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Ubuntu to Make Firefox Snap Default in 21.10
- pull_my_finger 5y agoCan someone "sell me" on snap? I've had nothing but trouble with it in my limited experience
- snicker7 5y agoIt is, as far as I know, the only cross-distro package format that is designed to be cross-platform (desktop, server, IoT) and with built-in sandboxing. Moreover, it is feasible to base a distro off of snap alone (Ubuntu Core, designed for IoT). Flatpak has sandboxing, but is only designed for desktop apps. Not server and not IoT. Nix / Guix / AppImage does not have built-in application-level sandboxing out of the box.
- m45t3r 5y ago> It is, as far as I know, the only cross-distro package format that is designed to be cross-platform (desktop, server, IoT) and with built-in sandboxing. Moreover, it is feasible to base a distro off of snap alone (Ubuntu Core, designed for IoT). It is not really cross-distro though, since different from Flatpak, Snap assumes many features to be enabled for sandboxing to work (like AppArmor [1]): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Snap#Installation https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Snap#Installation. Flatpak only assumes, AFAIK, user namespaces support on Kernel. [1]: This can be really problematic if your distro is using other MAC like SELinux, since while they're really not designed to run together.
- BruiseLee 5y agoForced updates that can be delayed but not disabled.
- alyandon 5y agoDon't forget: 1) snapd action logging doesn't go to the system logs and gets purged after 72 hours - makes troubleshooting why something broke REALLY fun 2) "snap" directory polluting your home directory
- johnisgood 5y agoOr not being able to get older versions of a particular program. If it is possible, I would like to know how.
- anuragsoni 5y agoIf the older version is available in the snap repository it is is possible to install it. For example: snap info go shows: name: go summary: Go programming language compiler, linker, stdlib publisher: Michael Hudson-Doyle (mwhudson) store-url: https://snapcraft.io/go contact: michael.hudson@ubuntu.com license: BSD-3-Clause description: | This snap provides an assembler, compiler, linker, and compiled libraries for the Go programming language. snap-id: Md1HBASHzP4i0bniScAjXGnOII9cEK6e channels: latest/stable: 1.16.7 2021-09-08 (8298) 94MB classic latest/candidate: ↑ latest/beta: ↑ latest/edge: devel-8d2a9c32a2 2021-09-17 (8356) 99MB classic 1.17/stable: 1.17 2021-08-17 (8172) 99MB classic 1.17/candidate: ↑ 1.17/beta: ↑ 1.17/edge: ↑ 1.16/stable: 1.16.7 2021-09-08 (8298) 94MB classic 1.16/candidate: ↑ 1.16/beta: ↑ 1.16/edge: ↑ 1.15/stable: 1.15.15 2021-09-08 (8304) 95MB classic ... To install an older version you can run snap install go --channel=1.15/stable --classic
- alyandon 5y agoThat's not a generic mechanism at all though - right? It is only possible if the snap publisher has decided to support multiple release channels.
- xet7 5y agoYou can disable all Snap updates by adding a line to /etc/hosts like this: 127.0.0.1 api.snapcraft.io
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nix23 5y agoHard sell, you want to try Google Playstore...it's nearly the same ;)
- xet7 5y agoI really wish Google Playstore, and iOS/macOS App Stores would install apps automatically at background. Why I need to open those stores, click to update, and on Playstore even have it running at foreground to update? Snap installs automatically, so it's modern. Windows 11 Store, Chrome OS, and Linux Mint also can autoupdate at background. Hopefully some day on all OSes have possibility to enable autoupdates to run at background.
- nix23 5y ago>Hopefully some day on all OSes have possibility to enable autoupdates to run at background. Maybe auto-insert kernelmodules directly from the net too, that would be a dream!! ;)
- pjfin123 5y agoYour desktop apps are sandboxed and can't, for example, read all of the files in your home directory.
- pjfin123 5y agoAlso more mature than Flatpak
- 7v3x3n3sem9vv 5y agoWhat makes it more nature? From everything I've read and my own experience, it seems snap is leagues behind flatpak.
- pjfin123 5y agoThere are substantially more applications available for Snapcraft. Including mine Argos Translate! https://snapcraft.io/argos-translate https://snapcraft.io/argos-translate
- xet7 5y agoSnap is best for server apps. When I release new version of Wekan Open Source kanban https://wekan.github.io https://wekan.github.io , it's very soon updated to all servers around the world. That is great for getting Node.js etc security updates installed fast, making all servers safe. Wekan has automatic database migrations etc for upgrading database structure. Update happens fast, only minimal downtime and then server is running newest Wekan. It has worked great for many years. I have not found anything else that would install updates automatically fast like Snap. And Canonical paying all that huge server infrastructure for snap updates, build servers, bandwidth, etc. And Microsoft paying for all the repo hosting, bandwidth, etc at GitHub. And others like Linux Foundation/CNCF, IBM, MacStadium etc providing development and build servers. It's all standing shoulders of huge amount of giants. I could not afford all that server infra myself. Wekan has Snap, Docker, Source and Sandstorm versions. I'm trying to figure out how to add more packaging formats, and have current packaging formats for more CPU architectures.
- hbt 5y agotry running snap inside a docker container and see the gateway to hell it opens
- xet7 5y agoHuh? Docker has limited amount of layers, and can easily consume a lot of disk space. It's also very easy to mess up data between layers. Better would be to run Snap inside LXC containers, it works well: https://github.com/wekan/wekan-snap/wiki/Many-Snaps-on-LXC https://github.com/wekan/wekan-snap/wiki/Many-Snaps-on-LXC
- cloudbonsai 5y agoSnap actually has a lot of benefits. Developers get a streamed way of publishing Linux apps. Users get an easier access to apps, and the benefit of sandboxing. Case: at work recently I needed to use Microsoft Teams for a business meeting. With snap, I only needed to do `snap install teams`, and voila, I could start a web meeting with my customer. Without snap, I would have to install Teams from Microsoft's apt repo. I think this is pretty inferior to snap, because 1) It's harder to manage, 2) implicitly grants a root access on my machine to Microsoft, and 3) can break my system with package conflicts.
- jsilence 5y agoMaybe that will be the right time to switch to NixOS. Have been uninstalling Snap on each Ubuntu release and will not start using it when they try to make it mandatory.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- luizfzs 5y agoI am wondering if this will cause an increase in Firefox's market share, even though Ubuntu user base is small compared to other OSs (I'm assuming).
- SemiNormal 5y agoMobile is such a huge percent of market share so I doubt if one desktop distro changing the default browser moves Firefox more than 0.5%.
- Mikeb85 5y agoFirefox is already default on Ubuntu. It just means they'll be moving from a .deb package to a snap package.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- anuragsoni 5y agoFirefox is already the default browser on Ubuntu. This change is about the packaging of the browser used by the OS maintainers. I don't think this change will impact any use adoption metrics.
- Thev00d00 5y ago> Migrating the single most critical pieces of software on an Ubuntu install to a package format regularly criticised as slow and buggy is a brave move.
- johnisgood 5y agoIt is also Canonical-centric, there is pretty much only one repository under Canonical's control and closed source, and so forth. I missed out a lot of other things, but Snap is... nope. I would rather use Flatpak if I have to choose between the two. I mean, if you (generally speaking) have experience with package managers on Linux, then you can easily see the difference between them and Snap. Snap to me is similar to Google's Play Store, but for desktop.
- sigy 5y agoI will just change distros if Ubuntu doesn't start making snap an opt-in.
- dcgudeman 5y agocan you explain why you dislike snap?
- commoner 5y agoThe Snap Store server is closed source and controlled only by Canonical. There is currently no fully functional FOSS reimplementation of the Snap Store server.
- johnisgood 5y agoAnd software that releases only via Snap makes their use very limited. Before X went full Snap-only, I could at least download their .deb and easily "ar x" and "tar xvf" to get the executable which I could run, but now... nope. I avoid Snap and any piece of software that publishes their stuff on Snap only. You cannot even download stuff from Snap, you need "snapd" running and then you gotta run "snap install X". Bah. To me it is pretty much equivalent to Google Play Store, except for desktop, and for Canonical. Oh, and you cannot download older versions of the software.
- tssva 5y agoSo now the 1st thing I do on a fresh Ubuntu install will be "snap remove firefox" instead of my usual "apt purge firefox".