35 ms·

Wow they're still pushing snaps, the project with some the worst engineering I've ever seen. - Extremely slow at doing anything, even the most basic commands.

Wow they're still pushing snaps, the project with some the worst engineering I've ever seen. - Extremely slow at doing anything, even the most basic commands. - Ridiculous auto-update mechanism (you can't even disable it wtf). - Random, nonsense limitations (why can't I open dot files and dot directories???). So terrible that for most apps that I installed with snaps I end up installing the deb version later on. What an abomination, it is a devil that's hurting the Linux desktop everyday.

CalRobert 4y ago
Snaps are getting me off Desktop Ubuntu after 12 years of happily using it.
- Gracana 4y ago
  Same here. I was a happy Ubuntu desktop user for over a decade. Now I’m a happy Arch user.
  - noloblo 4y ago
    Same here off Ubuntu and onto centos/fedora rpm dnf world
    - 2b3a51 4y ago
      Glad you have something sorted out. Just interested: why not Debian? i.e. still deb based distro? I'm guessing the poster above you wants recent package versions as they went to Arch.
      - groestl 4y ago
        For me it's now Debian on the server (debs) and Arch on the desktop (rolling releases, AURs).
        wankle 4y ago
        Who controls quality and security in the AUR world? It doesn't seem like something I'd want to trust?
        groestl 4y ago
        Nobody, but the specs are so simple you can audit them yourself usually. For me it's mostly about low friction packaging my own software tbh.
        calvinmorrison 4y ago
        the AUR is user supported, no claims are made, but AURs are built off of short scripts called PKGBUILDs so it's easy to audit, you're gonna want to look for the line that links to a tar archive or git repository.
      - kitsunesoba 4y ago
        In my case Debian’s old package versions can often be awkward because I’m not using Linux exclusively… my macOS and Windows boxes are running latest releases of most things which can cause problems with e.g. sync features. I usually run Fedora rather than Arch though, because in my limited experience with Arch it really doesn’t like to not be booted into for extended periods of time — if you do that the piled up updates are much more likely to break somehow or things like required config changes will slip through the cracks, whereas I have yet to experience this with Fedora.
        tomxor 4y ago
        That's kind of ironic considering how ancient some of MacOS's userland is.
        kitsunesoba 4y ago
        For my use case, the details of the userland CLI is mostly irrelevant (particularly since I maintain a FreeBSD server, which means I’m reasonably familiar with both BSD and GNU styles of these tools). Most of the time it just needs to exist, not be any particular version, and exceptions are handled well by Homebrew. Third party apps with UIs being up to date is more important.
    - noloblo 3y ago
      Need nixos for haskell as well
  - markstos 4y ago
    Same.
  - josteink 4y ago
    It’s pretty much a meme at this point, but yeah. Snaps just finally did it in for me. I’ve switched all my laptops and workstations from Ubuntu to Arch. There are rough edges here too, but on overall I’m much happier. I feel like I know how my machine works again. Ubuntu lately has been giving me that windowsy feeling with lots of things running for god knows what reason. Also in arch the repos seems to not only contain more current versions of things. They seem to bundle more things altogether.
- pydry 4y ago
  Same here. I used to use it coz it was one of the better debugged distributions that "just worked" and I didn't want to futz with deep config files like I would with arch or gentoo or deal with some confusing "nonfree" workarounds like with Debian. These days it's looking like Fedora holds that crown.
- groestl 4y ago
  I left Ubuntu server and lxd because of it. Maybe a bit emotional, but f*ck that, I don't need this in my life.
  - josteink 4y ago
    I’ve switched everything off Ubuntu but my servers. That bit is just too much effort and I can’t be bothered yet. Next server though. Not Ubuntu for sure. Probably Debian?
    - groestl 4y ago
      I chose Debian, FWIW.
      - josteink 4y ago
        How is Debian-support for ZFS these days? Is it doable to setup Debian with a ZFS root file system?
  - CoolCold 4y ago
    Can you share bit more details? I have no issues with that setup or at least I cannot notice the issues.
    - groestl 4y ago
      There were a few things wrt to clustering (which I don't need) and storage pool management that tripped me up at first, but not too bad. However, it made me worry about the fact that I might not be the target audience for the LXD project (I just need simple lightweight machines with snapshots, nothing more). When they decided to stop officially distributing debs, and promote Snap as distribution channel, that was the final straw. I don't understand what's their target audience anymore. Desktop users? My machines are sensitive about reboots, but pretty much sealed off the internet. Upgrades are tested, and happen in scheduled windows. Yet Snap auto-update insists on restarts, whenever it sees fit. Sure, I can find workarounds [0], but the complete disregard on this issue and the reason that they probably forced the LXD project to promote the dumpster fire that is Snap just didn't sit well with me. I'm gone for good. [0] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...
- lumb63 4y ago
  Canonical seems to be trying to push users off of Ubuntu. I switched to Arch from Ubuntu about 6 years ago after seeing how aggressively Ubuntu would auto-update, and because of Zeitgeist. I would never look back. Arch is customizable, simple (in the sense that there are no surprises; things work as expected), and has a great community. Folks here can argue about snaps or flatpaks, and I can happily use AUR to install nearly anything. If it’s not there, I can publish it. I’m not forced to adopt whatever GUI Canonical thinks is best for me in a given year or whatever their trendy new craze is. I can enjoy i3, tmux, vim, and ignore the rest.
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    I also switched to arch for a bit, but then I was left with an unbootable system after the arch devs shipped grub's master branch as stable. The arch devs were completely unapologetic and told me 'well maybe you shouldn't use arch if you can't recover a system who won't boot' Immediately formatted and switched to pop OS and I've never been happier.
    - lumb63 4y ago
      Yeah, Arch is definitely geared toward a more technically proficient user base. Their users, myself included, are typically willing to wrestle with changes like that. Recovering a system that won’t boot is almost a rite of passage in the community, since there’s an expectation that you probably built up the entire boot process by yourself, so you ought to know what it’s doing. For some users, that’s simply not true. For future reference, if you ever decide to switch back, breaking changes or ones which require manual intervention are usually announced on archlinux.org.
      - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
        Yeah I was using endeavoros which was basically vanilla arch with an installer at the time. https://old.reddit.com/r/EndeavourOS/comments/wygfds/full_transparency_on_the_grub_issue/ https://old.reddit.com/r/EndeavourOS/comments/wygfds/full_tr...
- pmontra 4y ago
  I moved to Debian 11 and recreated exactly the same quite customized GNOME desktop I had on Ubuntu 20.04. Nothing is missing except snaps.
  - wankle 4y ago
    I've had issues recently with WiFi on multiple different machines on Debian 11 and switched back to Ubuntu, is WiFi working for you?
    - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
      What wifi chip are you using? Debian by default has no unfree wifi drivers included, so that can cause issues with them. If you have a good wifi adapter by a vendor that pushes drivers upstream like Mediatek, it should work just fine out of the box.
      - 7speter 4y ago
        Would using debian non free address this?
        Tuna-Fish 4y ago
        I presume so, but I wouldn't know because I haven't ever tried.
      - slim 4y ago
        or install from non-free ... which will not be needed anymore for next release https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
        wankle 4y ago
        Yes I was using the non-free version. It was working fine until I'd set the machines to auto-update then one day found out they had zero connectivity after an update. I thought about going around to each machine and manually trying to revert back whatever was in the updates that broke it and just decided to wipe and install Ubuntu back on them.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  I switched to pop OS (after a brief stint with an arch distro) and have never been happier.
  - ehecatl42 4y ago
    Pop really is a very pleasant experience, and probably the best I've had on a personal computer. 3/4 of my immediate family run it on Thinkpads; the only hold-out is a Gentoo teenager wanting to be "weird".
    - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
      Hey man, sometimes you want a distro where you can really muck about with the internals. I started with redhat 6.2 and then went to slackware until I cared more about being productive than learning internals. It's good to explore as a teen.
- gtaylor 4y ago
  Same. Just moved to Fedora about 6 months ago and have pleasantly surprised. Works better on my laptop as well.
- bitcharmer 4y ago
  Same, my next OS reinstall will be Fedora and I've been a loyal Ubuntu user for the last 20 years. It takes around 20 seconds to start a silly Spotify client on my dual Xeon workstation with 64 GB of RAM. Numerous users reporting slow startup times but Canonical just pretend the problem doesn't exist and proceed to shove snap down everyone's throats like their lives depend on it.
_0ffh 4y ago
Yup, I ditched Ubuntu for good when they started with this snap nonsense.
Jnr 4y ago
For some reasons they ship it with servers as well. So the first task after getting ubuntu up and running, you have to uninstall snap.
- hobs 4y ago
  One of many reasons to not use ubuntu for your servers.
- 7speter 4y ago
  Well snaps are supposed to be this great server feature because you can install whatever great program from whatever other distro ecosystem using snaps… or something
- dizhn 4y ago
  LXD is a legit product. Too bad they only ship it as snaps. I think Debian finally has packages for it but I haven't tested it. I actually stopped using it because I don't want to use an Ubuntu stewarded project. More and more it's getting harder to use plain lxc. Almost all resources are talking about it in an lxd context nowadays.
  - rascul 4y ago
    openSUSE has natively packaged LXD in their official repo. Looks like Debian bookworm does as well.
  - Jnr 4y ago
    After using lxc and then lxd for some time I switched to Docker and never looked back.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  I'm curious - what's wrong with snaps on the server?
  - Jnr 4y ago
    Same as on Desktop. They are terribly slow, resource hungry, update automatically. On a bit older desktop I have seen it take 5-10 seconds just to start Chromium. And not the initial start after fresh install, it happens every single time. Meanwhile Flatpak or local packages start instantly on the same machine.
Spivak 4y ago
> it is a devil that's hurting the Linux desktop everyday Don't you just remove it if you're using Ubuntu, never install it if you use Debian/Fedora/Arch, and pretend it doesn't exist? I've never run into an app I want that is only packaged for Snap.
- wilonth 4y ago
  Some apps chose to distribute with snaps first, past and present. And without snaps they might've pushed a more unified or better experience with something better. Canonical has money to do lots of good, too bad they waste it on terrible engineers and terrible projects.
- Saris 4y ago
  On Ubuntu they hijack apt commands to install the snap instead for some packages, so removing snap is only part of the steps you'd have to do.
skeletal88 4y ago
I have no idea how to update firefox because of this. I get some notification about not being able to update but it doesn't tell me why.
- noveltyaccount 4y ago
  You have to quit Firefox and then manually update the Snap. I thought restarting Firefox would trigger auto-update, but no.
inciampati 4y ago
My father in law has been driven mad by the snap notification that say you have to close an application within the next 30 days in order for it to be updateable.
- jmholla 4y ago
  And it's not anytime within the next 30 days, it's a time in the next 30 days where it being closed coincides with snaps auto-updates.
- curt15 4y ago
  It's like they were inspired by Microsoft's worst practices.
Saris 4y ago
My favorite experience with snaps is Firefox just closing in the middle of doing something because it wanted to update, and it didn't even bother to check if I was using it first.
- camgunz 4y ago
  This happened to me on my work laptop and I immediately closed the lid and started using my personal Mac instead. Fuuuuuuuuuuck that.
- enobrev 4y ago
  This happened to me and since I had to immediately stop what I was doing, I used the opportunity to take snap off my system completely and reinstall Firefox properly.
- sockaddr 4y ago
  This also happened to me. So I decided to uninstall the snap and “apt install firefox” Guess what I got? A freaking snap. Yes, try it. I’m done with Ubuntu
  - friend_and_foe 4y ago
    Everyone's done with Ubuntu. It's just not good. Its got a stereotype at this point for being the easy noob distro but that's not even true. Its top to bottom awful and has been for many years.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      My favorite fail with Ubuntu is every version changes how DNS configuration works.
      - hedora 4y ago
        This was my last straw. I installed some 6 month old LTS release, and it had to go through a 2-5 second timeout step on the initial lookup of each new dns name. Then, it would populate a local cache, and work well until the TTL expired or whatever. Anyway, if you are looking for a noob distro, I recommend manjaro. (The AUR packages are extremely unstable, but other than that, it’s pretty competitive with what Ubuntu was 10-15 years ago.)
cabirum 4y ago
Deleting and pinning snapd is the first thing I do on every fresh Ubuntu install. Next, install ff from mozillateam ppa and chromium from flatpak.
- wankle 4y ago
  I do the same, pin snap. For Firefox I just download it, it lets me update it from its Help menu then offers to restart itself. I don't use Chromium, use Chrome. It does seem like Canonical is trying to push away all but corporate users, perhaps even all Desktop users.
markstos 4y ago
I like the security features of Snaps would accept some trade-offs for that benefit, but Canonical started shipping a Snap of a browser with known issues like breaking media keys. Security improvements are welcome, but that was a feature that seemed important and reasonable to keep working. (Maybe it works now, but based on that experience, I gave up on Snaps until I heard more positive reports).
calvinmorrison 4y ago
snaps just create so many weird sandboxing issues with the environment. If I run "firefox" with it already open it will not create a new window, it will wait 30 seconds and generate "firefox is already running". I tried about 10 times to get mysql workbench running, but it depends on some key store backend through dbus, I haven't be able to get the conncetions working through snap so i cannot access a database since, for whatever reason, it has to go through the keystore. The failure message? 'dbus-launch' does not exist.
ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
I've been using ubuntu server for I don't even know how long, but am going to be moving all my stuff to debian when I rebuild my hardware here soon. I should've done it a long time ago but until recently Ubuntu has been "debian but with some nice little extra bits of effort here and there to help make it smoother". Now it's "debian but with a lot of spicy canonical opinions dumped on it".
brnt 4y ago
I've started using Ubuntu in Warthog times, when their value prop was refreshing and sorely needed: an out of the box usable Linux distro. It was my distro until 2020, when I realized they were going in a direction I don't care for (you could argue a direction opposite their original mission), and that other distros have reached and exceeded Ubuntus level of polish. Basically, take your pick, and it's gonna be at least as good. I ended up with Debian because I like stable but not ancient (CentOS?) and it comes with a release cadence similar to Ubuntu LTS.
Seattle3503 4y ago
The file limitations kill my productivity. For permission reasons Firefox won't open local html file on my machine. My work VPN loads a loval file to log in.
JeremyNT 4y ago
This is some crazy NIH syndrome from Canonical. We've been here before, of course - they pushed their own DE (the original Unity, not the current GNOME theme) for a while as a competitor to GNOME, and they also pushed Upstart over systemd. There are probably other cases I'm missing. Eventually they gave up on those pet projects for pragmatic reasons, but Snaps seem to be the hill they want to die on (presumably for internal political reasons and/or some weak attempt at lockin).
- techwizrd 4y ago
  This is bone-headed NIH move from Canonical, but I don't think either of those are good examples. Both Unity and Upstart were released prior to Gnome 3.0 and Systemd respectively and had a quite a significant investment in development time from developers and Canonical as well as an existing base of regular users and corporate users. The original Unity DE was released in 2010 prior to the release of Gnome 3.0 in 2011. Upstart was originally included in Ubuntu in 2006 to replace sysvinit, and writing upstart scripts was a huge breath of fresh air. Systemd was released in 2010. As a developer and user, I hate snaps _and_ flatpak. Both are user-hostile and constant source of problems requiring hours of Googling (especially the Flatpak sandbox!). I ended up purging both from my system a month ago and have been much happier since.
thangalin 4y ago
And: - Violates XDG Base Directory Specification https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053
sliken 4y ago
I hate snaps, doubly so when they appeared on a LTS release and some /dev/random sillyness broke simple things like booting. However this seems pretty silly when what actually changed is the default OS installs will not have flatpak installed. Easily fixed with "apt install flatpak". It's just a default they are changing, not purging flatpaks or preventing them from working well.
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Canonical is an expert marksman footgunner. They take bizarre risks and insist on reinventing things badly. Security, infrastructure ecosystem integration, and defaults that don't work with reality. The advantage of RHEL/Cent and sometimes Fedora server-side is it's boringly-reliable. The kernel especially. For development, the userland isn't great and the desktop is mediocre. Qubes is interesting for security, containerization, and running apps isolation where Fedora, Cent, and Debian (possibly Ubuntu and Windows) are all side-by-side choices as app substrates.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  Canonical makes a server OS and also releases a desktop version for nostalgia reasons (my guess). They should just deprecate Ubuntu Desktop already and be done with it.
CoolCold 4y ago
On my servers I use LXD and certbot from snaps, cannot say I have any noticeable complains here.
phendrenad2 4y ago
This is the kind of attitude that holds Linux back. Nothing is ever good enough, but "doing nothing" is considered just fine. Snaps aren't perfect, but adding "the ability to edit dotfiles" later on is a whole heck of a lot easier than whatever you're a fan of.

CalRobert 4y ago

Snaps are getting me off Desktop Ubuntu after 12 years of happily using it.

Gracana 4y ago
Same here. I was a happy Ubuntu desktop user for over a decade. Now I’m a happy Arch user.
- noloblo 4y ago
  Same here off Ubuntu and onto centos/fedora rpm dnf world
  - 2b3a51 4y ago
    Glad you have something sorted out. Just interested: why not Debian? i.e. still deb based distro? I'm guessing the poster above you wants recent package versions as they went to Arch.
    - groestl 4y ago
      For me it's now Debian on the server (debs) and Arch on the desktop (rolling releases, AURs).
      - wankle 4y ago
        Who controls quality and security in the AUR world? It doesn't seem like something I'd want to trust?
        groestl 4y ago
        Nobody, but the specs are so simple you can audit them yourself usually. For me it's mostly about low friction packaging my own software tbh.
        calvinmorrison 4y ago
        the AUR is user supported, no claims are made, but AURs are built off of short scripts called PKGBUILDs so it's easy to audit, you're gonna want to look for the line that links to a tar archive or git repository.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      In my case Debian’s old package versions can often be awkward because I’m not using Linux exclusively… my macOS and Windows boxes are running latest releases of most things which can cause problems with e.g. sync features. I usually run Fedora rather than Arch though, because in my limited experience with Arch it really doesn’t like to not be booted into for extended periods of time — if you do that the piled up updates are much more likely to break somehow or things like required config changes will slip through the cracks, whereas I have yet to experience this with Fedora.
      - tomxor 4y ago
        That's kind of ironic considering how ancient some of MacOS's userland is.
        kitsunesoba 4y ago
        For my use case, the details of the userland CLI is mostly irrelevant (particularly since I maintain a FreeBSD server, which means I’m reasonably familiar with both BSD and GNU styles of these tools). Most of the time it just needs to exist, not be any particular version, and exceptions are handled well by Homebrew. Third party apps with UIs being up to date is more important.
  - noloblo 3y ago
    Need nixos for haskell as well
- markstos 4y ago
  Same.
- josteink 4y ago
  It’s pretty much a meme at this point, but yeah. Snaps just finally did it in for me. I’ve switched all my laptops and workstations from Ubuntu to Arch. There are rough edges here too, but on overall I’m much happier. I feel like I know how my machine works again. Ubuntu lately has been giving me that windowsy feeling with lots of things running for god knows what reason. Also in arch the repos seems to not only contain more current versions of things. They seem to bundle more things altogether.
pydry 4y ago
Same here. I used to use it coz it was one of the better debugged distributions that "just worked" and I didn't want to futz with deep config files like I would with arch or gentoo or deal with some confusing "nonfree" workarounds like with Debian. These days it's looking like Fedora holds that crown.
groestl 4y ago
I left Ubuntu server and lxd because of it. Maybe a bit emotional, but f*ck that, I don't need this in my life.
- josteink 4y ago
  I’ve switched everything off Ubuntu but my servers. That bit is just too much effort and I can’t be bothered yet. Next server though. Not Ubuntu for sure. Probably Debian?
  - groestl 4y ago
    I chose Debian, FWIW.
    - josteink 4y ago
      How is Debian-support for ZFS these days? Is it doable to setup Debian with a ZFS root file system?
- CoolCold 4y ago
  Can you share bit more details? I have no issues with that setup or at least I cannot notice the issues.
  - groestl 4y ago
    There were a few things wrt to clustering (which I don't need) and storage pool management that tripped me up at first, but not too bad. However, it made me worry about the fact that I might not be the target audience for the LXD project (I just need simple lightweight machines with snapshots, nothing more). When they decided to stop officially distributing debs, and promote Snap as distribution channel, that was the final straw. I don't understand what's their target audience anymore. Desktop users? My machines are sensitive about reboots, but pretty much sealed off the internet. Upgrades are tested, and happen in scheduled windows. Yet Snap auto-update insists on restarts, whenever it sees fit. Sure, I can find workarounds [0], but the complete disregard on this issue and the reason that they probably forced the LXD project to promote the dumpster fire that is Snap just didn't sit well with me. I'm gone for good. [0] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for-snap-from-store/707 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...
lumb63 4y ago
Canonical seems to be trying to push users off of Ubuntu. I switched to Arch from Ubuntu about 6 years ago after seeing how aggressively Ubuntu would auto-update, and because of Zeitgeist. I would never look back. Arch is customizable, simple (in the sense that there are no surprises; things work as expected), and has a great community. Folks here can argue about snaps or flatpaks, and I can happily use AUR to install nearly anything. If it’s not there, I can publish it. I’m not forced to adopt whatever GUI Canonical thinks is best for me in a given year or whatever their trendy new craze is. I can enjoy i3, tmux, vim, and ignore the rest.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  I also switched to arch for a bit, but then I was left with an unbootable system after the arch devs shipped grub's master branch as stable. The arch devs were completely unapologetic and told me 'well maybe you shouldn't use arch if you can't recover a system who won't boot' Immediately formatted and switched to pop OS and I've never been happier.
  - lumb63 4y ago
    Yeah, Arch is definitely geared toward a more technically proficient user base. Their users, myself included, are typically willing to wrestle with changes like that. Recovering a system that won’t boot is almost a rite of passage in the community, since there’s an expectation that you probably built up the entire boot process by yourself, so you ought to know what it’s doing. For some users, that’s simply not true. For future reference, if you ever decide to switch back, breaking changes or ones which require manual intervention are usually announced on archlinux.org.
    - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
      Yeah I was using endeavoros which was basically vanilla arch with an installer at the time. https://old.reddit.com/r/EndeavourOS/comments/wygfds/full_transparency_on_the_grub_issue/ https://old.reddit.com/r/EndeavourOS/comments/wygfds/full_tr...
pmontra 4y ago
I moved to Debian 11 and recreated exactly the same quite customized GNOME desktop I had on Ubuntu 20.04. Nothing is missing except snaps.
- wankle 4y ago
  I've had issues recently with WiFi on multiple different machines on Debian 11 and switched back to Ubuntu, is WiFi working for you?
  - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
    What wifi chip are you using? Debian by default has no unfree wifi drivers included, so that can cause issues with them. If you have a good wifi adapter by a vendor that pushes drivers upstream like Mediatek, it should work just fine out of the box.
    - 7speter 4y ago
      Would using debian non free address this?
      - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
        I presume so, but I wouldn't know because I haven't ever tried.
    - slim 4y ago
      or install from non-free ... which will not be needed anymore for next release https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in...
      - wankle 4y ago
        Yes I was using the non-free version. It was working fine until I'd set the machines to auto-update then one day found out they had zero connectivity after an update. I thought about going around to each machine and manually trying to revert back whatever was in the updates that broke it and just decided to wipe and install Ubuntu back on them.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
I switched to pop OS (after a brief stint with an arch distro) and have never been happier.
- ehecatl42 4y ago
  Pop really is a very pleasant experience, and probably the best I've had on a personal computer. 3/4 of my immediate family run it on Thinkpads; the only hold-out is a Gentoo teenager wanting to be "weird".
  - wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Hey man, sometimes you want a distro where you can really muck about with the internals. I started with redhat 6.2 and then went to slackware until I cared more about being productive than learning internals. It's good to explore as a teen.
gtaylor 4y ago
Same. Just moved to Fedora about 6 months ago and have pleasantly surprised. Works better on my laptop as well.
bitcharmer 4y ago
Same, my next OS reinstall will be Fedora and I've been a loyal Ubuntu user for the last 20 years. It takes around 20 seconds to start a silly Spotify client on my dual Xeon workstation with 64 GB of RAM. Numerous users reporting slow startup times but Canonical just pretend the problem doesn't exist and proceed to shove snap down everyone's throats like their lives depend on it.

_0ffh 4y ago

Yup, I ditched Ubuntu for good when they started with this snap nonsense.

Jnr 4y ago

For some reasons they ship it with servers as well. So the first task after getting ubuntu up and running, you have to uninstall snap.

hobs 4y ago
One of many reasons to not use ubuntu for your servers.
7speter 4y ago
Well snaps are supposed to be this great server feature because you can install whatever great program from whatever other distro ecosystem using snaps… or something
dizhn 4y ago
LXD is a legit product. Too bad they only ship it as snaps. I think Debian finally has packages for it but I haven't tested it. I actually stopped using it because I don't want to use an Ubuntu stewarded project. More and more it's getting harder to use plain lxc. Almost all resources are talking about it in an lxd context nowadays.
- rascul 4y ago
  openSUSE has natively packaged LXD in their official repo. Looks like Debian bookworm does as well.
- Jnr 4y ago
  After using lxc and then lxd for some time I switched to Docker and never looked back.
phendrenad2 4y ago
I'm curious - what's wrong with snaps on the server?
- Jnr 4y ago
  Same as on Desktop. They are terribly slow, resource hungry, update automatically. On a bit older desktop I have seen it take 5-10 seconds just to start Chromium. And not the initial start after fresh install, it happens every single time. Meanwhile Flatpak or local packages start instantly on the same machine.

Spivak 4y ago

> it is a devil that's hurting the Linux desktop everyday Don't you just remove it if you're using Ubuntu, never install it if you use Debian/Fedora/Arch, and pretend it doesn't exist? I've never run into an app I want that is only packaged for Snap.

wilonth 4y ago
Some apps chose to distribute with snaps first, past and present. And without snaps they might've pushed a more unified or better experience with something better. Canonical has money to do lots of good, too bad they waste it on terrible engineers and terrible projects.
Saris 4y ago
On Ubuntu they hijack apt commands to install the snap instead for some packages, so removing snap is only part of the steps you'd have to do.

skeletal88 4y ago

I have no idea how to update firefox because of this. I get some notification about not being able to update but it doesn't tell me why.

noveltyaccount 4y ago
You have to quit Firefox and then manually update the Snap. I thought restarting Firefox would trigger auto-update, but no.

inciampati 4y ago

My father in law has been driven mad by the snap notification that say you have to close an application within the next 30 days in order for it to be updateable.

jmholla 4y ago
And it's not anytime within the next 30 days, it's a time in the next 30 days where it being closed coincides with snaps auto-updates.
curt15 4y ago
It's like they were inspired by Microsoft's worst practices.

Saris 4y ago

My favorite experience with snaps is Firefox just closing in the middle of doing something because it wanted to update, and it didn't even bother to check if I was using it first.

camgunz 4y ago
This happened to me on my work laptop and I immediately closed the lid and started using my personal Mac instead. Fuuuuuuuuuuck that.
enobrev 4y ago
This happened to me and since I had to immediately stop what I was doing, I used the opportunity to take snap off my system completely and reinstall Firefox properly.
sockaddr 4y ago
This also happened to me. So I decided to uninstall the snap and “apt install firefox” Guess what I got? A freaking snap. Yes, try it. I’m done with Ubuntu
- friend_and_foe 4y ago
  Everyone's done with Ubuntu. It's just not good. Its got a stereotype at this point for being the easy noob distro but that's not even true. Its top to bottom awful and has been for many years.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    My favorite fail with Ubuntu is every version changes how DNS configuration works.
    - hedora 4y ago
      This was my last straw. I installed some 6 month old LTS release, and it had to go through a 2-5 second timeout step on the initial lookup of each new dns name. Then, it would populate a local cache, and work well until the TTL expired or whatever. Anyway, if you are looking for a noob distro, I recommend manjaro. (The AUR packages are extremely unstable, but other than that, it’s pretty competitive with what Ubuntu was 10-15 years ago.)

cabirum 4y ago

Deleting and pinning snapd is the first thing I do on every fresh Ubuntu install. Next, install ff from mozillateam ppa and chromium from flatpak.

wankle 4y ago
I do the same, pin snap. For Firefox I just download it, it lets me update it from its Help menu then offers to restart itself. I don't use Chromium, use Chrome. It does seem like Canonical is trying to push away all but corporate users, perhaps even all Desktop users.

markstos 4y ago

I like the security features of Snaps would accept some trade-offs for that benefit, but Canonical started shipping a Snap of a browser with known issues like breaking media keys. Security improvements are welcome, but that was a feature that seemed important and reasonable to keep working. (Maybe it works now, but based on that experience, I gave up on Snaps until I heard more positive reports).

calvinmorrison 4y ago

snaps just create so many weird sandboxing issues with the environment. If I run "firefox" with it already open it will not create a new window, it will wait 30 seconds and generate "firefox is already running". I tried about 10 times to get mysql workbench running, but it depends on some key store backend through dbus, I haven't be able to get the conncetions working through snap so i cannot access a database since, for whatever reason, it has to go through the keystore. The failure message? 'dbus-launch' does not exist.

ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago

I've been using ubuntu server for I don't even know how long, but am going to be moving all my stuff to debian when I rebuild my hardware here soon. I should've done it a long time ago but until recently Ubuntu has been "debian but with some nice little extra bits of effort here and there to help make it smoother". Now it's "debian but with a lot of spicy canonical opinions dumped on it".

brnt 4y ago

I've started using Ubuntu in Warthog times, when their value prop was refreshing and sorely needed: an out of the box usable Linux distro. It was my distro until 2020, when I realized they were going in a direction I don't care for (you could argue a direction opposite their original mission), and that other distros have reached and exceeded Ubuntus level of polish. Basically, take your pick, and it's gonna be at least as good. I ended up with Debian because I like stable but not ancient (CentOS?) and it comes with a release cadence similar to Ubuntu LTS.

Seattle3503 4y ago

The file limitations kill my productivity. For permission reasons Firefox won't open local html file on my machine. My work VPN loads a loval file to log in.

JeremyNT 4y ago

This is some crazy NIH syndrome from Canonical. We've been here before, of course - they pushed their own DE (the original Unity, not the current GNOME theme) for a while as a competitor to GNOME, and they also pushed Upstart over systemd. There are probably other cases I'm missing. Eventually they gave up on those pet projects for pragmatic reasons, but Snaps seem to be the hill they want to die on (presumably for internal political reasons and/or some weak attempt at lockin).

techwizrd 4y ago
This is bone-headed NIH move from Canonical, but I don't think either of those are good examples. Both Unity and Upstart were released prior to Gnome 3.0 and Systemd respectively and had a quite a significant investment in development time from developers and Canonical as well as an existing base of regular users and corporate users. The original Unity DE was released in 2010 prior to the release of Gnome 3.0 in 2011. Upstart was originally included in Ubuntu in 2006 to replace sysvinit, and writing upstart scripts was a huge breath of fresh air. Systemd was released in 2010. As a developer and user, I hate snaps _and_ flatpak. Both are user-hostile and constant source of problems requiring hours of Googling (especially the Flatpak sandbox!). I ended up purging both from my system a month ago and have been much happier since.

thangalin 4y ago

And: - Violates XDG Base Directory Specification https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1575053

sliken 4y ago

I hate snaps, doubly so when they appeared on a LTS release and some /dev/random sillyness broke simple things like booting. However this seems pretty silly when what actually changed is the default OS installs will not have flatpak installed. Easily fixed with "apt install flatpak". It's just a default they are changing, not purging flatpaks or preventing them from working well.

sacnoradhq 4y ago

Canonical is an expert marksman footgunner. They take bizarre risks and insist on reinventing things badly. Security, infrastructure ecosystem integration, and defaults that don't work with reality. The advantage of RHEL/Cent and sometimes Fedora server-side is it's boringly-reliable. The kernel especially. For development, the userland isn't great and the desktop is mediocre. Qubes is interesting for security, containerization, and running apps isolation where Fedora, Cent, and Debian (possibly Ubuntu and Windows) are all side-by-side choices as app substrates.

phendrenad2 4y ago
Canonical makes a server OS and also releases a desktop version for nostalgia reasons (my guess). They should just deprecate Ubuntu Desktop already and be done with it.

CoolCold 4y ago

On my servers I use LXD and certbot from snaps, cannot say I have any noticeable complains here.

phendrenad2 4y ago

This is the kind of attitude that holds Linux back. Nothing is ever good enough, but "doing nothing" is considered just fine. Snaps aren't perfect, but adding "the ability to edit dotfiles" later on is a whole heck of a lot easier than whatever you're a fan of.