14 ms·

Snaps are an anti-pattern on Ubuntu

202 points by TheLastSamurai 6y ago

djohnston 6y ago
i recently upgraded ubuntu and had to start dealing with snaps.. of the two i tried to install they were both out of date and i ended up using apt to great success. what was the point of this thing?
- parrellel 6y ago
  Someone looked up from his workstation, put a finger in the air and said: Containers are Cool, Windows 10 is cool, what if we made Containers like Windows 10 and then mounted them like Mac mounts installation files!
- newacct583 6y ago
  > of the two i tried to install Which two? I mean, a package is only as good as its curator. That sounds more like a complaint about Ubuntu's Snap update policy or the community support for whatever you were trying to install than anything about Snap. I don't understand the fuss here. People who want control over the open source software they install still have it, it still works like it always has. People who don't care can't even tell the difference. And in a handful of situations, like large apps with extensive dependencies, or externally managed builds, or needs for cross-distro binary compatibility, Snap has real and tangible advantages.
  - safetyfirstb 6y ago
    I think the issue here is that the apt versions are not always maintained after an app moves to snap releases. > And in a handful of situations, like large apps with extensive dependencies, or externally managed builds, or needs for cross-distro binary compatibility, Snap has real and tangible advantages. I see that snaps can offer these advantages, but so can AppImage and FlatPak, and these are even more cross-platform and don't come with the same limited ecosystem.
SweetestRug 6y ago
I had been an Ubuntu user for almost 16 years, on servers, laptops, and recently containers. The snap situation with Ubuntu is just plain unpalatable, both in principal and in practice. I became so disappointed in the move by Canonical that I finally left Ubuntu altogether and no longer recommend it to friends and colleagues. It takes years to cultivate a garden, but only minutes to destroy it.
- TheLastSamurai 6y ago
  Linux Mint responded to the situation by removing snap from their repositories today[1]. I hope other distros will also follow suite. [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  The gravy train of owning the platform with an app store like Google and Apple do is just too tempting to resist trying to pull it off, unfortunately.
- dheera 6y ago
  There are also these "AppImage" files. They launch, but there is no guidance on how to install them to the system. Launching Chrome: I click the Chrome icon. Launching PrusaSlicer: Start a terminal and type chmod 755 ~/Downloads/PrusaSlicer-2.2.0+linux-x64-202003211856.AppImage ~/Downloads/PrusaSlicer-2.2.0+linux-x64-202003211856.AppImage That doesn't seem like progress to me from a UX perspective.
  - RealStickman_ 6y ago
    From the limited experience I had with an AppImage I found they usually create a .desktop file to make the program searchable. Though I have to agree that there is no really simple, gui way to install AppImages.
    - e2le 6y ago
      If you want a centralised repository of AppImages you might as well just use the distributions package manager for that.
nerdbaggy 6y ago
One of my big things with snap is how it locks the snap into the home directory. I get why they do that but it would be nice to override[1]. In my case I want to play audio files outside of my home directory but VLC doesn’t have access. And VLC now only updates the snaps and not it’s repos so you have to use the snaps.[2] [1]https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1643706 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1643706 [2]https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html
- hn_throwaway531 6y ago
  >> In my case I want to play audio files outside of my home directory but VLC doesn’t have access You can try using soft links as a work around.
  - licebmi__at__ 6y ago
    Is this possible? Softlinks is just an indication of where to look for the file, but if the process can't see the file, a softlinks won't help. A hard link should be able to see the file, but they need to be in the same file system, and I don't know much about ubuntu's default partition scheme to say if it's doable for most of the users.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  The website you linked (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html) says: > If you wish to install the traditional deb package, it is available as usual via APT, with all security and critical bug fixes. However, there will be no major VLC version updates until the next Ubuntu release. This is in line with Ubuntu (and Debian) repo policies. You do not get major software updates in between distribution updates unless you use a third party repository. You do get bug fixes and security fixes, and/or can track unstable if you need the bleeding edge.
WesternStar 6y ago
I honestly like snaps. I like having spotify and discord working as to his other concerns I just don't care.
- zepto 6y ago
  Why not just get a Mac?
  - contravariant 6y ago
    Not saying you're wrong, but if the response to people wanting to use linux is "Get a Mac" then that's problematic.
    - zepto 6y ago
      It isn’t. I personally use both a Mac, and Linux. Openness is what makes Linux valuable. I have no desire for Linux to become like the Mac with proprietary parts of the system.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- icebraining 6y ago
  What's the problem with Spotify's deb package? Works fine for me.
  - jcastro 6y ago
    Because adding a bunch of third party-repos/packages is annoying when I need to update or upgrade major releases. Also don't want to give spotify root, I just install it and stop caring about it.
- antpls 6y ago
  Same here : I use it for Firefox and Chromium, and it just works. Another comment mentioned VLC, which should be a good candidate for frequent release too. I can understand the "proprietary store" concerns of this thread, however.
rlpb 6y ago
> The backend is proprietary. GitHub is proprietary. I understand that some people don't accept that either. But if you accept and use GitHub, then you should have no problem with snaps on this basis. Also, on this topic, consider this quote[1]: "We did that experiment with Launchpad; the people who said they wouldn’t use it because it wasn’t open source were the same people promoting a closed source alternative. When we open sourced Launchpad, they said that they wouldn’t use it anyway because Canonical was the primary contributor." I am not saying that Flatpak is proprietary. I am saying that the focus on the backend not having source available is specious. > Developer controls the updates. Users CAN defer updates (eg. because they're on a metered connection, or they only want to update on Patch Tuesdays, or whatever). However, in the default arrangement they cannot defer them indefinitely. But in today's Internet-connected world, refusing updates forever is also anti-social and unacceptable, so I don't see a great loss there. However you can manually install a snap such that it never updates[2]. > APT does a fantastic job as it is. No, it doesn't. It is fantastic for distribution releases that don't change their dependency structure after release. It's terrible for shipping new software to an existing distribution release. This is seen both in packages that must have major updates frequently (eg. Firefox, which added a whole new Rust toolchain dependency that had to be backported into existing stable distribution releases). It's also seen in various third party apt repositories that ship software to users that break their systems by causing future upgrade issues because they mess with distribution-provided dependencies in a way that future distribution package updates do not know about. apt/deb also provides no application sandboxing for third party software that you might trust less than your distribution. If as a developer you've ever tried to ship software to users as deb/apt, you would know this. Complaints about it are all over the Internet and this has been the consensus for many years. > Don't shove it down our throats, make it optional at least. It already is optional. You can remove snapd and pin snapd in apt to a negative score to never have it installed again[3]. Chromium won't be available to you as a distribution-provided deb in Ubuntu 20.04 then, but nor is it in Mint. [1] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/linux-mint-20-disables-deb2snap-packages-and-snaps-growing-external-adoption-problem/17913/19 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/linux-mint-20-disables-deb2snap... [2] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707/269 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for... [3] http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man5/apt_preferences.5.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man5/apt_prefer...
kd913 6y ago
You people do realize that snaps have been around for 4 years right? It has widespread first party support from various companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Mozilla, Google, Spotify, JetBrains etc... They have wide spread adoption with almost 10x the install base of Flatpaks. Do you guys really need to keep throwing blogs at something which isn't going away and is useful to users? How is this useful in anyway? Canonical isn't suddenly going to give up on this, and I don't even want them to.
- oblio 6y ago
  systemd went away. Oh, wait...
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    The thing about that is, even systemd contains bits of functionality that overlap with snap/flatpak now.
- quantummkv 6y ago
  The main point here is that Snaps take away control from the user. The user has no control over how and when apps update. The backend for snaps is proprietary and completely in control of Canonical. If they decide to shove ads down through Snaps, they can at any time. And the whole hijacking of the chromium apt package to backdoor in snaps without user consent is a move straight out of the Microsoft playbook This feels very natural to what Apple, Google and Microsoft do on their OS. But Canonical seems to have forgotten that such behavior is what drove a lot of people to Linux. It is never going to be accepted. Nor it should be.
  - securityfreak 6y ago
    Very well said! I am afraid there is a prophecy in your description. I have started moving all of our infrastructure away from Ubuntu at work. This sounds horrible. 2020 has been bad enough for one year.
- RNCTX 6y ago
clircle 6y ago
Snaps and flatpak help Linux work for me. My ideal desktop is a stable core with a few select user applications that I can keep current. Thanks to snaps/flatpak I can run Debian stable on my personal desktop, but keep emacs, firefox, and a few more apps at their most recent versions.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  I'd like to point out that, as far as I know nobody or very few people have problems with flatpak.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    There is flatkill.org, but that kind of comes across as FUD. The privilege escalation attack looks a bit worrying, but aside from that it looks either the same/better as/then native packaging (Sandbox for some apps), or something that is on the developer (Out of date packages). It's possible I'm misunderstanding something, if so please feel free to tell me so.
csdreamer7 6y ago
Honestly this article had some poor arguments. Like Apt being fantastic-it isn't-see below. I do not see what the hate around snaps are for. Yes, some snaps are not updated, and VLC only working in the home directory as another HN commenter said is a pain. Snaps still solve a lot of issues on Linux that Windows does not have. What happens if the new version of your editor breaks some well known plugins? On Windows you just install the older version from the archives. On Linux you risk dependency issues. Snaps are a single command to switch to an older version. Very important in both the software and media space. One option is to stay on the LTS version of Blender. Another is back when I used Atom, one upgrade completely broke a popular plugin for me because of a change in Chrome. I thought it would be fixed quickly so didn't revert the package and I lost the older version in the cache. Took the Atom devs 2 weeks to handle the change to Google Chrome-then Arch maintainer of the Atom package didn't get around to upgrading it for a week or two after that. Things like apt pinning really don't help you when you discover the issue on your main workstation. Also, doesn't change the fact that it is so much easier to revert on Windows. Snaps make version control even easier to do on Linux then Windows. The back-end being proprietary is a good argument. but for a company that has worked so long with Linux and Free Software; give Canonical a little trust to release it.
cocoa19 6y ago
The point of snap is you have one single package for all releases instead of one package for each release. This reduces the maintenance burden, while also allowing you to have up to date packages. The way this is done is by bundling all dependencies in your snap package rather than using the system ones. I think it's a great idea for applications you want to be updated frequently, like VS Code, Chrome, etc. It's not perfect, e.g. back end is closed source, but I'm glad Ubuntu is giving us options and being at the forefront of package management.
billme 6y ago
Largest issue I have with Snap is that it appears to assume the owner of a system is not in best position to make choices for their own systems. Sure, this might be true for the average user, but it is toxic to the “super user” community that’s in the best position to help support the larger community and may end up pushing them away. Snap at the very least should have an opt-out feature, if not be opt-in during an install. More criticisms maybe found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)#Critici...
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  There is an opt out feature: diversity. You can always use only the system package manager, or use a distro that doesn't use snap. All those complaints feel so moot. It's really hard to be in FOSS nowaday: you can't make a move without your users judging you all along the way, because a lot of them are idealists that expect a lot from you, yet don't think about the non tech saavy users. It's way easier to make proprietary software: most of your users don't criticise any single decision you make, you don't have to justify yourself, you get much more users, and you make money out of it.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > It's way easier to make proprietary software: most of your users don't criticise any single decision you make, you don't have to justify yourself, you get much more users, and you make money out of it. Why on Earth would you think that users of proprietary software don't criticize it? I'm pretty sure that Windows gets more criticism than Ubuntu...
    - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
      Take zoom: in HN we heard a lot of complains for ethical reasons, but the biggest part of the user base doesn't care and are just happy with it. On FOSS, you'll have complains about the software it self AND ethics from most of your users, because they are mostly technical, and contains way more idealists than the average user sample.
whatsmyusername 6y ago
I've never felt a desire or need to use snap at any point. Since we've been implementing CIS standards I've started nuking snapd on host bake. Maybe it's a thing for linux on the desktop, but my time isn't worthless so I don't do linux on the desktop.
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
I've been using Linux for 15 years as my daily OS, I love the package system, but this point of view is missing the point. Those arguments are always from very tech saavy people. They are a good exemple of purity over practicality, completly ignoring all the problems apt/yum have for the average user or dev publishing software. If you are looking for reasons as why Linux on the destkop never happen, well, this is one of them.
schmichael 6y ago
I think there are some very good critiques of snap (performance, provenance, reproducibility, namespacing, etc), and the first couple points in this article seem reasonable. However I can't agree with this: > apt/deb is a wonderful package management system and everyone is happy with it, at least the majority of Ubuntu/Debian users. Besides, dnf/rpm is also a similar packaging system for Fedora/RH systems and everyone is happy with that too. Debs and rpms are great at assembling tightly coupled monolithic systems. Great! Let's keep using them for the base system. However when I want to install a QT app on a Gnome system or gasp a proprietary app, Debs are insufficient. I want all of the QT libs embedded in the package. I want the proprietary app in a container. I want MAC with a polished UX. I don't want debs to worry about those features. I want an "app store" done right: open yet verifiable. Protection in depth.
- znpy 6y ago
  Then snaps could be the solution for proprietary software, not for regular software.
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    Statistically, proprietary software is regular software. But yeah, snaps is a great solution for that, espacially because getting a non FOSS software is not possible in official distro repos, and hosting your own repo is HARD. And that's what's happening. I installed Telegram using a snap because of this.
    - Yetanfou 6y ago
      > Statistically, proprietary software is regular software. Statistically, proprietary software in the world of Linux is a black swan. Free software is the rule, proprietary software the exception to the rule which tends to be used only when there are no alternatives.
- amelius 6y ago
  And I want: - a user-space install option - rollback functionality (!) - being able to install multiple versions at the same time and switch between them - if I really need to: being able to install the latest version (and even an unstable release); if that means that apt-get has to download and compile stuff, then I'm ok with that.
noisy_boy 6y ago
The whole snaps business was already annoying. Then my external monitor stopped being detected due to some issue with Nvidia graphics on (which probably is more Nvidia's fault then Ubuntu's). I'm using Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2. Tried Fedora 32's live usb and basically everything worked but the installer didn't detect all partitions and didn't give a choice of choosing exactly what goes into which partition without offering to wipe-out stuff (they need to take a cue from the flexibility of Ubuntu's installer). Finally tried Pop!_os's live usb and everything basically worked + had no issues with the installer either. I wasn't keen on using a derivative distro of a derivative distro; thought of using Debian but wasn't very confident if the issues won't persist on it. Considering everything just works perfectly with Pop!_os, I might just stick with it. Ubuntu was such a breath of fresh air at the beginning (I still remember Dapper Drake). It is sad to see it going this way.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Say what you will of their hardware, but the system76 team really nailed pop_os. So many little things I was used to suffering through manually configuring on a fresh install were just "right" straight out of the box. Supposedly they're working on tabbed and stacking layouts for tiled windows- if that is the case I don't know if I'll go back to i3 or sway again!
  - markbnj 6y ago
    I've been a critic of their hardware in the past, but yes they do a great job on the software. And to be fair the purchase on which my earlier criticisms were based is almost four years old now. Hopefully they have improved the hardware side of things.
  - noisy_boy 6y ago
    I don't have any experience with their hardware but I'll have to agree on the software front. I have a multi-port hub that I also connect the HDMI cable for monitor to; I connect the hub to the laptop its actually plug-n-play. I haven't had to run one command to hack/override configs etc. I tried their tiling option but didn't stick to it because when I maximized a window and toggled to another, the original window went back to being tiled. Too lazy to remember shortcuts for tiling WMs (probably to my own detriment)
julienfr112 6y ago
I think snap versus apt is a question of taste, in the spectrum black box just works vs hard to use but fully at the hand of the user. I'm currently having the same choice with python between pip and conda. At the end, Ubuntu was a very nice bridge between a use system that's just work, and server os for production (db, backend..). I hope snap won't make that old.
zubairq 6y ago
My prediction (95% confidence): Snaps will become installable from Windows (via WSL) and Microsoft will buy Ubuntu and try to take over the installers for other Linux distros by having them use Snap as the main repo. This will be Microsoft´s long term app installer strategy
gentleman11 6y ago
Devils advocate: it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access. It’s nice to have a sandboxed solution built in. It would be nice if it was a solution that didn’t have the problems that this article listed, but snaps could be adapted to be good with a few changes. Why a proprietary backend though? I suppose cannonical views packaged apps as a platform opportunity and wants to be the first to “capture” the users without somebody bigger coming and taking over?
- 2ion 6y ago
  > Devils advocate: it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access. It’s nice to have a sandboxed solution built in. It would be nice if it was a solution that didn’t have the problems that this article listed, but snaps could be adapted to be good with a few changes. Exactly. Personally I have been sticking my desktop programs into "firejail"-managed "containers" for a long time. It's a good thing that a similar solution has been implemented that is suitable to bring this too the masses.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > It's a good thing that a similar solution has been implemented that is suitable to bring this too the masses. Couldn't you just make a "default-firejail" package that installs the symlinks to firejail somewhere that's before the default install install location in your path? And maybe consider installing that in the base install, but that potentially risks breaking things unexpectedly for users.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  Wasn't AppArmor already doing this though? If I remember correctly (and I never properly read up on it, so please correct me if I'm wrong) it limits which syscalls you can do and with which parameters, like opening only certain files. I think apparmor rules/profiles were becoming more common to be delivered with their respective packages (I'm using Debian), and it sounds like that already solves your exact concern without deviating from apt: > it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access A quick glance at Wikipedia to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass seems to confirm that: > is a Linux kernel security module that allows the system administrator to restrict programs' capabilities with per-program profiles. Profiles can allow capabilities like network access, raw socket access, and the permission to read, write, or execute files on matching paths. [...] AppArmor is enabled by default in Debian 10 (Buster) [from July 2019]. (Also, I'm not a fan of claiming "devil's advocate" when you're saying something that you know everyone will agree with. It's similar to saying "downvote me all you want but [insert popular HN opinion]". Of course the principle of lease privilege for software is something lauded by every logically thinking person.)
rafaelturk 6y ago
I'm still haven't had a chance to learn more about this. Can pls someone put in plain english what snap is?
burtonator 6y ago
As a package manager for my app snaps have really been an anti-pattern and we're considering removing support for them. Here are some problems I've had: - snaps use a different directory than our main app. So if you install our debian package, then go to a snap package, all your data seems to vanish. It's just in another hidden directory. I tried to figure out how to get the directories to sync up but couldn't get it to work as it's yet 'another thing to support'. I only have so much time. - snaps have various bugs that you encounter after you've shipped the app that aren't present at build time. Mostly due to being in a container and 'reasonable' things not being accessible and needing to be granted access to via a configuration file. The strategy I'm thinking of migrating to is to just distribute as a .deb and have our own apt line that is installed during the .deb installation. I think this is what Slack and other Electron packages have migrated to which is easier for them to support. I mean conceptually it sounds great. Put your apps in a container. They will be isolated. Great. But in practice it's a nightmare. To be fair though. MacOS has similar issues when they started going with isolation and privileges. I think the main issue is that none of the OS maintainers spend a day in the shoes of a package maintainer. And if they did they don't care because they own the OS and many of these apps compete with your core product. At least you have plausible deniability that your behavior isn't anti-competitive - you're just trying to improve the security for the user! For example, Zoom got a ton of crap about their installer but they compete with Facetime which DOES NOT have to constantly ask the user for privileges. Apple granted Facetime these privileges via the OS. From the perspective of a user, it's horrible. "Can this app access your Downloads folder?" "Can this app access your Webcam?" "Can this app access your Microphone?" "Can this app access your Documents folder?" ... and on and on ad nausea.
pjfin123 6y ago
If Linux is going to have any chance of replacing OSX or Windows for the vast majority of users it needs to have a uniform executable which Snapcraft seems like the best candidate for. Without a uniform executable a lot of developers won't target Linux which is a deal-breaker for a lot of people. Clearly its preferable to install common packages from a standard package manager, and there should be better controls of how snaps get updated for power users, but most potential Linux users want apps that work like apps on their phones. This means you install it from a GUI app store, have access to proprietary apps, and then the apps keep themselves up to date.
- war1025 6y ago
  Desktop Linux doesn't really have the goal of replacing Windows or OSX. It's a hobbyist thing, target more or less at software developers, and I think that's perfectly fine. Plus, the desktop is becoming less and less relevant every year. I spend easily 10 hours a day probably at a traditional computer. My wife spends an equivalent amount of time I'd guess in front of a screen, but it's her phone.
sunstone 6y ago
I've removed snaps on my new Ubuntu installs. Not sure how well this is going to work out in the long run but if things start to mess up I'll move back to LinuxMint.
justapassenger 6y ago
There are real issues with snaps but “apt/deb is a wonderful package management system and everyone is happy with it, at least the majority of Ubuntu/Debian users” is such an immature argument.
curt15 6y ago
The anti-features of snap seem like business decisions. Making it easy for users to use alternative stores would kneecap Canonical's paid IoT offerings https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things. Also, I wonder if the ability for developers to force software updates could be marketed as a kill switch for proprietary software vendors.
dicroce 6y ago
snaps and flatpaks are something I've wanted on Linux forever: self contained apps. supporting umpteen million Linux distros is a non starter for small isv's (or even large ones). if they aren't perfect, fix them... but don't throw out the best thing thats happened to software deployment on linux in forever.
rayiner 6y ago
I like Snaps. After the debacle that is Catalina, I built my first Linux desktop in 15 years. Ubuntu 20.4 worked perfectly out of the box, with Wayland and everything. Snaps and the Snap store are a huge improvement over the previous GUI interface to Apt. I ended up settling on Silverblue, a Fedora derivative that uses an immutable base system along with Flatpak for applications, and it’s been great. Equally trouble free, and Flatpak has many of the benefits of Snaps without some of the downsides (fully open source).
kstenerud 6y ago
I wanted to love snaps. I really did. I like the idea of a self-contained program that doesn't get into DLL hell, and can't stomp all over my system if it misbehaves, and can be cleanly uninstalled. Unfortunately, snap comes with all of these extra issues that happen when the developer isn't empathizing with the user. Also, much to my chagrin, snaps don't actually uninstall cleanly, and can really hoop your system. I now install snaps INSIDE of an LXC container so that snap can't misbehave and break my system, or else if I can I just use apt with a custom repo (for docker because the snap is awful). Ubuntu 20.04 will probably be my last Ubuntu system, and that's a shame... I really liked it.
mxc4 6y ago
Are the arguments presented legitimate? Doesn't apt put the power in the hands of the distro developers and not the end users? After all they get to decide what is packaged and what is not. Its all open source code so you can download and install yourself so I don't buy the argument about it being against the GNU philosophy. Apt and snaps solve different problems. The only argument I can see here is the one about the back-end which is old and tired.
cuspycode 6y ago
I am currently using lxd to manage containers on a headless server. I just found out that lxd on Ubuntu 20.04 has snapd as a dependency, which seems a bit odd. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to install lxd without snap, or should I just ditch it and try some other lxc-container manager?
superkuh 6y ago
Snaps, flatpacks, and other containerization solutions only work on systems with OSes set up in the last 5 years. Most of the containerization is justa symptom of the real problem: future shock re: underlying libraries (c++whatever,glibc, etc) and new features being used.
kemonocode 6y ago
In my opinion, AppImage solved the problem Snap tried to solve, yet without being horribly intrusive. Kudos to Linux Mint for taking a stand in regards to it, and hopefully more Ubuntu-based distros do the same until Canonical gets the idea. I don't think they're out there trying to be malicious, but they need to be set back to the correct path as it has been the case with odd monetization choices for Ubuntu before that didn't really benefit anyone.
compsciphd 6y ago
I'll take a contrarian/devil's advocate stance. for some applications and some usage scenarios, snaps makes a lot of sense. Take a multi user system and users who run applications like chromium or firefox. It's dangerous to upgrade the application while users are running them as the files the running applications depend on can change thereby making them either break in weird ways or force the end users to restart them. if these apps were just distributed as snaps, it wouldn't matter. they would keep on using the old image without any problem, while new executions would get the new image. If one really wanted to encourage them to exit and restart (i.e. some security hole), the same mechanisms that exist today to get people to restart could be used. with that said, I think it should be a choice, not something force down our throat. if I install something with apt/dpkg , I expect it to be an apt/dpkg package, not a snap. if I want to use snap, I'll install it with snap.
Ericson2314 6y ago
....6 years of NixOS, and I kinda forgot remember that elsewhere unprivilaged users and admins can't manage packages the same way.
- ahnick 6y ago
  How is the package situation on NixOS nowadays? Do you find you have to custom install a lot of software or are there native Nix packages for most everything you need? What kind of learning curve should one expect if migrating from debian/ubuntu based distributions?
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    There are existing packages in Nixpkgs for almost everything. Home-manager has firmly emerged as the "configuration per user" tool. I might say, in fact, get comfortable with home-manager and then switch to NixOS, if cold turkey sounds like a lot. Its a very, very different sort of distro, but if you know basic function programming and are willing to do some "unlearning", you should be fine.
darren0 6y ago
I've been unhappy with the direction of Ubuntu for awhile, but having said that it's still the best collection of packages that install with fairly sane defaults for desktop/laptop. I've adopted a model of starting with ubuntu-minimal installation and just installing the debs I want (disable recommended packages by default). This gives me a fairly reliable base from Ubuntu but a system assembled how I want (except systemd, can't avoid systemd).
- afiori 6y ago
  Honest question: why not fedora?
fredsanford 6y ago
Please, Canonical! unsnap snaps. Bye bye Ubuntu if not.
uhnllon 6y ago
This is a rant against snaps. Well, lets get to it. Sorry, snaps are a LOT slower than just running a binary. Did I said they're slow, well they're slow. I have an SSD and it feels like it's 1992 and I'm trying to run some snap from a Cyrix without cache and 16MB of RAM. I switch to binary version (oh my chromium), and it freaking flash, 0.x sec. and you're there, the full app is available. Snaps are a NO GO my friends. Besides having LOTS of problems running out of the standard GUI (Gnome3), or even in the standard (supposedly heavy-tested) GUI, they are slow. Sorry, I've already said that uh? SLOW, that's snaps. If there is somebody from Ubuntu here, please take a serious look about how snapped apps (pun intended), read/write $HOME defaults. I mean we have to have defaults somewhere. So thingies like the colour theme, the theme engine, default download path, etc. are fully followed just as the user has configured them. I use Ubuntu, but I certainly would not be using in the future if my applications which now take merely 0.x seconds to open start to take, 3-4-15! seconds to open. I fact I started to look to Debian and Fedora, they currently appear to have saner defaults than Ubuntu. No, the second time I open an app in a session doesn't count AT ALL for the speed.
securityfreak 6y ago
The first I heard of snaps was while I was upgrading from 18.04 to 20.04 (I only do LTS for work servers). What drove _me_ away personally, was I had no idea what snap is and it was all over the place all of a sudden. After studying up I was like “no I don’t want that, I want to have full control over my system”. I switched to Fedora Server. The packages are much fresher, the kernel is fresher. It is a “staging” area for Red Hat, which for me is a plus. Goodbye Ubuntu. I’ve been using you as my primary Linux distro since version 6.06!
panpanna 6y ago
I'm _fine_ with snaps. As long as they are limited to applications (i.e. not OS components) and look reasonably like normal applications. Why? Because you can't ask developers to package their apps for 100+ distros. And they let us run latest versions of apps on an otherwise stable/old OS.
- Shared404 6y ago
  Flatpak and AppImage would like a word.
olafura 6y ago
Am I missing something isn't https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft and https://github.com/snapcore/snapd https://github.com/snapcore/snapd Free Software under the GPL3. I had seen some discussion before about the server not being open source but I can clearly see the store api there. I'm just looking at the code now and haven't taken any time in testing it out for myself yet. Regarding debian packages and apt as we have seen with the amount of PPAs, there really has to be some solution for that. I like the snap format I believe it's heading in the right direction. It still has some problems with desktop software but that seems to be addressed as it has progressed. There is this strange cold war between Red Hat and Canonical and Red Had seem to have most of the NIH problems if you look at the history. I really don't think Red Hat or some of it's developers possible like relying on code from Canonical.

i recently upgraded ubuntu and had to start dealing with snaps.. of the two i tried to install they were both out of date and i ended up using apt to great success. what was the point of this thing?

parrellel 6y ago
Someone looked up from his workstation, put a finger in the air and said: Containers are Cool, Windows 10 is cool, what if we made Containers like Windows 10 and then mounted them like Mac mounts installation files!
newacct583 6y ago
> of the two i tried to install Which two? I mean, a package is only as good as its curator. That sounds more like a complaint about Ubuntu's Snap update policy or the community support for whatever you were trying to install than anything about Snap. I don't understand the fuss here. People who want control over the open source software they install still have it, it still works like it always has. People who don't care can't even tell the difference. And in a handful of situations, like large apps with extensive dependencies, or externally managed builds, or needs for cross-distro binary compatibility, Snap has real and tangible advantages.
- safetyfirstb 6y ago
  I think the issue here is that the apt versions are not always maintained after an app moves to snap releases. > And in a handful of situations, like large apps with extensive dependencies, or externally managed builds, or needs for cross-distro binary compatibility, Snap has real and tangible advantages. I see that snaps can offer these advantages, but so can AppImage and FlatPak, and these are even more cross-platform and don't come with the same limited ecosystem.

SweetestRug 6y ago

I had been an Ubuntu user for almost 16 years, on servers, laptops, and recently containers. The snap situation with Ubuntu is just plain unpalatable, both in principal and in practice. I became so disappointed in the move by Canonical that I finally left Ubuntu altogether and no longer recommend it to friends and colleagues. It takes years to cultivate a garden, but only minutes to destroy it.

TheLastSamurai 6y ago
Linux Mint responded to the situation by removing snap from their repositories today[1]. I hope other distros will also follow suite. [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-mint-dumps-ubuntu-snap/
mytailorisrich 6y ago
The gravy train of owning the platform with an app store like Google and Apple do is just too tempting to resist trying to pull it off, unfortunately.
dheera 6y ago
There are also these "AppImage" files. They launch, but there is no guidance on how to install them to the system. Launching Chrome: I click the Chrome icon. Launching PrusaSlicer: Start a terminal and type chmod 755 ~/Downloads/PrusaSlicer-2.2.0+linux-x64-202003211856.AppImage ~/Downloads/PrusaSlicer-2.2.0+linux-x64-202003211856.AppImage That doesn't seem like progress to me from a UX perspective.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  From the limited experience I had with an AppImage I found they usually create a .desktop file to make the program searchable. Though I have to agree that there is no really simple, gui way to install AppImages.
  - e2le 6y ago
    If you want a centralised repository of AppImages you might as well just use the distributions package manager for that.

nerdbaggy 6y ago

One of my big things with snap is how it locks the snap into the home directory. I get why they do that but it would be nice to override[1]. In my case I want to play audio files outside of my home directory but VLC doesn’t have access. And VLC now only updates the snaps and not it’s repos so you have to use the snaps.[2] [1]https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1643706 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1643706 [2]https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html

hn_throwaway531 6y ago
>> In my case I want to play audio files outside of my home directory but VLC doesn’t have access You can try using soft links as a work around.
- licebmi__at__ 6y ago
  Is this possible? Softlinks is just an indication of where to look for the file, but if the process can't see the file, a softlinks won't help. A hard link should be able to see the file, but they need to be in the same file system, and I don't know much about ubuntu's default partition scheme to say if it's doable for most of the users.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
oarsinsync 6y ago
The website you linked (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html) says: > If you wish to install the traditional deb package, it is available as usual via APT, with all security and critical bug fixes. However, there will be no major VLC version updates until the next Ubuntu release. This is in line with Ubuntu (and Debian) repo policies. You do not get major software updates in between distribution updates unless you use a third party repository. You do get bug fixes and security fixes, and/or can track unstable if you need the bleeding edge.

WesternStar 6y ago

I honestly like snaps. I like having spotify and discord working as to his other concerns I just don't care.

zepto 6y ago
Why not just get a Mac?
- contravariant 6y ago
  Not saying you're wrong, but if the response to people wanting to use linux is "Get a Mac" then that's problematic.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It isn’t. I personally use both a Mac, and Linux. Openness is what makes Linux valuable. I have no desire for Linux to become like the Mac with proprietary parts of the system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
icebraining 6y ago
What's the problem with Spotify's deb package? Works fine for me.
- jcastro 6y ago
  Because adding a bunch of third party-repos/packages is annoying when I need to update or upgrade major releases. Also don't want to give spotify root, I just install it and stop caring about it.
antpls 6y ago
Same here : I use it for Firefox and Chromium, and it just works. Another comment mentioned VLC, which should be a good candidate for frequent release too. I can understand the "proprietary store" concerns of this thread, however.

rlpb 6y ago

> The backend is proprietary. GitHub is proprietary. I understand that some people don't accept that either. But if you accept and use GitHub, then you should have no problem with snaps on this basis. Also, on this topic, consider this quote[1]: "We did that experiment with Launchpad; the people who said they wouldn’t use it because it wasn’t open source were the same people promoting a closed source alternative. When we open sourced Launchpad, they said that they wouldn’t use it anyway because Canonical was the primary contributor." I am not saying that Flatpak is proprietary. I am saying that the focus on the backend not having source available is specious. > Developer controls the updates. Users CAN defer updates (eg. because they're on a metered connection, or they only want to update on Patch Tuesdays, or whatever). However, in the default arrangement they cannot defer them indefinitely. But in today's Internet-connected world, refusing updates forever is also anti-social and unacceptable, so I don't see a great loss there. However you can manually install a snap such that it never updates[2]. > APT does a fantastic job as it is. No, it doesn't. It is fantastic for distribution releases that don't change their dependency structure after release. It's terrible for shipping new software to an existing distribution release. This is seen both in packages that must have major updates frequently (eg. Firefox, which added a whole new Rust toolchain dependency that had to be backported into existing stable distribution releases). It's also seen in various third party apt repositories that ship software to users that break their systems by causing future upgrade issues because they mess with distribution-provided dependencies in a way that future distribution package updates do not know about. apt/deb also provides no application sandboxing for third party software that you might trust less than your distribution. If as a developer you've ever tried to ship software to users as deb/apt, you would know this. Complaints about it are all over the Internet and this has been the consensus for many years. > Don't shove it down our throats, make it optional at least. It already is optional. You can remove snapd and pin snapd in apt to a negative score to never have it installed again[3]. Chromium won't be available to you as a distribution-provided deb in Ubuntu 20.04 then, but nor is it in Mint. [1] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/linux-mint-20-disables-deb2snap-packages-and-snaps-growing-external-adoption-problem/17913/19 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/linux-mint-20-disables-deb2snap... [2] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707/269 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for... [3] http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man5/apt_preferences.5.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man5/apt_prefer...

kd913 6y ago

You people do realize that snaps have been around for 4 years right? It has widespread first party support from various companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Mozilla, Google, Spotify, JetBrains etc... They have wide spread adoption with almost 10x the install base of Flatpaks. Do you guys really need to keep throwing blogs at something which isn't going away and is useful to users? How is this useful in anyway? Canonical isn't suddenly going to give up on this, and I don't even want them to.

oblio 6y ago
systemd went away. Oh, wait...
- cycloptic 6y ago
  The thing about that is, even systemd contains bits of functionality that overlap with snap/flatpak now.
quantummkv 6y ago
The main point here is that Snaps take away control from the user. The user has no control over how and when apps update. The backend for snaps is proprietary and completely in control of Canonical. If they decide to shove ads down through Snaps, they can at any time. And the whole hijacking of the chromium apt package to backdoor in snaps without user consent is a move straight out of the Microsoft playbook This feels very natural to what Apple, Google and Microsoft do on their OS. But Canonical seems to have forgotten that such behavior is what drove a lot of people to Linux. It is never going to be accepted. Nor it should be.
- securityfreak 6y ago
  Very well said! I am afraid there is a prophecy in your description. I have started moving all of our infrastructure away from Ubuntu at work. This sounds horrible. 2020 has been bad enough for one year.
RNCTX 6y ago

clircle 6y ago

Snaps and flatpak help Linux work for me. My ideal desktop is a stable core with a few select user applications that I can keep current. Thanks to snaps/flatpak I can run Debian stable on my personal desktop, but keep emacs, firefox, and a few more apps at their most recent versions.

RealStickman_ 6y ago
I'd like to point out that, as far as I know nobody or very few people have problems with flatpak.
- Shared404 6y ago
  There is flatkill.org, but that kind of comes across as FUD. The privilege escalation attack looks a bit worrying, but aside from that it looks either the same/better as/then native packaging (Sandbox for some apps), or something that is on the developer (Out of date packages). It's possible I'm misunderstanding something, if so please feel free to tell me so.

csdreamer7 6y ago

Honestly this article had some poor arguments. Like Apt being fantastic-it isn't-see below. I do not see what the hate around snaps are for. Yes, some snaps are not updated, and VLC only working in the home directory as another HN commenter said is a pain. Snaps still solve a lot of issues on Linux that Windows does not have. What happens if the new version of your editor breaks some well known plugins? On Windows you just install the older version from the archives. On Linux you risk dependency issues. Snaps are a single command to switch to an older version. Very important in both the software and media space. One option is to stay on the LTS version of Blender. Another is back when I used Atom, one upgrade completely broke a popular plugin for me because of a change in Chrome. I thought it would be fixed quickly so didn't revert the package and I lost the older version in the cache. Took the Atom devs 2 weeks to handle the change to Google Chrome-then Arch maintainer of the Atom package didn't get around to upgrading it for a week or two after that. Things like apt pinning really don't help you when you discover the issue on your main workstation. Also, doesn't change the fact that it is so much easier to revert on Windows. Snaps make version control even easier to do on Linux then Windows. The back-end being proprietary is a good argument. but for a company that has worked so long with Linux and Free Software; give Canonical a little trust to release it.

cocoa19 6y ago

The point of snap is you have one single package for all releases instead of one package for each release. This reduces the maintenance burden, while also allowing you to have up to date packages. The way this is done is by bundling all dependencies in your snap package rather than using the system ones. I think it's a great idea for applications you want to be updated frequently, like VS Code, Chrome, etc. It's not perfect, e.g. back end is closed source, but I'm glad Ubuntu is giving us options and being at the forefront of package management.

billme 6y ago

Largest issue I have with Snap is that it appears to assume the owner of a system is not in best position to make choices for their own systems. Sure, this might be true for the average user, but it is toxic to the “super user” community that’s in the best position to help support the larger community and may end up pushing them away. Snap at the very least should have an opt-out feature, if not be opt-in during an install. More criticisms maybe found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)#Critici...

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
There is an opt out feature: diversity. You can always use only the system package manager, or use a distro that doesn't use snap. All those complaints feel so moot. It's really hard to be in FOSS nowaday: you can't make a move without your users judging you all along the way, because a lot of them are idealists that expect a lot from you, yet don't think about the non tech saavy users. It's way easier to make proprietary software: most of your users don't criticise any single decision you make, you don't have to justify yourself, you get much more users, and you make money out of it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > It's way easier to make proprietary software: most of your users don't criticise any single decision you make, you don't have to justify yourself, you get much more users, and you make money out of it. Why on Earth would you think that users of proprietary software don't criticize it? I'm pretty sure that Windows gets more criticism than Ubuntu...
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    Take zoom: in HN we heard a lot of complains for ethical reasons, but the biggest part of the user base doesn't care and are just happy with it. On FOSS, you'll have complains about the software it self AND ethics from most of your users, because they are mostly technical, and contains way more idealists than the average user sample.

whatsmyusername 6y ago

I've never felt a desire or need to use snap at any point. Since we've been implementing CIS standards I've started nuking snapd on host bake. Maybe it's a thing for linux on the desktop, but my time isn't worthless so I don't do linux on the desktop.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

I've been using Linux for 15 years as my daily OS, I love the package system, but this point of view is missing the point. Those arguments are always from very tech saavy people. They are a good exemple of purity over practicality, completly ignoring all the problems apt/yum have for the average user or dev publishing software. If you are looking for reasons as why Linux on the destkop never happen, well, this is one of them.

schmichael 6y ago

I think there are some very good critiques of snap (performance, provenance, reproducibility, namespacing, etc), and the first couple points in this article seem reasonable. However I can't agree with this: > apt/deb is a wonderful package management system and everyone is happy with it, at least the majority of Ubuntu/Debian users. Besides, dnf/rpm is also a similar packaging system for Fedora/RH systems and everyone is happy with that too. Debs and rpms are great at assembling tightly coupled monolithic systems. Great! Let's keep using them for the base system. However when I want to install a QT app on a Gnome system or gasp a proprietary app, Debs are insufficient. I want all of the QT libs embedded in the package. I want the proprietary app in a container. I want MAC with a polished UX. I don't want debs to worry about those features. I want an "app store" done right: open yet verifiable. Protection in depth.

znpy 6y ago
Then snaps could be the solution for proprietary software, not for regular software.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Statistically, proprietary software is regular software. But yeah, snaps is a great solution for that, espacially because getting a non FOSS software is not possible in official distro repos, and hosting your own repo is HARD. And that's what's happening. I installed Telegram using a snap because of this.
  - Yetanfou 6y ago
    > Statistically, proprietary software is regular software. Statistically, proprietary software in the world of Linux is a black swan. Free software is the rule, proprietary software the exception to the rule which tends to be used only when there are no alternatives.
amelius 6y ago
And I want: - a user-space install option - rollback functionality (!) - being able to install multiple versions at the same time and switch between them - if I really need to: being able to install the latest version (and even an unstable release); if that means that apt-get has to download and compile stuff, then I'm ok with that.

noisy_boy 6y ago

The whole snaps business was already annoying. Then my external monitor stopped being detected due to some issue with Nvidia graphics on (which probably is more Nvidia's fault then Ubuntu's). I'm using Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2. Tried Fedora 32's live usb and basically everything worked but the installer didn't detect all partitions and didn't give a choice of choosing exactly what goes into which partition without offering to wipe-out stuff (they need to take a cue from the flexibility of Ubuntu's installer). Finally tried Pop!_os's live usb and everything basically worked + had no issues with the installer either. I wasn't keen on using a derivative distro of a derivative distro; thought of using Debian but wasn't very confident if the issues won't persist on it. Considering everything just works perfectly with Pop!_os, I might just stick with it. Ubuntu was such a breath of fresh air at the beginning (I still remember Dapper Drake). It is sad to see it going this way.

zdragnar 6y ago
Say what you will of their hardware, but the system76 team really nailed pop_os. So many little things I was used to suffering through manually configuring on a fresh install were just "right" straight out of the box. Supposedly they're working on tabbed and stacking layouts for tiled windows- if that is the case I don't know if I'll go back to i3 or sway again!
- markbnj 6y ago
  I've been a critic of their hardware in the past, but yes they do a great job on the software. And to be fair the purchase on which my earlier criticisms were based is almost four years old now. Hopefully they have improved the hardware side of things.
- noisy_boy 6y ago
  I don't have any experience with their hardware but I'll have to agree on the software front. I have a multi-port hub that I also connect the HDMI cable for monitor to; I connect the hub to the laptop its actually plug-n-play. I haven't had to run one command to hack/override configs etc. I tried their tiling option but didn't stick to it because when I maximized a window and toggled to another, the original window went back to being tiled. Too lazy to remember shortcuts for tiling WMs (probably to my own detriment)

julienfr112 6y ago

I think snap versus apt is a question of taste, in the spectrum black box just works vs hard to use but fully at the hand of the user. I'm currently having the same choice with python between pip and conda. At the end, Ubuntu was a very nice bridge between a use system that's just work, and server os for production (db, backend..). I hope snap won't make that old.

zubairq 6y ago

My prediction (95% confidence): Snaps will become installable from Windows (via WSL) and Microsoft will buy Ubuntu and try to take over the installers for other Linux distros by having them use Snap as the main repo. This will be Microsoft´s long term app installer strategy

gentleman11 6y ago

Devils advocate: it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access. It’s nice to have a sandboxed solution built in. It would be nice if it was a solution that didn’t have the problems that this article listed, but snaps could be adapted to be good with a few changes. Why a proprietary backend though? I suppose cannonical views packaged apps as a platform opportunity and wants to be the first to “capture” the users without somebody bigger coming and taking over?

2ion 6y ago
> Devils advocate: it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access. It’s nice to have a sandboxed solution built in. It would be nice if it was a solution that didn’t have the problems that this article listed, but snaps could be adapted to be good with a few changes. Exactly. Personally I have been sticking my desktop programs into "firejail"-managed "containers" for a long time. It's a good thing that a similar solution has been implemented that is suitable to bring this too the masses.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > It's a good thing that a similar solution has been implemented that is suitable to bring this too the masses. Couldn't you just make a "default-firejail" package that installs the symlinks to firejail somewhere that's before the default install install location in your path? And maybe consider installing that in the base install, but that potentially risks breaking things unexpectedly for users.
lucb1e 6y ago
Wasn't AppArmor already doing this though? If I remember correctly (and I never properly read up on it, so please correct me if I'm wrong) it limits which syscalls you can do and with which parameters, like opening only certain files. I think apparmor rules/profiles were becoming more common to be delivered with their respective packages (I'm using Debian), and it sounds like that already solves your exact concern without deviating from apt: > it is plain weird for every app I install to have so much file system and system access A quick glance at Wikipedia to make sure I'm not talking out of my ass seems to confirm that: > is a Linux kernel security module that allows the system administrator to restrict programs' capabilities with per-program profiles. Profiles can allow capabilities like network access, raw socket access, and the permission to read, write, or execute files on matching paths. [...] AppArmor is enabled by default in Debian 10 (Buster) [from July 2019]. (Also, I'm not a fan of claiming "devil's advocate" when you're saying something that you know everyone will agree with. It's similar to saying "downvote me all you want but [insert popular HN opinion]". Of course the principle of lease privilege for software is something lauded by every logically thinking person.)

rafaelturk 6y ago

I'm still haven't had a chance to learn more about this. Can pls someone put in plain english what snap is?

burtonator 6y ago

As a package manager for my app snaps have really been an anti-pattern and we're considering removing support for them. Here are some problems I've had: - snaps use a different directory than our main app. So if you install our debian package, then go to a snap package, all your data seems to vanish. It's just in another hidden directory. I tried to figure out how to get the directories to sync up but couldn't get it to work as it's yet 'another thing to support'. I only have so much time. - snaps have various bugs that you encounter after you've shipped the app that aren't present at build time. Mostly due to being in a container and 'reasonable' things not being accessible and needing to be granted access to via a configuration file. The strategy I'm thinking of migrating to is to just distribute as a .deb and have our own apt line that is installed during the .deb installation. I think this is what Slack and other Electron packages have migrated to which is easier for them to support. I mean conceptually it sounds great. Put your apps in a container. They will be isolated. Great. But in practice it's a nightmare. To be fair though. MacOS has similar issues when they started going with isolation and privileges. I think the main issue is that none of the OS maintainers spend a day in the shoes of a package maintainer. And if they did they don't care because they own the OS and many of these apps compete with your core product. At least you have plausible deniability that your behavior isn't anti-competitive - you're just trying to improve the security for the user! For example, Zoom got a ton of crap about their installer but they compete with Facetime which DOES NOT have to constantly ask the user for privileges. Apple granted Facetime these privileges via the OS. From the perspective of a user, it's horrible. "Can this app access your Downloads folder?" "Can this app access your Webcam?" "Can this app access your Microphone?" "Can this app access your Documents folder?" ... and on and on ad nausea.

pjfin123 6y ago

If Linux is going to have any chance of replacing OSX or Windows for the vast majority of users it needs to have a uniform executable which Snapcraft seems like the best candidate for. Without a uniform executable a lot of developers won't target Linux which is a deal-breaker for a lot of people. Clearly its preferable to install common packages from a standard package manager, and there should be better controls of how snaps get updated for power users, but most potential Linux users want apps that work like apps on their phones. This means you install it from a GUI app store, have access to proprietary apps, and then the apps keep themselves up to date.

war1025 6y ago
Desktop Linux doesn't really have the goal of replacing Windows or OSX. It's a hobbyist thing, target more or less at software developers, and I think that's perfectly fine. Plus, the desktop is becoming less and less relevant every year. I spend easily 10 hours a day probably at a traditional computer. My wife spends an equivalent amount of time I'd guess in front of a screen, but it's her phone.

sunstone 6y ago

I've removed snaps on my new Ubuntu installs. Not sure how well this is going to work out in the long run but if things start to mess up I'll move back to LinuxMint.

justapassenger 6y ago

There are real issues with snaps but “apt/deb is a wonderful package management system and everyone is happy with it, at least the majority of Ubuntu/Debian users” is such an immature argument.

curt15 6y ago

The anti-features of snap seem like business decisions. Making it easy for users to use alternative stores would kneecap Canonical's paid IoT offerings https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things https://ubuntu.com/internet-of-things. Also, I wonder if the ability for developers to force software updates could be marketed as a kill switch for proprietary software vendors.

dicroce 6y ago

snaps and flatpaks are something I've wanted on Linux forever: self contained apps. supporting umpteen million Linux distros is a non starter for small isv's (or even large ones). if they aren't perfect, fix them... but don't throw out the best thing thats happened to software deployment on linux in forever.

rayiner 6y ago

I like Snaps. After the debacle that is Catalina, I built my first Linux desktop in 15 years. Ubuntu 20.4 worked perfectly out of the box, with Wayland and everything. Snaps and the Snap store are a huge improvement over the previous GUI interface to Apt. I ended up settling on Silverblue, a Fedora derivative that uses an immutable base system along with Flatpak for applications, and it’s been great. Equally trouble free, and Flatpak has many of the benefits of Snaps without some of the downsides (fully open source).

kstenerud 6y ago

I wanted to love snaps. I really did. I like the idea of a self-contained program that doesn't get into DLL hell, and can't stomp all over my system if it misbehaves, and can be cleanly uninstalled. Unfortunately, snap comes with all of these extra issues that happen when the developer isn't empathizing with the user. Also, much to my chagrin, snaps don't actually uninstall cleanly, and can really hoop your system. I now install snaps INSIDE of an LXC container so that snap can't misbehave and break my system, or else if I can I just use apt with a custom repo (for docker because the snap is awful). Ubuntu 20.04 will probably be my last Ubuntu system, and that's a shame... I really liked it.

mxc4 6y ago

Are the arguments presented legitimate? Doesn't apt put the power in the hands of the distro developers and not the end users? After all they get to decide what is packaged and what is not. Its all open source code so you can download and install yourself so I don't buy the argument about it being against the GNU philosophy. Apt and snaps solve different problems. The only argument I can see here is the one about the back-end which is old and tired.

cuspycode 6y ago

I am currently using lxd to manage containers on a headless server. I just found out that lxd on Ubuntu 20.04 has snapd as a dependency, which seems a bit odd. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to install lxd without snap, or should I just ditch it and try some other lxc-container manager?

superkuh 6y ago

Snaps, flatpacks, and other containerization solutions only work on systems with OSes set up in the last 5 years. Most of the containerization is justa symptom of the real problem: future shock re: underlying libraries (c++whatever,glibc, etc) and new features being used.

kemonocode 6y ago

In my opinion, AppImage solved the problem Snap tried to solve, yet without being horribly intrusive. Kudos to Linux Mint for taking a stand in regards to it, and hopefully more Ubuntu-based distros do the same until Canonical gets the idea. I don't think they're out there trying to be malicious, but they need to be set back to the correct path as it has been the case with odd monetization choices for Ubuntu before that didn't really benefit anyone.

compsciphd 6y ago

I'll take a contrarian/devil's advocate stance. for some applications and some usage scenarios, snaps makes a lot of sense. Take a multi user system and users who run applications like chromium or firefox. It's dangerous to upgrade the application while users are running them as the files the running applications depend on can change thereby making them either break in weird ways or force the end users to restart them. if these apps were just distributed as snaps, it wouldn't matter. they would keep on using the old image without any problem, while new executions would get the new image. If one really wanted to encourage them to exit and restart (i.e. some security hole), the same mechanisms that exist today to get people to restart could be used. with that said, I think it should be a choice, not something force down our throat. if I install something with apt/dpkg , I expect it to be an apt/dpkg package, not a snap. if I want to use snap, I'll install it with snap.

Ericson2314 6y ago

....6 years of NixOS, and I kinda forgot remember that elsewhere unprivilaged users and admins can't manage packages the same way.

ahnick 6y ago
How is the package situation on NixOS nowadays? Do you find you have to custom install a lot of software or are there native Nix packages for most everything you need? What kind of learning curve should one expect if migrating from debian/ubuntu based distributions?
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  There are existing packages in Nixpkgs for almost everything. Home-manager has firmly emerged as the "configuration per user" tool. I might say, in fact, get comfortable with home-manager and then switch to NixOS, if cold turkey sounds like a lot. Its a very, very different sort of distro, but if you know basic function programming and are willing to do some "unlearning", you should be fine.

darren0 6y ago

I've been unhappy with the direction of Ubuntu for awhile, but having said that it's still the best collection of packages that install with fairly sane defaults for desktop/laptop. I've adopted a model of starting with ubuntu-minimal installation and just installing the debs I want (disable recommended packages by default). This gives me a fairly reliable base from Ubuntu but a system assembled how I want (except systemd, can't avoid systemd).

afiori 6y ago
Honest question: why not fedora?

fredsanford 6y ago

Please, Canonical! unsnap snaps. Bye bye Ubuntu if not.

uhnllon 6y ago

This is a rant against snaps. Well, lets get to it. Sorry, snaps are a LOT slower than just running a binary. Did I said they're slow, well they're slow. I have an SSD and it feels like it's 1992 and I'm trying to run some snap from a Cyrix without cache and 16MB of RAM. I switch to binary version (oh my chromium), and it freaking flash, 0.x sec. and you're there, the full app is available. Snaps are a NO GO my friends. Besides having LOTS of problems running out of the standard GUI (Gnome3), or even in the standard (supposedly heavy-tested) GUI, they are slow. Sorry, I've already said that uh? SLOW, that's snaps. If there is somebody from Ubuntu here, please take a serious look about how snapped apps (pun intended), read/write $HOME defaults. I mean we have to have defaults somewhere. So thingies like the colour theme, the theme engine, default download path, etc. are fully followed just as the user has configured them. I use Ubuntu, but I certainly would not be using in the future if my applications which now take merely 0.x seconds to open start to take, 3-4-15! seconds to open. I fact I started to look to Debian and Fedora, they currently appear to have saner defaults than Ubuntu. No, the second time I open an app in a session doesn't count AT ALL for the speed.

securityfreak 6y ago

The first I heard of snaps was while I was upgrading from 18.04 to 20.04 (I only do LTS for work servers). What drove _me_ away personally, was I had no idea what snap is and it was all over the place all of a sudden. After studying up I was like “no I don’t want that, I want to have full control over my system”. I switched to Fedora Server. The packages are much fresher, the kernel is fresher. It is a “staging” area for Red Hat, which for me is a plus. Goodbye Ubuntu. I’ve been using you as my primary Linux distro since version 6.06!

panpanna 6y ago

I'm _fine_ with snaps. As long as they are limited to applications (i.e. not OS components) and look reasonably like normal applications. Why? Because you can't ask developers to package their apps for 100+ distros. And they let us run latest versions of apps on an otherwise stable/old OS.

Shared404 6y ago
Flatpak and AppImage would like a word.

olafura 6y ago

Am I missing something isn't https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft and https://github.com/snapcore/snapd https://github.com/snapcore/snapd Free Software under the GPL3. I had seen some discussion before about the server not being open source but I can clearly see the store api there. I'm just looking at the code now and haven't taken any time in testing it out for myself yet. Regarding debian packages and apt as we have seen with the amount of PPAs, there really has to be some solution for that. I like the snap format I believe it's heading in the right direction. It still has some problems with desktop software but that seems to be addressed as it has progressed. There is this strange cold war between Red Hat and Canonical and Red Had seem to have most of the NIH problems if you look at the history. I really don't think Red Hat or some of it's developers possible like relying on code from Canonical.