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A few days ago I wanted to update an Ubuntu laptop that hasn't been turned on for over a year. I had steam and brave browser installed using snap. Updating thes

by agilob 4y ago

A few days ago I wanted to update an Ubuntu laptop that hasn't been turned on for over a year. I had steam and brave browser installed using snap. Updating these two took as much time as updating everything else in the system (1.6Gb of downloads). Then I uninstalled brave, which took about 6-8 minutes. The laptop has NixOS today. NixOS has official GUI installer now https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-iso https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-iso

doubled112 4y ago
I've upgraded Arch machines after a year offline and it sounds like that was less painful. Ubuntu has been making some interesting choices lately.
- nix23 4y ago
  >Ubuntu has been making some interesting choices lately. Interesting like the Chinese Curse...true ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
- groestl 4y ago
  I found lxd very appealing in the beginning, but when they favoured snap as distribution channel, where, apparently, updates and restarts could only be blocked using the firewall [0], I moved away from it. And Ubuntu in general. [0] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707/8 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...
  - doubled112 4y ago
    I liked LXD but had the same issues. I think OpenSUSE and Alpine have it in their repos as not-snaps now.
    - groestl 4y ago
      Honestly, I could have packaged it myself, but it eroded my trust in the ecosystem. They seem to target a different use case. Which is fine by me, I just won't be in for the ride.
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    Not true any longer. Debian has been officially [1] supporting LXD Debian packages [2] since September last year. And you can add this APT repo [3] — which follows the same Debian recipes - into your sources.list to install LXD natively with APT. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/LXD https://wiki.debian.org/LXD [2] https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/lxd https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/lxd [3] https://apt.calenhad.com/ https://apt.calenhad.com/
ZeroCool2u 4y ago
I think Steam specifically does quite a bit more complicated stuff that can affect the rest of the system just to support games than most other pieces of software. It has its own built-in update mechanism, which I think makes it one of the few pieces of software I'd avoid using the package manager for.
- agilob 4y ago
  I run a `snap` command to update steam
  - nix23 4y ago
    I start/restart steam to update it.
noxvilleza 4y ago
Yeah updating flatpaks on the Steam Deck takes ages, and because of the way the SteamOS is set up - you really are incentivized to use flatpaks over actual packages (which could break with updates).
- ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago
  which kind of packs takes ages. I don't have this issue. There is no could break with updates. It is they will be wiped by an update. Install packages with distrobox.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Updating Flatpaks takes a few seconds. The standard Discover application that comes with the KDE desktop environment is awfully slow, though. Running flatpak update or whatever the exact command line is in the terminal will be much faster than trying to go through the GUI. I've seen this happen before on a Kubuntu install and on an Arch VM, I think it may just be a Discover bug.
  - noxvilleza 4y ago
    Thanks for the tip!

by agilob 4y ago

doubled112 4y ago

I've upgraded Arch machines after a year offline and it sounds like that was less painful. Ubuntu has been making some interesting choices lately.

nix23 4y ago
>Ubuntu has been making some interesting choices lately. Interesting like the Chinese Curse...true ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
groestl 4y ago
I found lxd very appealing in the beginning, but when they favoured snap as distribution channel, where, apparently, updates and restarts could only be blocked using the firewall [0], I moved away from it. And Ubuntu in general. [0] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707/8 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...
- doubled112 4y ago
  I liked LXD but had the same issues. I think OpenSUSE and Alpine have it in their repos as not-snaps now.
  - groestl 4y ago
    Honestly, I could have packaged it myself, but it eroded my trust in the ecosystem. They seem to target a different use case. Which is fine by me, I just won't be in for the ride.
- zekrioca 4y ago
  Not true any longer. Debian has been officially [1] supporting LXD Debian packages [2] since September last year. And you can add this APT repo [3] — which follows the same Debian recipes - into your sources.list to install LXD natively with APT. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/LXD https://wiki.debian.org/LXD [2] https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/lxd https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/lxd [3] https://apt.calenhad.com/ https://apt.calenhad.com/

ZeroCool2u 4y ago

I think Steam specifically does quite a bit more complicated stuff that can affect the rest of the system just to support games than most other pieces of software. It has its own built-in update mechanism, which I think makes it one of the few pieces of software I'd avoid using the package manager for.

agilob 4y ago
I run a `snap` command to update steam
- nix23 4y ago
  I start/restart steam to update it.

noxvilleza 4y ago

Yeah updating flatpaks on the Steam Deck takes ages, and because of the way the SteamOS is set up - you really are incentivized to use flatpaks over actual packages (which could break with updates).

ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago
which kind of packs takes ages. I don't have this issue. There is no could break with updates. It is they will be wiped by an update. Install packages with distrobox.
jeroenhd 4y ago
Updating Flatpaks takes a few seconds. The standard Discover application that comes with the KDE desktop environment is awfully slow, though. Running flatpak update or whatever the exact command line is in the terminal will be much faster than trying to go through the GUI. I've seen this happen before on a Kubuntu install and on an Arch VM, I think it may just be a Discover bug.
- noxvilleza 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip!