8 ms·

I've been getting bug reports for a browser extension because of Snap. The file system isolation of Snap and Flatpak breaks Native Messaging, so extensions that

I've been getting bug reports for a browser extension because of Snap. The file system isolation of Snap and Flatpak breaks Native Messaging, so extensions that need to communicate with a local app, such as password managers, are now broken. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1741074 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+...

codethief 6y ago
I had totally forgotten about this! For me it wasn't just the extensions. The font in the "Save Download As…" dialog in the Chromium snap, for instance, has been completely broken for me – all characters get displayed as the infamous glyph-not-found block. To make things worse, the dialog by default suggests some random directory deep inside the snap tree as download destination. Good luck navigating to a folder where you'll find your download again, given that you can't read any of the file or folder names…
- rbanffy 6y ago
  I'm not a fan of Snap, but I'm surprised something like this font issue passed QA.
  - rrdharan 6y ago
    I think you overestimate the amount of QA resources available to the Ubuntu project. Looks like this was an issue that only happened after repeated use and seems somewhat related to individual systems' font configurations? There's more info here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1864365 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+...
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      I hope they conduct automated testing with screengrabs for high profile apps such as Chromium (that have something to gain from the snap isolation) and that the test cases have this added.
    - jlgaddis 6y ago
      > I think you overestimate the amount of QA resources available to the Ubuntu project. s/available to/allocated by/ I don't know that Canonical cares too much about doing QA themselves. It seems like they've decided to delegate that to the userbase.
- berkes 6y ago
  I've been using Linux for over 14 years exclusively. Build several linux hosting companies. I know Linux rather well. I've built a simple font manager for gnome in the past. I know the weirdness of gnome font thingies. I've had this glyph issue for over a year. In chromium, Signal, some ebook app, and several other snaps. I've tried many things. But gave up. Snap is not 'one layer of indirection' too much. It's hundreds of them. There's chroot, some VM, a virtual gnome, containerisation, weird user and permissions. And so on. This complexity made me conclude that snap is a bad solution (to a real problem). Not the glyph issue, but the fact that I cannot fix it, is, for me, the reason to conclude it has, or will fail.
  - codethief 6y ago
    Wait, since when is Signal a Snap app?
    - kohtatsu 6y ago
      Snap is a distribution format, akin to .msi or .pkg.
      - yc-kraln 6y ago
        No, incorrect. Snap is a distribution format akin to VMDK or anything else which is not intended to be "installed" to a system, but rather run in a virtual machine or sandboxed.
        SahAssar 6y ago
        If we are getting into details I think calling it a "virtual machine" is not correct either. Also since snaps have some integration with the host DE through launchers and so on they are not like VMDK's.
        efreak 6y ago
        To be even more pedantic, there's nothing stopping you from using VMDK (or other disk images like VDI, VHD, raw/dd, etc) files as a container (like tar or zip), other than some extra overhead. They can easily integrate into your desktop environment, possibly even easier since there's probably more support for mounting disk images than there is for mounting archives...
- Zardoz84 6y ago
  This could be related to Why Chrome is using a different font size that the rest my system. Chrome is the only snap program that I have . The rest are plane Debian packages or Flatpack
- julianlam 6y ago
  Right! I ran into this not five minutes into a new 20.04 install and could not for the life of me figure out where the hell my download was, or why I couldn't access /home/julian/Downloads Why this isn't more of a deal breaker I have no freaking idea.
hatsunearu 6y ago
Snap programs won't let me access /tmp/ which is really annoying ;(
axaxs 6y ago
Yeah, and I can find no way to either modify the fs or at least mount out. Opera, I think it is, requires codecs be installed in a specific directory. So, the snap is effectively useless.

codethief 6y ago

I had totally forgotten about this! For me it wasn't just the extensions. The font in the "Save Download As…" dialog in the Chromium snap, for instance, has been completely broken for me – all characters get displayed as the infamous glyph-not-found block. To make things worse, the dialog by default suggests some random directory deep inside the snap tree as download destination. Good luck navigating to a folder where you'll find your download again, given that you can't read any of the file or folder names…

rbanffy 6y ago
I'm not a fan of Snap, but I'm surprised something like this font issue passed QA.
- rrdharan 6y ago
  I think you overestimate the amount of QA resources available to the Ubuntu project. Looks like this was an issue that only happened after repeated use and seems somewhat related to individual systems' font configurations? There's more info here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+bug/1864365 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser/+...
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    I hope they conduct automated testing with screengrabs for high profile apps such as Chromium (that have something to gain from the snap isolation) and that the test cases have this added.
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    > I think you overestimate the amount of QA resources available to the Ubuntu project. s/available to/allocated by/ I don't know that Canonical cares too much about doing QA themselves. It seems like they've decided to delegate that to the userbase.
berkes 6y ago
I've been using Linux for over 14 years exclusively. Build several linux hosting companies. I know Linux rather well. I've built a simple font manager for gnome in the past. I know the weirdness of gnome font thingies. I've had this glyph issue for over a year. In chromium, Signal, some ebook app, and several other snaps. I've tried many things. But gave up. Snap is not 'one layer of indirection' too much. It's hundreds of them. There's chroot, some VM, a virtual gnome, containerisation, weird user and permissions. And so on. This complexity made me conclude that snap is a bad solution (to a real problem). Not the glyph issue, but the fact that I cannot fix it, is, for me, the reason to conclude it has, or will fail.
- codethief 6y ago
  Wait, since when is Signal a Snap app?
  - kohtatsu 6y ago
    Snap is a distribution format, akin to .msi or .pkg.
    - yc-kraln 6y ago
      No, incorrect. Snap is a distribution format akin to VMDK or anything else which is not intended to be "installed" to a system, but rather run in a virtual machine or sandboxed.
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        If we are getting into details I think calling it a "virtual machine" is not correct either. Also since snaps have some integration with the host DE through launchers and so on they are not like VMDK's.
        efreak 6y ago
        To be even more pedantic, there's nothing stopping you from using VMDK (or other disk images like VDI, VHD, raw/dd, etc) files as a container (like tar or zip), other than some extra overhead. They can easily integrate into your desktop environment, possibly even easier since there's probably more support for mounting disk images than there is for mounting archives...
Zardoz84 6y ago
This could be related to Why Chrome is using a different font size that the rest my system. Chrome is the only snap program that I have . The rest are plane Debian packages or Flatpack
julianlam 6y ago
Right! I ran into this not five minutes into a new 20.04 install and could not for the life of me figure out where the hell my download was, or why I couldn't access /home/julian/Downloads Why this isn't more of a deal breaker I have no freaking idea.

hatsunearu 6y ago

Snap programs won't let me access /tmp/ which is really annoying ;(

axaxs 6y ago

Yeah, and I can find no way to either modify the fs or at least mount out. Opera, I think it is, requires codecs be installed in a specific directory. So, the snap is effectively useless.