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Stéphane Graber's work is fantastic and LXD had a lot of potential. But Canonical managed to drive me away from it with that abomination called Snap and its aut

Stéphane Graber's work is fantastic and LXD had a lot of potential. But Canonical managed to drive me away from it with that abomination called Snap and its auto updates that could bring down a cluster without warning.

kwk1 3y ago
Thankfully, the latest release of Debian provides LXD via .deb packages.
- tecleandor 3y ago
  Really? That's great, finally I can get rid of snaps on my personal web hosting. I'll be testing it next week.
likebike 3y ago
Yeah, snaps can go to hell. In addition to what you already mentioned, they are extremely complicated to debug when things go wrong.
- Animats 3y ago
  The left column of my Ubuntu machine is filling up with useless directory icons from pseudo file systems that contain Canonical's "snaps".
medellin 3y ago
Moved completely off ubuntu after snaps were introduced. Sticking with gentoo now because it’s one of a few distros that doesn’t try to control what software you have to use.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  Me too. Turns out alpine is better for server vms for my use case and cachyos is better for desktop for my use case as wrll (at least possibly until i figure out nixos)
  - stock_toaster 3y ago
    I'm also a big fan of alpine on the server.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    While at it, have you tried Void Linux? Sort of lightweight like Alpine, but much more convenient as a daily driver.
  - maxvu 3y ago
    I recently transitioned on the desktop from Debian then-testing to Alpine edge. I switched for a newer kernel (4.9 to 6.1 for recent fixes to busted microcode -- little annoyances around charging and the touchpad) but I like a lot of things about it: quick install, up-to-date repos, easy-to-understand init, battery lasts longer...
  - generalizations 3y ago
    Do you use alpine for the host os as well as the vms? Been concerned that musl would prove a handicap. Also, can confirm void is amazing on the desktop.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      I would expect musl to be less of a problem for the host than guests, though, since a VM/container host only needs to run packaged software from the distro's official repos (mostly libvirt/docker, probably). What problem would you expect to hit?
    - 3np 3y ago
      Can confirm alpine works fine as a libvirtd/kvm/qemu hypervisor, fwiw. The one gotcha to be aware of here is that libvirtd as of now has two ways to be operated: Either run just the monolithic libvirtd service, or individual subsystems like virtstoraged. Trying to do both at the same time will cause issues. Due to the limitations of OpenRC compared to systemd for interdependent and interoperating system services like this, I stuck with the monolthic libvirtd approach and it's been running fine so far. https://libvirt.org/daemons.html#architectural-options https://libvirt.org/daemons.html#architectural-options
- micahcc 3y ago
  Have you tried nixos? Its a totally different paradigm and definitely an acquired taste, but I used gentoo for ~2 years, then used Arch for ~5 and now am switching everything to nixos. Main benefits is setting up a new machine is much easier, and updates are easier because almost all the normal configuration is managed by nixos (in the nix language) as opposed to regular files floating around etc.
- v3ss0n 3y ago
  This is the worse >The LXD section on the LinuxContainers community forum will slowly be sunset in favor of the Ubuntu Discourse forum run by Canonical A lot of useful lxd information are in forum.Stephane and the team is super helpful there. Also snap auto update kills my containers so I had to put on held. They also had just fixed a long standing bug that makes rebooting lxd container sometimes fails due to snap messing up with zfs mounts.
  - CoolCold 3y ago
    I wonder, I don't remember the case like yours - I see LXD updates, but VEs (virtual environments) are kept running fine
  - dsgsdgsdsda 3y ago
    To this day about 90% of discourse links I click do not load. Seems to be some adversarial interaction with uBlock origin. As usual Canonical is on the wrong side of history.
chubot 3y ago
Yeah I'm setting up a Debian 12 Bookworm machine right now after ~13 years of being an Ubuntu user So far it's very snappy! My Ubuntu 18.04 machine somehow "rotted" in ways that previous installs didn't -- everything became slow and janky, sorta like Windows And I specifically installed 18.04 in 2021, to avoid Snaps But now it looks like Debian will work great
- phs 3y ago
  As a stepping stone out of Ubuntu, Pop_OS! has been pleasant and snap-free.
  - Uehreka 3y ago
    The thought of people going to Pop to escape snap has me crackling.
    - sigg3 3y ago
      Tbf it doesn't default to the really slow snaps. Instead it defaults to the dreadfully slow flatpaks.
      - Kbelicius 3y ago
        You made this sound like snap is faster than flatpak. It isn't, unless something changed this year. Did something change?
      - jzb 3y ago
        My understanding is that Pop uses Flatpak sparingly, whereas Canonical is pushing Snaps for an increasing amount of software. That is, IIRC, you get (say) Firefox via Debs in Pop. Canonical wants to install it via Snap. IMO Flatpak is a great option for a set of desktop software where packaging across distros may be problematic for some reason. I use the Firefox Flatpak on Fedora / RHEL because it doesn't disable the video codecs, for instance. The native package doesn't have some codecs enabled. Canonical is (AIUI) pushing Snap for desktop and server software. And Canonical is the only source of Snaps, I believe? With Flatpak you get Flathub but AFAIK anybody could set up a repo of Flatpaks.
ChatGTP 3y ago
Stéphane made snaps too ? I hate them. I strongly dislike lxd too. If he isn’t a core person behind snaps he sure advocates hard for it.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  He works for Canonical so I'd imagine he had to get on board with snaps, like it or not.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    Working at Canonical shouldn't mean the only supported way to use LXD should be via snaps. It almost violates the whole idea of Linux.
leeman2016 3y ago
The first think I always do after a fresh Ubuntu installation is removing snap entirely. Works fine in 20.04.
mrweasel 3y ago
It is really sad that more people aren't aware of LXD, because it is a really good solution of a number of projects and it's really well done. On Snap... Even if you like Snaps packages, I can't imagine that you'd feel like it's a good choice for LXD. For a browser or email client, sure it's a solution, I suppose, but for thing like LXD it just adds an entire level over complexity that doesn't help. I'd go so far at to say that Snap packages makes LXD unusable, it's simply to complex, to messy. Canonical also have Microk8s (I think) which is packaged as a Snap, rendering it completely useless. The mental overhead required to make it function completely eliminates the point. It also completely ignores highly regulated businesses, because Snap does not care and will just roll out an update whenever it feel like it. I don't particularly like Snap, but I can see the use on desktops. For the server side... I don't know anyone who'd thinks it's neat.
- sdeziel 3y ago
  `snap refresh --hold` will hold updates indefinitely https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--hold https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--...
  - hkt 3y ago
    I suspect the thing people find offensive is that this is not the default
    - mekster 3y ago
      If the reason of snapping is that their preference isn't the default, life must be quite tough for them. If there's an option, live with it and change it. I can't see what's so destructive about snaps. It's probably another echo chamber when people find a common target to yell at.
      - severino 3y ago
        Well, it depends. I liked upstart, I liked Unity (I still use them as long as I can!) and I didn't dislike Mir, although it never came to anything. But I don't thing snaps are good, at least for me. But what bothers me the most about snaps is not what I consider to be technical deficiencies or annoyances, but the fact that it's becoming the only way to install some software packages in Ubuntu, with no other alternative than leaving Ubuntu for good.
enzoaguado 3y ago
Snap has the capability to hold updates for any period of time https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--refresh-hold https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--...
4k1l 3y ago
unfortunately, the same for me. I would really like to spin up some lxd container on fedora but not with snap.
28304283409234 3y ago
I run LXD on snap. It used to be straight up LXD using .deb. The switch has caused the host to continuously have a load of 3+. SnapD is always the top process. I actually started a migration to Archlinux, which has LXD as native packages. Insane. I know.
ghomem 3y ago
I agree. Snap is the weak point of LXD. I have been using it in production servers and until snap refresh --hold was made available my team went through the pains of snap workarounds [1] The LXD team was very proactive in the support side but the truth is that Snap is a pain and without --hold it would be possible for production servers to break out of a sudden due to uncontrolled updates (who did every think that this was a good idea?). LXD itself is a very good project because it uniformizes the use of containers and VMs with a friendly CLI - the syntax is more intuitive than the one from Docker, by the way. We recently managed to combine LXD and Puppet to manage containers and VMs in a declarative way. I am a big fan of the LXD project. Somebody else commented here that the latest Debian makes LXD available in the normal distribution packages - that is something worth checking. [1] - https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/repeatable-lxd-installations/11912/9 https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/repeatable-lxd-install...
- CoolCold 3y ago
  I'd like to hear more about your experience on joining Puppet and LXD, mind to share?

kwk1 3y ago

Thankfully, the latest release of Debian provides LXD via .deb packages.

tecleandor 3y ago
Really? That's great, finally I can get rid of snaps on my personal web hosting. I'll be testing it next week.

likebike 3y ago

Yeah, snaps can go to hell. In addition to what you already mentioned, they are extremely complicated to debug when things go wrong.

Animats 3y ago
The left column of my Ubuntu machine is filling up with useless directory icons from pseudo file systems that contain Canonical's "snaps".

medellin 3y ago

Moved completely off ubuntu after snaps were introduced. Sticking with gentoo now because it’s one of a few distros that doesn’t try to control what software you have to use.

snapplebobapple 3y ago
Me too. Turns out alpine is better for server vms for my use case and cachyos is better for desktop for my use case as wrll (at least possibly until i figure out nixos)
- stock_toaster 3y ago
  I'm also a big fan of alpine on the server.
- nine_k 3y ago
  While at it, have you tried Void Linux? Sort of lightweight like Alpine, but much more convenient as a daily driver.
- maxvu 3y ago
  I recently transitioned on the desktop from Debian then-testing to Alpine edge. I switched for a newer kernel (4.9 to 6.1 for recent fixes to busted microcode -- little annoyances around charging and the touchpad) but I like a lot of things about it: quick install, up-to-date repos, easy-to-understand init, battery lasts longer...
- generalizations 3y ago
  Do you use alpine for the host os as well as the vms? Been concerned that musl would prove a handicap. Also, can confirm void is amazing on the desktop.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    I would expect musl to be less of a problem for the host than guests, though, since a VM/container host only needs to run packaged software from the distro's official repos (mostly libvirt/docker, probably). What problem would you expect to hit?
  - 3np 3y ago
    Can confirm alpine works fine as a libvirtd/kvm/qemu hypervisor, fwiw. The one gotcha to be aware of here is that libvirtd as of now has two ways to be operated: Either run just the monolithic libvirtd service, or individual subsystems like virtstoraged. Trying to do both at the same time will cause issues. Due to the limitations of OpenRC compared to systemd for interdependent and interoperating system services like this, I stuck with the monolthic libvirtd approach and it's been running fine so far. https://libvirt.org/daemons.html#architectural-options https://libvirt.org/daemons.html#architectural-options
micahcc 3y ago
Have you tried nixos? Its a totally different paradigm and definitely an acquired taste, but I used gentoo for ~2 years, then used Arch for ~5 and now am switching everything to nixos. Main benefits is setting up a new machine is much easier, and updates are easier because almost all the normal configuration is managed by nixos (in the nix language) as opposed to regular files floating around etc.
v3ss0n 3y ago
This is the worse >The LXD section on the LinuxContainers community forum will slowly be sunset in favor of the Ubuntu Discourse forum run by Canonical A lot of useful lxd information are in forum.Stephane and the team is super helpful there. Also snap auto update kills my containers so I had to put on held. They also had just fixed a long standing bug that makes rebooting lxd container sometimes fails due to snap messing up with zfs mounts.
- CoolCold 3y ago
  I wonder, I don't remember the case like yours - I see LXD updates, but VEs (virtual environments) are kept running fine
- dsgsdgsdsda 3y ago
  To this day about 90% of discourse links I click do not load. Seems to be some adversarial interaction with uBlock origin. As usual Canonical is on the wrong side of history.

chubot 3y ago

Yeah I'm setting up a Debian 12 Bookworm machine right now after ~13 years of being an Ubuntu user So far it's very snappy! My Ubuntu 18.04 machine somehow "rotted" in ways that previous installs didn't -- everything became slow and janky, sorta like Windows And I specifically installed 18.04 in 2021, to avoid Snaps But now it looks like Debian will work great

phs 3y ago
As a stepping stone out of Ubuntu, Pop_OS! has been pleasant and snap-free.
- Uehreka 3y ago
  The thought of people going to Pop to escape snap has me crackling.
  - sigg3 3y ago
    Tbf it doesn't default to the really slow snaps. Instead it defaults to the dreadfully slow flatpaks.
    - Kbelicius 3y ago
      You made this sound like snap is faster than flatpak. It isn't, unless something changed this year. Did something change?
    - jzb 3y ago
      My understanding is that Pop uses Flatpak sparingly, whereas Canonical is pushing Snaps for an increasing amount of software. That is, IIRC, you get (say) Firefox via Debs in Pop. Canonical wants to install it via Snap. IMO Flatpak is a great option for a set of desktop software where packaging across distros may be problematic for some reason. I use the Firefox Flatpak on Fedora / RHEL because it doesn't disable the video codecs, for instance. The native package doesn't have some codecs enabled. Canonical is (AIUI) pushing Snap for desktop and server software. And Canonical is the only source of Snaps, I believe? With Flatpak you get Flathub but AFAIK anybody could set up a repo of Flatpaks.

ChatGTP 3y ago

Stéphane made snaps too ? I hate them. I strongly dislike lxd too. If he isn’t a core person behind snaps he sure advocates hard for it.

totallywrong 3y ago
He works for Canonical so I'd imagine he had to get on board with snaps, like it or not.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Working at Canonical shouldn't mean the only supported way to use LXD should be via snaps. It almost violates the whole idea of Linux.

leeman2016 3y ago

The first think I always do after a fresh Ubuntu installation is removing snap entirely. Works fine in 20.04.

mrweasel 3y ago

It is really sad that more people aren't aware of LXD, because it is a really good solution of a number of projects and it's really well done. On Snap... Even if you like Snaps packages, I can't imagine that you'd feel like it's a good choice for LXD. For a browser or email client, sure it's a solution, I suppose, but for thing like LXD it just adds an entire level over complexity that doesn't help. I'd go so far at to say that Snap packages makes LXD unusable, it's simply to complex, to messy. Canonical also have Microk8s (I think) which is packaged as a Snap, rendering it completely useless. The mental overhead required to make it function completely eliminates the point. It also completely ignores highly regulated businesses, because Snap does not care and will just roll out an update whenever it feel like it. I don't particularly like Snap, but I can see the use on desktops. For the server side... I don't know anyone who'd thinks it's neat.

sdeziel 3y ago
`snap refresh --hold` will hold updates indefinitely https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--hold https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--...
- hkt 3y ago
  I suspect the thing people find offensive is that this is not the default
  - mekster 3y ago
    If the reason of snapping is that their preference isn't the default, life must be quite tough for them. If there's an option, live with it and change it. I can't see what's so destructive about snaps. It's probably another echo chamber when people find a common target to yell at.
    - severino 3y ago
      Well, it depends. I liked upstart, I liked Unity (I still use them as long as I can!) and I didn't dislike Mir, although it never came to anything. But I don't thing snaps are good, at least for me. But what bothers me the most about snaps is not what I consider to be technical deficiencies or annoyances, but the fact that it's becoming the only way to install some software packages in Ubuntu, with no other alternative than leaving Ubuntu for good.

enzoaguado 3y ago

Snap has the capability to hold updates for any period of time https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--refresh-hold https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date#heading--...

4k1l 3y ago

unfortunately, the same for me. I would really like to spin up some lxd container on fedora but not with snap.

28304283409234 3y ago

I run LXD on snap. It used to be straight up LXD using .deb. The switch has caused the host to continuously have a load of 3+. SnapD is always the top process. I actually started a migration to Archlinux, which has LXD as native packages. Insane. I know.

ghomem 3y ago

I agree. Snap is the weak point of LXD. I have been using it in production servers and until snap refresh --hold was made available my team went through the pains of snap workarounds [1] The LXD team was very proactive in the support side but the truth is that Snap is a pain and without --hold it would be possible for production servers to break out of a sudden due to uncontrolled updates (who did every think that this was a good idea?). LXD itself is a very good project because it uniformizes the use of containers and VMs with a friendly CLI - the syntax is more intuitive than the one from Docker, by the way. We recently managed to combine LXD and Puppet to manage containers and VMs in a declarative way. I am a big fan of the LXD project. Somebody else commented here that the latest Debian makes LXD available in the normal distribution packages - that is something worth checking. [1] - https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/repeatable-lxd-installations/11912/9 https://discuss.linuxcontainers.org/t/repeatable-lxd-install...

CoolCold 3y ago
I'd like to hear more about your experience on joining Puppet and LXD, mind to share?