4 ms·

My concern is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives and all these sandboxed programs take up a lot of space. So if you buy ch

My concern is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives and all these sandboxed programs take up a lot of space. So if you buy cheap laptop with 256GB storage and start installing snap/flatpak/appimage eventually you’ll run out of disk storage and won’t be able to upgrade it (storage, that is). And the only solution is to buy upgradable laptop or a laptop with a lot of storage upfront. That’s just one of the things that is messed up and annoys me.

microtonal 3y ago
It’s fine. I don’t know about Snap, but Flatpack uses shared runtimes. Sure, there is also vendoring, but sharing takes a lot of dependencies out already. This model has been used on phones and Macs for ages, and for most people it’s not an issue. Photos, videos, and game assets are taking up all the space.
- michaelt 3y ago
  Snap retains multiple versions of each package, following a setting called "refresh.retain" which defaults to 3. Install Blender? That's 3x 323MB. Chromium? 3x 158MB Firefox? 3x 242MB And don't think you're going to get away with just 3 copies of a snap like 'core' or 'gnome' - you're getting three copies of core18 and three copies of core20 and three copies of core22 and three copies of gnome-3-28-1804 and three copies of gnome-3-38-2004 and three copies of gnome-42-2204. At 497MB each. You might think you could avoid that by reducing the setting to 1, but you're not thinking like the creators of snap - they've decided the minimum value of refresh.retain is 2.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives Other than Apples, which are those "a lot of laptops" that come with soldered storage?
- mike_d 3y ago
  New Dells are using fixed storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBk9sIK-PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBk9sIK-PQ Most (all?) Chromebooks use eMMC storage attached to the board. Even laptops with M.2 connectors still require a hundred screws, guitar picks, heat guns, and other insane things to "replace" storage.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >New Dells are using fixed storage Meh, that's just one model out of dozens form one of a dozen manufacturers. Hardly conclusive to validate the "a lot of laptops" claim. I'm sure someone else in the comments will point out some other obscure laptop from Acer or Lenovo that's thinner than a razor blade and has soldered storage. Fine, but still not "a lot of laptops". Just don't buy those 3 models in the world that solder their storage and you'll be fine. >Most (all?) Chromebooks use eMMC storage attached to the board. Thanks but Chromebooks are just ChromeOS devices akin to your tablet or phone, not actual laptops, nor do I buy garbage laptops with eMMC, nor would I know where to find one even if I did want to buy a laptop with eMMC since I haven't seen one for sale since the Asus EEPC from 2011, so no issue there. >Even laptops with M.2 connectors still require a hundred screws, guitar picks, heat guns, and other insane things to "replace" storage. That's a gross overexaggeration. I fiddled with the innards of several models of laptops from several brands and all of them are easy to replace the M.2 SSDs without special fancy tools and pain, just a screwdriver. Only Microsoft glues their machine together but nobody buys them anyway so don't you do it either and you'll be fine. Conclusion: Myth busted. Most laptops on the market DON'T have soldered storage, and they're also quite easy to replace. Keep calm and carry on.
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      > nor would I know where to find one Surface Go is available in eMMC version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpkT8JwgnAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpkT8JwgnAI https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop+emmc https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop+emmc Basically anything under $700 has a chance to be an eMMC laptop. Most? Nope. Many? Yes, especially cheap and not so cheap ones.

microtonal 3y ago

It’s fine. I don’t know about Snap, but Flatpack uses shared runtimes. Sure, there is also vendoring, but sharing takes a lot of dependencies out already. This model has been used on phones and Macs for ages, and for most people it’s not an issue. Photos, videos, and game assets are taking up all the space.

michaelt 3y ago
Snap retains multiple versions of each package, following a setting called "refresh.retain" which defaults to 3. Install Blender? That's 3x 323MB. Chromium? 3x 158MB Firefox? 3x 242MB And don't think you're going to get away with just 3 copies of a snap like 'core' or 'gnome' - you're getting three copies of core18 and three copies of core20 and three copies of core22 and three copies of gnome-3-28-1804 and three copies of gnome-3-38-2004 and three copies of gnome-42-2204. At 497MB each. You might think you could avoid that by reducing the setting to 1, but you're not thinking like the creators of snap - they've decided the minimum value of refresh.retain is 2.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>is that a lot of laptops come with soldered in, non replaceable hard drives Other than Apples, which are those "a lot of laptops" that come with soldered storage?

mike_d 3y ago
New Dells are using fixed storage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBk9sIK-PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPBk9sIK-PQ Most (all?) Chromebooks use eMMC storage attached to the board. Even laptops with M.2 connectors still require a hundred screws, guitar picks, heat guns, and other insane things to "replace" storage.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >New Dells are using fixed storage Meh, that's just one model out of dozens form one of a dozen manufacturers. Hardly conclusive to validate the "a lot of laptops" claim. I'm sure someone else in the comments will point out some other obscure laptop from Acer or Lenovo that's thinner than a razor blade and has soldered storage. Fine, but still not "a lot of laptops". Just don't buy those 3 models in the world that solder their storage and you'll be fine. >Most (all?) Chromebooks use eMMC storage attached to the board. Thanks but Chromebooks are just ChromeOS devices akin to your tablet or phone, not actual laptops, nor do I buy garbage laptops with eMMC, nor would I know where to find one even if I did want to buy a laptop with eMMC since I haven't seen one for sale since the Asus EEPC from 2011, so no issue there. >Even laptops with M.2 connectors still require a hundred screws, guitar picks, heat guns, and other insane things to "replace" storage. That's a gross overexaggeration. I fiddled with the innards of several models of laptops from several brands and all of them are easy to replace the M.2 SSDs without special fancy tools and pain, just a screwdriver. Only Microsoft glues their machine together but nobody buys them anyway so don't you do it either and you'll be fine. Conclusion: Myth busted. Most laptops on the market DON'T have soldered storage, and they're also quite easy to replace. Keep calm and carry on.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    > nor would I know where to find one Surface Go is available in eMMC version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpkT8JwgnAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpkT8JwgnAI https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop+emmc https://www.amazon.com/s?k=laptop+emmc Basically anything under $700 has a chance to be an eMMC laptop. Most? Nope. Many? Yes, especially cheap and not so cheap ones.