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Ubuntu has actually gotten worse over the years ever since it started coaxing users into using Snap. It was revolting when Ubuntu forced Chromium to be installe

Ubuntu has actually gotten worse over the years ever since it started coaxing users into using Snap. It was revolting when Ubuntu forced Chromium to be installed as a Snap when the user attempted to install it through apt. Requiring Snap in this way is fundamentally hostile to Linux as a free and open source operating system, since the Snap Store server is proprietary and controlled only by Canonical. If you are already using Fedora, there's no benefit to switching to Ubuntu. If you want to use something more similar to Ubuntu, I recommend Pop!_OS (downstream from Ubuntu and without Snap) instead of Ubuntu Desktop, and Debian (upstream from Ubuntu) instead of Ubuntu Server.

safety1st 3y ago
Just want to chime in as another Ubuntu user who's ready to jump ship after 10+ years because of snaps. I hadn't really considered the philosophical issues around it but you have a good point about that. For me it comes down to QA and QoL. Snaps are shit. I'm still getting those ridiculous "Close Firefox to update Firefox, this will expire in 13 days" nags that can't be dismissed. The other day snapd felt like hanging up my laptop for 90 seconds when I was trying to shut down and get out of the door. Fuck this. 90% of what Canonical has done has never bothered me, oh there's an Amazon lens I don't like? 2 minutes to uninstall it, no prob. Oh there's a plug for Canonical services in the motd? That's fine, they need to make money. But snapd is just trash software that's badly engineered, makes my system worse and is hard to remove (I'd have to replace a bunch of software that Canonical has pushed me into using snaps for). So barring some about face from Canonical I'm switching to another Debian variant on my next reinstall.
- nateb2022 3y ago
  I as well have left Ubuntu because of the forced snaps debaucle. I wish that snapd was optional, or at least that it was much easier to disable/entirely remove even if Ubuntu made it the default.
extraduder_ire 3y ago
> the Snap Store server is proprietary and controlled only by Canonical. Has nobody reverse engineered or created a replacement yet? I assume that's because nobody with the ability has the desire. If this spurs anyone into action; make it AGLP3 or some other similar license.
- commoner 3y ago
  The Snap client is hard-coded to use Canonical's Snap Store server, so not only would the developer have to reimplement the server, they would also need to fork the Snap client to support alternative servers. Anyone who wants to use an alternative server would have to install the fork instead of using the Snap client bundled with Ubuntu. Considering this additional obstacle, it would be much easier to stop using Snap and switch to a package manager that supports multiple servers or repos in the first place.
WhrRTheBaboons 3y ago
+1

safety1st 3y ago

Just want to chime in as another Ubuntu user who's ready to jump ship after 10+ years because of snaps. I hadn't really considered the philosophical issues around it but you have a good point about that. For me it comes down to QA and QoL. Snaps are shit. I'm still getting those ridiculous "Close Firefox to update Firefox, this will expire in 13 days" nags that can't be dismissed. The other day snapd felt like hanging up my laptop for 90 seconds when I was trying to shut down and get out of the door. Fuck this. 90% of what Canonical has done has never bothered me, oh there's an Amazon lens I don't like? 2 minutes to uninstall it, no prob. Oh there's a plug for Canonical services in the motd? That's fine, they need to make money. But snapd is just trash software that's badly engineered, makes my system worse and is hard to remove (I'd have to replace a bunch of software that Canonical has pushed me into using snaps for). So barring some about face from Canonical I'm switching to another Debian variant on my next reinstall.

nateb2022 3y ago
I as well have left Ubuntu because of the forced snaps debaucle. I wish that snapd was optional, or at least that it was much easier to disable/entirely remove even if Ubuntu made it the default.

extraduder_ire 3y ago

> the Snap Store server is proprietary and controlled only by Canonical. Has nobody reverse engineered or created a replacement yet? I assume that's because nobody with the ability has the desire. If this spurs anyone into action; make it AGLP3 or some other similar license.

commoner 3y ago
The Snap client is hard-coded to use Canonical's Snap Store server, so not only would the developer have to reimplement the server, they would also need to fork the Snap client to support alternative servers. Anyone who wants to use an alternative server would have to install the fork instead of using the Snap client bundled with Ubuntu. Considering this additional obstacle, it would be much easier to stop using Snap and switch to a package manager that supports multiple servers or repos in the first place.

WhrRTheBaboons 3y ago