0] https://sigpipe.macromates.com/2020/macos-catalina-slow-by-design/ https://sigpipe.macromates.com/2020/macos-catalina-slow-by-d...
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    Thanks for that link, this is just unbelievable!
guug 6y ago
Most people are not rejecting snaps as a concept but the way ubuntu decided to implement it (e.g. forced updates, closed back-end, stealth snapd/snap reinstalls, etc).
inshadows 6y ago
> Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. The philosophy they mirror is the "Walled Garden" and "complete control over user devices" though I'm not sure if even Apple is doing the latter. I don't see any practical reason for denying experienced user the choice. Snap may be technologically most advanced software distribution solution (it is not) but it benefits only those who control it, and in case of Snap, that is not you, the user, but Canonical.

lame-robot-hoax 6y ago

I like the idea of Snap, but Flatpak seems to be a much better implementation.

commoner 6y ago
Absolutely. The server-side implementation of Snap is closed source and the Snap Store is a single instance controlled solely by Canonical. Flatpak repositories are decentralized and can be hosted on private servers with flat-manager, which is FOSS: https://github.com/flatpak/flat-manager https://github.com/flatpak/flat-manager
- m463 6y ago
  Right - it's a control/monetization strategy.
simosx 6y ago
snapd does much more.
- Shared404 6y ago
  Such as?
- type0 6y ago
  yeah and it does all of it behind your back without asking

dancemethis 6y ago

I don't think I met a functional snap package so far. Granted, I only had the displeasure of dealing with two. Docker was a complete mess, .net Core was complete hell trying to figure out paths. Certainly stuff not meant for the just-slightly-above dummy, and even less for the actual dummies.

simosx 6y ago
I have been using the LXD snap and it worked just fine. The complexity should be similar to that of Docker.

amaccuish 6y ago

I like snaps too but snap has a habit of killing my open apps when it wants to update, rather than waiting. Especially Telegram. Also Telegram was really buggy a few versions back and it took several releases for notifications to start working again. It would have been nice if I could roll back and pin while they went through the first few 2.0 releases.

rlpb 6y ago
This is a bug that is being worked on: https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1616650 https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+bug/1616650
- detaro 6y ago
  Opened 2016. Ouch.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    IIRC the fix is available and being tested under a feature flag or similar right now. I can't find a link immediately though, sorry.
  - rlpb 6y ago
    If you're still interested, I found the link: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/wip-refresh-app-awareness/10736 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/wip-refresh-app-awareness/10736 and https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/projects/3 https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/projects/3 It is actively being worked on.

simosx 6y ago

You may distribute those .snap packages directly to the users. Granted, you need to pay for your own separate Snap Store, unless someone makes the effort to create a third-party implementation.

michaelmrose 6y ago
My understanding is that you want to distribute via your own store you need to develop your own distro, reverse engineer their backend, develop your own backend. Develop your own forked client that actually searches in more than one store and then you can distribute to only those people running at minimum your forked client. Basically if you have multiple millions of dollars you would be able to distribute your software to probably nobody. Compare this to making a repo for any platform that allows multiple repos where this is fantastically trivial.

littlestymaar 6y ago

> Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. I don't know the Apple ecosystem, but adding a 3-second-delay to every opened app because of a questionable sandbox whose security benefits are hypothetical doesn't sounds like “caring about usability” at all… Appimage is a better solution than snap overall, and it solves your issue with having yo go through canonical, but the whole point of snap is forcing you going through canonical…

ronsor 6y ago
>adding 3-second delay to every opened app But that's exactly like the Apple ecosystem![0] [0] https://sigpipe.macromates.com/2020/macos-catalina-slow-by-design/ https://sigpipe.macromates.com/2020/macos-catalina-slow-by-d...
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  Thanks for that link, this is just unbelievable!

guug 6y ago

Most people are not rejecting snaps as a concept but the way ubuntu decided to implement it (e.g. forced updates, closed back-end, stealth snapd/snap reinstalls, etc).

inshadows 6y ago

> Canonical's philosophy in some ways mimics that of Apple's where they care about usability over configurability. The philosophy they mirror is the "Walled Garden" and "complete control over user devices" though I'm not sure if even Apple is doing the latter. I don't see any practical reason for denying experienced user the choice. Snap may be technologically most advanced software distribution solution (it is not) but it benefits only those who control it, and in case of Snap, that is not you, the user, but Canonical.