5 ms·

Canonical shows how to use Snaps without the Snap Store

18 points by lproven 3y ago

PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
The article accuses others of creating falsehoods, but goes on to create more itself. > Your correspondent personally likes the AppImage format, which needs no additional frameworks This isn't true at all, once you step outside the Debian/Ubuntu world, you'll see the format break down as they're nearly all compiled against Debian/Ubuntu and ABI comparability with anything else (e.g. Fedora) is a dice roll and requires installing additional or older libraries. Curl and OpenSSL are common libraries where the ABI is different between distros and is typically libraries where AppImage breaks down, unless the developer chooses to ship OpenSSL and Curl in their application which is a stupid idea, the Heartbleed bug would of been 10x worse if everyone shipped AppImages. > Second, you can't build an OS from Flatpaks, so you need OStree as well Why would you want to build an OS from Flatpaks? You don't see Apple build an OS from it's .app format. > Btrfs is complicated, and fixing it more so. Git can be really complicated, as its name implies. (Yes, "git" is a word, not an acronym or codename, with an existing meaning.) OStree is Git for binaries, which makes it at least twice as complicated as ordinary Git – and Flatpak is a wrapper around OStree These complications are completely invisible to the user and even OS developers don't need to know how they work to use or create additional stores for them. OSTree uses OCI container files, which everyone who works with Linux servers knows how to use. You don't need to know how Git works in order to use Git. > You can also block the Snap API via a firewall, with something like: Right, so Snap is open because I can block it via the firewall? Rather than just natively supporting multiple repos (or none) like every other Linux package manager that came before, including OSTree and Flatpak. Then it goes on to label everyone who has these concerns as trolls, what a shit article.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Canonical seems to be heavy on the outreach to the press lately in an effort to save their pet project. The Dutch website Tweakers also had a series of articles on 'how to write your own snaps' recently. Though they normally rarely write about Linux. I don't suspect commercial motives (Tweakers is way too straight-laced for that) but I do imagine some whispering or press kits are being sent that are being picked up. Canonical is certainly a lot more active with press outreach than redhat or suse, not to mention the non-commercial distros. Of course the register has a more optionated approach which is exceptionally clear here. I stopped reading them regularly a few years ago but they still pop up here on HN every once in a while.
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    I hope it works! If it weren't for snaps, I'd probably be using Windows by now or at least really wanting to. I suppose there's always Flatpak if snap goes away, but... like... could we please just pick something? Snaps work, and the snap store has almost everything I actually use.
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
      The Snap Store is controlled by one single entity, as is the Snap project itself. These things make it impossible that many other distros can use it.
      - lproven 3y ago
        Comparison: the Mozilla website is controlled by Mozilla and Firefox users can't edit or copy www.mozilla.org. Therefore Mozilla Firefox is closed source! The Snap store is Ubuntu proprietary, yes. But that doesn't matter. You don't need to use it. You can build and sign your own snaps, distribute them yourself, use Snap without ever going near the store. Snaps can be downloaded from any source, over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, NFS, CIFS, whatever you want: unlike Flatpaks, they are just ordinary files. No special protocol or mechanism needed. The snap format is FOSS (and used by almost all Linux distros for install media), the tools to create it are FOSS, the tools to run it are FOSS, and there are no special tools needed or recommended or supplied to distribute snaps. Which is what the article is about. I know because I wrote it.
      - eternityforest 3y ago
        Not technically impossible, Canonical seems to really want others to use it. Maybe it could be spun off into a separate Snap foundation. For me personally, I don't actually have to deal with any distros except Pi OS an Ubuntu and can pretty much ignore them, so I might be a bit biased.
  - lproven 3y ago
    I wrote the article and submitted it to HN. I can tell you that there was zero outreach of any kind whatsoever from Canonical for this. In fact getting info for publication out of Canonical is as hard as it is from SUSE or from Red Hat. As an example, I asked for a demo of Landscape after the last Ubuntu Summit, a year ago. I am still waiting. The reason I go to events like the Summit is to get info. Canonical paid for my flights and my hotel, yes, but Red Hat and the Linux Foundation also do that. But they did not invite me to it: I had to ask, as I had to ask last year as well. (They did not pay for my travel last year, as I lived in Prague at that time. It was a 25min journey on the tram.) I am sure from the outside world it looks like Linux companies pumping journos with info, but it really is not like that. When I approached RH for distro differentiation info, the senior sales manager told me that the company only sold one single Linux. After a few days of arguing, I pointed him at: https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms Where there are 5 product price points. (I think last year there were 6 or 8.) He then stopped replying to emails. Trying to get info from these guys is like pulling teeth, and that is one reason proprietary vendors do so much better and get more press coverage.
wkat4242 3y ago
I just don't care. I don't want snaps. Stop reinventing the wheel please. And just play ball. Personally I don't like using any containers except for very exotic or sensitive software anyway. I prefer having regular installs and having the shared loader be able to do its thing. I use FreeBSD which has its own really great container tech but I only really use it to isolate my browser. Only on my laptop I used Ubuntu but the way they push snaps for everything really bothers me. So I moved to mint which removes them.
- attentive 3y ago
  yep, Debian is fine and close enough.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yeah it's not just canonical even. A lot of commercial vendors are constantly pushing their stuff. My windows box is constantly trying to push me to use edge and "the new outlook" and I had to jump through hoops to install it without a Microsoft account. My Mac keeps warning me I haven't signed up for Apple pay and am not logged in with an apple id. It keeps this passive-agressive red dot on the settings icon as a reminder to "finish setting up my Mac". I wish vendors would just let me use my computer how I want.
  - bayindirh 3y ago
    Debian is more than fine. A Debian stable installation is "forgettable", and that's a good thing. Then, you can upgrade to new version in 5-10 minutes, and forget it again, except occasional reboots for new kernels.
    - cassianoleal 3y ago
      And if you want more recent packages, Debian testing is very stable as well. I've been running a desktop/gaming Debian system with testing as a base, pulling some gaming-related packages from sid and a few (mostly Mesa and related packages) from experimental. I use apt Pinning for that. This system has been running that way for months without a hitch.
askonomm 3y ago
Part of the reason I’m not interested in using Linux is how fragmented the whole ecosystem is. There are a ten different ways to install apps, and not all apps available with a single method. Sometimes it’s a .deb, sometimes AppImage, sometimes .tar.gz, sometimes native binary, sometimes apt-get, but then sometimes the version available via apt-get is outdated so you have to build the app yourself or add some new repositories. Then of course snaps. It’s a nightmare. I don’t want to deal with all of this, I just want to use software.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  The funny part is that was the problem they were trying to solve with flatpak, snap, appimage etc. But of course every vendor wants their own IP to be the big winner so we end up in this situation: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - severino 3y ago
    Yes, wouldn't it be nice if they just standarized one type of "Linux installer" package that contained everything and then let every distro decide how they wanted to install it? Be it in a classical way where you just grab the program files from the package and install its dependencies using the distribution's package manager, or in a more container-like approach where you copy everything, including the libraries, etc? I know it would not be simple nor easy...
  - lproven 3y ago
    [Article author/submitter here] You did note that I included that specific XKCD link in the article itself, right?
- worble 3y ago
  Let's compare this to windows If I want to install an app, it might be on the windows store. If it's not then you'll probably have to download it from the internet. If you're lucky it's a link on the developers website, if you're unlucky it's a download from a 3rd party site like softpedia, github or sourceforge, and you have to spend at least a little time making sure you're downloading the official package and not a scam. If you want to offload this to a 3rd party you can use chocolately. Or scoop. Or winget. There are lots of developer tools that only distribute via the software packager that they're built in, ie cargo, npm, or pip. Or I want to download a game, well let's see, that game might be distributed on steam. Or the Epic Games Store. Or Origin. I'm just trying to highlight that this issue is not specific to Linux or Windows (I've never used a mac so I don't know how that compares), app distribution is just a hard and still unsolved problem. Personally, between my distributions official repo, flatpak and steam, I'm pretty happy that 90% of software I need is only a few clicks away with minimal hassle.
itomato 3y ago
If it’s just squashfs, treat it as such. Mobile failed but they still want a “marketplace” and the only way to get that is with wrappers on wrappers; presentation, management, intake… Are these the keys to the handcuffs? Not at all surprised they were touchy about Launchpad, unless I took that wrong.
corobo 3y ago
Can Canonical at least make snaps work nicely if we're really going all in? I don't want to run things in classic mode or whatever just so they can access the data they need. Please, make snapd or whatever supervises these things pop a modal and ask for permissions like Mac does. I'll follow you into the dark, Ubuntu, but not if the stuff is broken. Same goes to flatpaks and any other "this is better, no seriously it is.. oh except that, yeah that doesn't work" package managers At the very least if the app fails to start please show the dang error message! I have to manually run the binary on the CLI just to see why things aren't working sometimes. No info or error of any kind lol, they just don't start.
- lproven 3y ago
  AIUI snap confinement is primarily done by AppArmor, which is not a Canonical project. Ask them.
  - curt15 3y ago
    Doesn't Snap confinement depend on Ubuntu-specific patches to Apparmor?
    - lproven 3y ago
      Interesting -- this is the first I have heard of it. The only reference I can find is this: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapd-still-requires-out-of-tree-apparmor-patches-for-strict-confinement/19632 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapd-still-requires-out-of-tre... I will see if I can find out any more.
  - corobo 3y ago
    I'm not asking some random dependency for support with Canonical's broken software, that's a dick move
    - lproven 3y ago
      It's really not. "AppArmor fails if home directories not in /home/" is a legit bug (as someone just claimed over on LWN). You haven't specified what your issue is but if it's something clear like that, it's perfectly reasonable. Trying to blame a product you don't like from a company you apparently don't like for a problem in a 3rd party tool... that's a dick move, IMHO.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
smallerfish 3y ago
I'm in camp "let's hold our noses, pick one, and move forward". Whoever out there is working cross-distro should be focused on getting the three or four major distros on the same page. The three or four major distros need to be willing to go with the majority. I wish I thought this was possible and would love to be proven wrong. Desktop Linux absolutely has a future, but this impasse is holding everybody back and making the situation worse for commercial developers. * Snaps work but have a ton of rough edges. _The_ Snap Store cannot be owned by Canonical; there needs to be a cross-distro store that is the main source. (Distro specific ancillary stores would be fine.) * Flatpaks work but have a ton of rough edges. Flathub is messy and has volunteer packaged flatpaks of commercial software - that needs to stop. * In either case, we need to land on proper sandboxing with specific permissions granted. It shouldn't be an "unsandboxed" or "broken" decision; there needs to be fine grained access to whatever the app needs. I'd be 100% fine with burying the fine details in an "advanced" section, so the users who didn't care could "grant access". We need to learn from Vista and OSX and avoid making it annoying.

18 points by lproven 3y ago

The article accuses others of creating falsehoods, but goes on to create more itself. > Your correspondent personally likes the AppImage format, which needs no additional frameworks This isn't true at all, once you step outside the Debian/Ubuntu world, you'll see the format break down as they're nearly all compiled against Debian/Ubuntu and ABI comparability with anything else (e.g. Fedora) is a dice roll and requires installing additional or older libraries. Curl and OpenSSL are common libraries where the ABI is different between distros and is typically libraries where AppImage breaks down, unless the developer chooses to ship OpenSSL and Curl in their application which is a stupid idea, the Heartbleed bug would of been 10x worse if everyone shipped AppImages. > Second, you can't build an OS from Flatpaks, so you need OStree as well Why would you want to build an OS from Flatpaks? You don't see Apple build an OS from it's .app format. > Btrfs is complicated, and fixing it more so. Git can be really complicated, as its name implies. (Yes, "git" is a word, not an acronym or codename, with an existing meaning.) OStree is Git for binaries, which makes it at least twice as complicated as ordinary Git – and Flatpak is a wrapper around OStree These complications are completely invisible to the user and even OS developers don't need to know how they work to use or create additional stores for them. OSTree uses OCI container files, which everyone who works with Linux servers knows how to use. You don't need to know how Git works in order to use Git. > You can also block the Snap API via a firewall, with something like: Right, so Snap is open because I can block it via the firewall? Rather than just natively supporting multiple repos (or none) like every other Linux package manager that came before, including OSTree and Flatpak. Then it goes on to label everyone who has these concerns as trolls, what a shit article.

wkat4242 3y ago
Canonical seems to be heavy on the outreach to the press lately in an effort to save their pet project. The Dutch website Tweakers also had a series of articles on 'how to write your own snaps' recently. Though they normally rarely write about Linux. I don't suspect commercial motives (Tweakers is way too straight-laced for that) but I do imagine some whispering or press kits are being sent that are being picked up. Canonical is certainly a lot more active with press outreach than redhat or suse, not to mention the non-commercial distros. Of course the register has a more optionated approach which is exceptionally clear here. I stopped reading them regularly a few years ago but they still pop up here on HN every once in a while.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I hope it works! If it weren't for snaps, I'd probably be using Windows by now or at least really wanting to. I suppose there's always Flatpak if snap goes away, but... like... could we please just pick something? Snaps work, and the snap store has almost everything I actually use.
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
    The Snap Store is controlled by one single entity, as is the Snap project itself. These things make it impossible that many other distros can use it.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Comparison: the Mozilla website is controlled by Mozilla and Firefox users can't edit or copy www.mozilla.org. Therefore Mozilla Firefox is closed source! The Snap store is Ubuntu proprietary, yes. But that doesn't matter. You don't need to use it. You can build and sign your own snaps, distribute them yourself, use Snap without ever going near the store. Snaps can be downloaded from any source, over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, NFS, CIFS, whatever you want: unlike Flatpaks, they are just ordinary files. No special protocol or mechanism needed. The snap format is FOSS (and used by almost all Linux distros for install media), the tools to create it are FOSS, the tools to run it are FOSS, and there are no special tools needed or recommended or supplied to distribute snaps. Which is what the article is about. I know because I wrote it.
    - eternityforest 3y ago
      Not technically impossible, Canonical seems to really want others to use it. Maybe it could be spun off into a separate Snap foundation. For me personally, I don't actually have to deal with any distros except Pi OS an Ubuntu and can pretty much ignore them, so I might be a bit biased.
- lproven 3y ago
  I wrote the article and submitted it to HN. I can tell you that there was zero outreach of any kind whatsoever from Canonical for this. In fact getting info for publication out of Canonical is as hard as it is from SUSE or from Red Hat. As an example, I asked for a demo of Landscape after the last Ubuntu Summit, a year ago. I am still waiting. The reason I go to events like the Summit is to get info. Canonical paid for my flights and my hotel, yes, but Red Hat and the Linux Foundation also do that. But they did not invite me to it: I had to ask, as I had to ask last year as well. (They did not pay for my travel last year, as I lived in Prague at that time. It was a 25min journey on the tram.) I am sure from the outside world it looks like Linux companies pumping journos with info, but it really is not like that. When I approached RH for distro differentiation info, the senior sales manager told me that the company only sold one single Linux. After a few days of arguing, I pointed him at: https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms https://www.redhat.com/en/store/linux-platforms Where there are 5 product price points. (I think last year there were 6 or 8.) He then stopped replying to emails. Trying to get info from these guys is like pulling teeth, and that is one reason proprietary vendors do so much better and get more press coverage.

wkat4242 3y ago

I just don't care. I don't want snaps. Stop reinventing the wheel please. And just play ball. Personally I don't like using any containers except for very exotic or sensitive software anyway. I prefer having regular installs and having the shared loader be able to do its thing. I use FreeBSD which has its own really great container tech but I only really use it to isolate my browser. Only on my laptop I used Ubuntu but the way they push snaps for everything really bothers me. So I moved to mint which removes them.

attentive 3y ago
yep, Debian is fine and close enough.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yeah it's not just canonical even. A lot of commercial vendors are constantly pushing their stuff. My windows box is constantly trying to push me to use edge and "the new outlook" and I had to jump through hoops to install it without a Microsoft account. My Mac keeps warning me I haven't signed up for Apple pay and am not logged in with an apple id. It keeps this passive-agressive red dot on the settings icon as a reminder to "finish setting up my Mac". I wish vendors would just let me use my computer how I want.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  Debian is more than fine. A Debian stable installation is "forgettable", and that's a good thing. Then, you can upgrade to new version in 5-10 minutes, and forget it again, except occasional reboots for new kernels.
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    And if you want more recent packages, Debian testing is very stable as well. I've been running a desktop/gaming Debian system with testing as a base, pulling some gaming-related packages from sid and a few (mostly Mesa and related packages) from experimental. I use apt Pinning for that. This system has been running that way for months without a hitch.

askonomm 3y ago

Part of the reason I’m not interested in using Linux is how fragmented the whole ecosystem is. There are a ten different ways to install apps, and not all apps available with a single method. Sometimes it’s a .deb, sometimes AppImage, sometimes .tar.gz, sometimes native binary, sometimes apt-get, but then sometimes the version available via apt-get is outdated so you have to build the app yourself or add some new repositories. Then of course snaps. It’s a nightmare. I don’t want to deal with all of this, I just want to use software.

wkat4242 3y ago
The funny part is that was the problem they were trying to solve with flatpak, snap, appimage etc. But of course every vendor wants their own IP to be the big winner so we end up in this situation: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- severino 3y ago
  Yes, wouldn't it be nice if they just standarized one type of "Linux installer" package that contained everything and then let every distro decide how they wanted to install it? Be it in a classical way where you just grab the program files from the package and install its dependencies using the distribution's package manager, or in a more container-like approach where you copy everything, including the libraries, etc? I know it would not be simple nor easy...
- lproven 3y ago
  [Article author/submitter here] You did note that I included that specific XKCD link in the article itself, right?
worble 3y ago
Let's compare this to windows If I want to install an app, it might be on the windows store. If it's not then you'll probably have to download it from the internet. If you're lucky it's a link on the developers website, if you're unlucky it's a download from a 3rd party site like softpedia, github or sourceforge, and you have to spend at least a little time making sure you're downloading the official package and not a scam. If you want to offload this to a 3rd party you can use chocolately. Or scoop. Or winget. There are lots of developer tools that only distribute via the software packager that they're built in, ie cargo, npm, or pip. Or I want to download a game, well let's see, that game might be distributed on steam. Or the Epic Games Store. Or Origin. I'm just trying to highlight that this issue is not specific to Linux or Windows (I've never used a mac so I don't know how that compares), app distribution is just a hard and still unsolved problem. Personally, between my distributions official repo, flatpak and steam, I'm pretty happy that 90% of software I need is only a few clicks away with minimal hassle.

itomato 3y ago

If it’s just squashfs, treat it as such. Mobile failed but they still want a “marketplace” and the only way to get that is with wrappers on wrappers; presentation, management, intake… Are these the keys to the handcuffs? Not at all surprised they were touchy about Launchpad, unless I took that wrong.

corobo 3y ago

Can Canonical at least make snaps work nicely if we're really going all in? I don't want to run things in classic mode or whatever just so they can access the data they need. Please, make snapd or whatever supervises these things pop a modal and ask for permissions like Mac does. I'll follow you into the dark, Ubuntu, but not if the stuff is broken. Same goes to flatpaks and any other "this is better, no seriously it is.. oh except that, yeah that doesn't work" package managers At the very least if the app fails to start please show the dang error message! I have to manually run the binary on the CLI just to see why things aren't working sometimes. No info or error of any kind lol, they just don't start.

lproven 3y ago
AIUI snap confinement is primarily done by AppArmor, which is not a Canonical project. Ask them.
- curt15 3y ago
  Doesn't Snap confinement depend on Ubuntu-specific patches to Apparmor?
  - lproven 3y ago
    Interesting -- this is the first I have heard of it. The only reference I can find is this: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapd-still-requires-out-of-tree-apparmor-patches-for-strict-confinement/19632 https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapd-still-requires-out-of-tre... I will see if I can find out any more.
- corobo 3y ago
  I'm not asking some random dependency for support with Canonical's broken software, that's a dick move
  - lproven 3y ago
    It's really not. "AppArmor fails if home directories not in /home/" is a legit bug (as someone just claimed over on LWN). You haven't specified what your issue is but if it's something clear like that, it's perfectly reasonable. Trying to blame a product you don't like from a company you apparently don't like for a problem in a 3rd party tool... that's a dick move, IMHO.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

smallerfish 3y ago

I'm in camp "let's hold our noses, pick one, and move forward". Whoever out there is working cross-distro should be focused on getting the three or four major distros on the same page. The three or four major distros need to be willing to go with the majority. I wish I thought this was possible and would love to be proven wrong. Desktop Linux absolutely has a future, but this impasse is holding everybody back and making the situation worse for commercial developers. * Snaps work but have a ton of rough edges. _The_ Snap Store cannot be owned by Canonical; there needs to be a cross-distro store that is the main source. (Distro specific ancillary stores would be fine.) * Flatpaks work but have a ton of rough edges. Flathub is messy and has volunteer packaged flatpaks of commercial software - that needs to stop. * In either case, we need to land on proper sandboxing with specific permissions granted. It shouldn't be an "unsandboxed" or "broken" decision; there needs to be fine grained access to whatever the app needs. I'd be 100% fine with burying the fine details in an "advanced" section, so the users who didn't care could "grant access". We need to learn from Vista and OSX and avoid making it annoying.