7 ms·

What should I use if I like Ubuntu but not snap, just Debian? Or are there alternatives around? Seems like Ubuntu has the best hardware and driver support so ju

What should I use if I like Ubuntu but not snap, just Debian? Or are there alternatives around? Seems like Ubuntu has the best hardware and driver support so just curious what's new in Linux land.

compounding_it 7mo ago
PopOS
- satvikpendem 7mo ago
  This looks like it might be the best solution, no snap, maintained by an actual system integrator and laptop maker, and I also like the new Rust-based desktop environment. I wonder how well it runs on Framework laptops or MacBooks as well.
  - compounding_it 7mo ago
    Runs great on framework. Not sure about COSMIC on asahi.
- bboozzoo 7mo ago
  Isn't that essentially a release of Ubuntu with a different kernel, DE and maybe some userspace utilities?
  - lproven 7mo ago
    Yes. Linux Mint, Zorin OS, Linux Lite, Pop OS, and several less famous distros are all based on Ubuntu. New versions of all of them will follow this new LTS release in time. Mint forked GNOME 3 to make something more Windows-like. Zorin customised upstream GNOME with a lot of extensions. Pop removed it and replaced it with their own homegrown desktop, written in Rust. It's actually pretty good and works well.
  - panick21_ 6mo ago
    PopOS started as Ubuntu with better hardware enablment but it has evolved far beyond that. They have been removing all the snap stuff. The have done tons of work on DE (Cosmic) and in general don't go along with Gnome or Ubuntu strangness. But yes its Ubuntu and Debian derived.
vanc_cefepime 7mo ago
I distro hopped for a while and settled on Linux mint. Uses flat packs. Hits the spot for easy to use and easy to maintain without needing to use terminal scripts to get things my way. Just my opinion.
dima55 7mo ago
Debian is great, and is where the distro development actually happens. What doesn't it do that you want?
- ntoskrnl_exe 7mo ago
  I’m curious about proprietary Nvidia drivers. Ubuntu normally comes with fairly outdated, if not obsolete ones, but there’s a semi-official PPA with more recent versions. How does Debian handle this?
  - tormeh 7mo ago
    I think Pop does Nvidia well, but have no real experience with that.
    - neor 7mo ago
      I have used Pop OS for years and for me it was the most smooth desktop environment I've ever used. They have been working on a custom Desktop Environment which sadly still isn't very stable yet. Promising development, but putting me off of using Pop for a while.
      - Tostino 7mo ago
        I just put the new popos on my laptop and am still running the old version on my primary desktop. Agreed that Cosmic is not quite ready for prime time yet, but it is pretty impressive the state it's in for how new it is. Haven't had any show stopping bugs on the laptop, just a few small quirks.
  - dima55 7mo ago
    Debian has their own nvidia driver packages (it's nvidia's drivers repackaged in a nice way that integrates with the system well). I can't say if they're "outdated" or how different they are from what ubuntu ships, but they've always worked very well for me.
  - gspr 7mo ago
manvel_hn 7mo ago
I hate snap as well. Use flatpak and KDE on Ubuntu. Never have been happier.
jwrallie 7mo ago
Now Debian is packaging non-free drivers in the iso images directly. I would suggest to try Debian first, if it works well for you just keep it. If you feel the need for newer packages, try other alternatives (or Debian unstable). I’ve set down on Fedora with XFCE, it’s really stable yet packages feel new.
throwaway2056 7mo ago
Just install Ubuntu and remove snap. We are doing this for our University pool etc and encountered no issues. Make a list of all ppa before proceeding. What is your use case?
- satvikpendem 7mo ago
  The issue is them adding it back, sometimes even on apt upgrade, or silently installing it as a dependency for certain apps without mentioning it unless you look closely. That gets tiring after a while and I gave up on Ubuntu as even after having removed snap multiple times it always returned.
  - throwaway2056 7mo ago
    Never happened in the last several years.
    - LtWorf 7mo ago
      run "apt install firefox" and you'll end up with having snaps again.
      - bravetraveler 7mo ago
        Or, for a more server-appropriate example, 'frr'. The BGP daemon. It's not just desktop things like 'firefox' before someone tries that angle. I haven't tried it in a few LTS releases and I'm away from a computer. Still, I'd bet this release continues the pattern. Fat chance Canonical decided to go back to more build targets/backporting/testing.
      - whyagaindavid 7mo ago
        https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w... Do you mean you just don't follow instructions?
notabotiswear 7mo ago
You can de-snap Ubuntu itself. Dunno about the this release, but till 24.4 it was simply a matter of removing some packages then holding/masking the primary snapd one, followed by manually adding the official PPAs for Mozilla’s stuff (or just use the Flatpak). Of course, there’s still the philosophical and long term issues with staying on a distro that’s promoting and continuosuly expanding the thing you dislike…
- LtWorf 7mo ago
  This is what I do, because on my work computer IT imposed Ubuntu. I initially tried to just use snaps but firefox was crashing quite often so I had to go with adding the mozilla's repository and of course configure the fake "firefox" package that actually installs the snap to be low priority for apt.
- predkambrij 7mo ago
  This is a bad strategy, I fell victim for. I configured so it would use apt instead of snap package, but canonical silently stopped shipping packages and I was running some packages that were not updated for a long time and debugging weird bugs, because I didn't assume that this was a problem. If one wants Ubuntu, one must accept snap. If you use apt with disallowed transition to snap, you might be stuck with old packages that were transitioned to snap. My choice for now is Debian, didn't finish transition yet, very annoying to plan this in my schedule. I'll churn from Ubuntu after more than 15 years of daily driving... I also don't like ubuntu user with uid:gid 1000 in their Docker images. It's a cancer.
  - boneitis 7mo ago
    +1. I recently picked up a secondhand Framework, and, after almost 15 years of holding out with Mint + MATE, berated myself for resisting change and put in an unreasonable amount of effort trying to modernize and reacclimate to Ubuntu + GNOME 3. It was painful, with an endless laundry list of things to troubleshoot, tinker with, and add to my digital notebook in attempt to get anything resembling a personally ergonomic workflow. I implore anyone to just go with Mint or anything else that takes care of ripping out snaps for you if you don't want snaps (but otherwise still like or are used to most things about Ubuntu). There were too many downstream and other issues, related and unrelated, for my sanity.
flakeoil 7mo ago
I have a year ago switched from Ubuntu to Fedora and I like it. Clean and stable. Uses Flatpak. I'm using Fedora Workstation which is the default, but Fedora KDE Plasma seems to be nice as well if you want to have more configuration options available directly in the GUI. And the layout is more Windows like with start button menu etc for people coming from the Windows side.
troupo 7mo ago
Gaming-oriented distros like CachyOS and Bazzite might be what you want. I'm on Cachy and can recommend it. Because they try to "just work" without jumping through hoops. Even though I very much intenseley dislike the completely unintuitive idiosyncratic package management that Arch has. Which is further not helped by the fact that Cachy's default GUI for it isn't even integrated properly.
nreece 7mo ago
Linux Mint.
newtwentysix 7mo ago
I was in the same spot recently, and my friends recommend Linux Mint. It is built on top of Ubuntu LTS, and no snap. I've been using it for the past few weeks in my old desktop computer. Definitely Good. Perfect fit for your needs
foresto 7mo ago
I switched to Debian and have been happy with it. The release cycle is less frequent than Ubuntu Desktop, which means fewer disruptions, and Debian Backports make it easy to pick new versions of the important stuff. Flatpak is also available on Debian. Linux Mint is widely praised for being basically Ubuntu without the worst Canonicalisms (such as Snap). They maintain a Debian edition in parallel to their main one, as an exit strategy in case Ubuntu ever becomes unsuitable for their base. Some people already use that as their daily driver. Just in case you're not aware, the default desktop environment on whatever distro you pick doesn't have to be what you use. I switched to KDE Plasma when Gtk-based desktops became intolerable, and haven't looked back.
- everybodyknows 7mo ago
  > worst Canonicalisms Do the Mint team treat fixing the other half of the problem, the GNOMEisms, as out-of-scope? Asking because I maintain my own pile of gsettings and .gtkrc tweaks as mitigations yet pain points remain, apparently unfixable outside the source code.
  - foresto 7mo ago
    Their approach to GNOMEisms is to officially support three desktop editions: Cinnamon (based on GNOME 3), MATE (based on GNOME 2), and Xfce (based on more recent Gtk). I don't think they try to tame modern GNOME, and I wouldn't expect them to, since that would be an endlessly difficult moving target. If you want more detail, you should ask someone who still uses Gtk-based desktops, or try them yourself. I gave up on Gtk a couple years ago.
- foresto 7mo ago
  P.S. MX Linux also looks interesting. Like Ubuntu, it's a Debian derivative. It offers a supported path for avoiding systemd and has an official KDE Plasma edition, both of which appeal to me. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
prmoustache 7mo ago
> Seems like Ubuntu has the best hardware and driver support It is an urban myth
- dspillett 7mo ago
  “Urban myth” kind of suggests that it was never true, which isn't the case, though it is one of those out-dated truths that doesn't go away quickly. At one time Ubuntu as the easiest distro to get certain hardware running with because of the inclusion of proprietary drivers & codecs (unlike its Debian parent, amongst others, at least at the time) and making them easy, near-automatic, to configure compared to others that did include them. The distinction is long gone, and Ubuntu is simply one of several (many) good ones in that regard, but the perception that others have not long since caught up persists.
- cpburns2009 7mo ago
  It used to be true. I've never had problems using the proprietary Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu. You used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get them installed on Debian. Now Ubuntu lags behind on kernel versions leaving new hardware less usable.
beAbU 7mo ago
Just don't use snap. No need to throw out the baby woth the bathwater.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  Problem is most things are only snap. You can get them ocherwise but not by default
  - amelius 7mo ago
    I can't believe people like Snap when in the name of security it breaks basic things such as accessing a folder on a different mount point that the user normally can access perfectly fine. A packaging system should not break the basic abstractions of an OS.
    - chocochunks 7mo ago
      Yeah, this was the frustrating bit to me. I use Firefox to look at stuff that lives in /tmp/, Snap Firefox can't do this. I'd remove Snap Firefox, pin the priorities and it would still silently crawl it's way back in after a week or two no matter what I tried. I gave up Ubuntu. Earlier versions used to respect the priorities but something changed.
- bravetraveler 7mo ago
  Easier said than done, surprise: apt, who we know and love, is redirected to Snap for an ever-increasing number of packages. "Don't use Snap", you say? I'll do you one better! Skip Ubuntu. 'Just' use anything else more suitable. Debian is an excellent replacement being upstream, but I hold no illusions over undeclared requirements.
  - throw0101a 7mo ago
    > Easier said than done, surprise: apt, who we know and love, is redirected to Snap for an ever-increasing number of packages. With 24.04 at least, doing an 'apt purge snapd' seems to be quite useful. Is that not sufficient?
pezgrande 7mo ago
I think snap is not preinstalled in Kubuntu.
- lproven 7mo ago
  This is not correct. Snap is preinstalled on all official Ubuntu graphical editions. However, Xubuntu's _Minimal_ install does not include any snap packages at all, not even a browser. This means it's trivial to remove snapd: sudo apt purge snapd Then you can install the `extrepo` command, and use it to install Firefox ESR direct from Mozilla's repos, or Chrome from Google's repos. Once it's online you can copy and paste a couple of commands to "pin" snapd and prevent it from being reinstalled. Then you can switch to current Firefox or anything else without snapd sneaking back in. Xubuntu Minimal is also available as a separate ISO file, which is not true of any of the other flavours.
amelius 7mo ago
If you're using Ubuntu on Jetson then you're out of luck. That platform is tied to Ubuntu.
- ButlerianJihad 7mo ago
  That statement may have been true in 2014, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Jetson#Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Jetson#Software
  - amelius 7mo ago
    Linux for Tegra (L4T) is an Ubuntu based OS. The other things mentioned in that Wikipedia page are not open source. (as far as I can tell)
ddtaylor 7mo ago
Best of luck avoiding all of the system level packages that just shim a snap. Use Fedora if you dislike snap. Canonical has made their stance clear and are hostile to users for a long time now on this matter.
Qem 7mo ago
LMDE: https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php
- lexlambda 7mo ago
  LMDE is Debian-based, I believe you meant Linux Mint itself, which also doesn't use snaps. You get all the driver support and tools from the Ubuntu base, with some nice additons. However, not all desktop environment are supported.
  - Qem 7mo ago
    Both are great. I'm currently using the Debian Editon, that at least for me works out of the box. The transition from the Ubuntu-based traditional edition was seamless. I used Mint MATE before.
KronisLV 7mo ago
Debian is good! If you want something desktop oriented and Ubuntu based without the focus on snaps, take a look at Linux Mint: https://www.linuxmint.com/ https://www.linuxmint.com/ (there's Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE versions; personally I think Cinnamon is pretty good nowadays)
throw0101a 7mo ago
> What should I use if I like Ubuntu but not snap […] Because of business needs, if you're stuck with using Ubuntu (at least in some situations), an `apt(-get) purge snapd` helps. It's in all of our auto/post-install stuff.
snarfy 7mo ago
Try Arch linux.
dartharva 7mo ago
Linux Mint was my go-to but I have shifted to MX Linux, its KDE edition is a decisive upgrade in every way.
CoastalCoder 7mo ago
I'd usually say Pop_OS! But my recent upgrade to Pop version 24.04 has been a bit of a step back in terms of desktop experience. I suspect it's growing pains from (switching to Wayland) + (non-System76 hardware) + (laptop with nVidia dGPU + external monitor). So with different hardware, and/or some more time to mature, this Pop release will probably be a very solid choice.
cr125rider 7mo ago
Debian is fine but their kernels are so old if you have any new hardware it can be clunky and you have to fiddle with backports of the bleeding edge version
- foresto 7mo ago
  1. Enable Backports. 2. Install the kernel from Backports. I don't think of such a simple process as "fiddling", but to each his own I guess.

What should I use if I like Ubuntu but not snap, just Debian? Or are there alternatives around? Seems like Ubuntu has the best hardware and driver support so just curious what's new in Linux land.

compounding_it 7mo ago

PopOS

satvikpendem 7mo ago
This looks like it might be the best solution, no snap, maintained by an actual system integrator and laptop maker, and I also like the new Rust-based desktop environment. I wonder how well it runs on Framework laptops or MacBooks as well.
- compounding_it 7mo ago
  Runs great on framework. Not sure about COSMIC on asahi.
bboozzoo 7mo ago
Isn't that essentially a release of Ubuntu with a different kernel, DE and maybe some userspace utilities?
- lproven 7mo ago
  Yes. Linux Mint, Zorin OS, Linux Lite, Pop OS, and several less famous distros are all based on Ubuntu. New versions of all of them will follow this new LTS release in time. Mint forked GNOME 3 to make something more Windows-like. Zorin customised upstream GNOME with a lot of extensions. Pop removed it and replaced it with their own homegrown desktop, written in Rust. It's actually pretty good and works well.
- panick21_ 6mo ago
  PopOS started as Ubuntu with better hardware enablment but it has evolved far beyond that. They have been removing all the snap stuff. The have done tons of work on DE (Cosmic) and in general don't go along with Gnome or Ubuntu strangness. But yes its Ubuntu and Debian derived.

vanc_cefepime 7mo ago

I distro hopped for a while and settled on Linux mint. Uses flat packs. Hits the spot for easy to use and easy to maintain without needing to use terminal scripts to get things my way. Just my opinion.

dima55 7mo ago

Debian is great, and is where the distro development actually happens. What doesn't it do that you want?

ntoskrnl_exe 7mo ago
I’m curious about proprietary Nvidia drivers. Ubuntu normally comes with fairly outdated, if not obsolete ones, but there’s a semi-official PPA with more recent versions. How does Debian handle this?
- tormeh 7mo ago
  I think Pop does Nvidia well, but have no real experience with that.
  - neor 7mo ago
    I have used Pop OS for years and for me it was the most smooth desktop environment I've ever used. They have been working on a custom Desktop Environment which sadly still isn't very stable yet. Promising development, but putting me off of using Pop for a while.
    - Tostino 7mo ago
      I just put the new popos on my laptop and am still running the old version on my primary desktop. Agreed that Cosmic is not quite ready for prime time yet, but it is pretty impressive the state it's in for how new it is. Haven't had any show stopping bugs on the laptop, just a few small quirks.
- dima55 7mo ago
  Debian has their own nvidia driver packages (it's nvidia's drivers repackaged in a nice way that integrates with the system well). I can't say if they're "outdated" or how different they are from what ubuntu ships, but they've always worked very well for me.
- gspr 7mo ago

manvel_hn 7mo ago

I hate snap as well. Use flatpak and KDE on Ubuntu. Never have been happier.

jwrallie 7mo ago

Now Debian is packaging non-free drivers in the iso images directly. I would suggest to try Debian first, if it works well for you just keep it. If you feel the need for newer packages, try other alternatives (or Debian unstable). I’ve set down on Fedora with XFCE, it’s really stable yet packages feel new.

throwaway2056 7mo ago

Just install Ubuntu and remove snap. We are doing this for our University pool etc and encountered no issues. Make a list of all ppa before proceeding. What is your use case?

satvikpendem 7mo ago
The issue is them adding it back, sometimes even on apt upgrade, or silently installing it as a dependency for certain apps without mentioning it unless you look closely. That gets tiring after a while and I gave up on Ubuntu as even after having removed snap multiple times it always returned.
- throwaway2056 7mo ago
  Never happened in the last several years.
  - LtWorf 7mo ago
    run "apt install firefox" and you'll end up with having snaps again.
    - bravetraveler 7mo ago
      Or, for a more server-appropriate example, 'frr'. The BGP daemon. It's not just desktop things like 'firefox' before someone tries that angle. I haven't tried it in a few LTS releases and I'm away from a computer. Still, I'd bet this release continues the pattern. Fat chance Canonical decided to go back to more build targets/backporting/testing.
    - whyagaindavid 7mo ago
      https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w... Do you mean you just don't follow instructions?

notabotiswear 7mo ago

You can de-snap Ubuntu itself. Dunno about the this release, but till 24.4 it was simply a matter of removing some packages then holding/masking the primary snapd one, followed by manually adding the official PPAs for Mozilla’s stuff (or just use the Flatpak). Of course, there’s still the philosophical and long term issues with staying on a distro that’s promoting and continuosuly expanding the thing you dislike…

LtWorf 7mo ago
This is what I do, because on my work computer IT imposed Ubuntu. I initially tried to just use snaps but firefox was crashing quite often so I had to go with adding the mozilla's repository and of course configure the fake "firefox" package that actually installs the snap to be low priority for apt.
predkambrij 7mo ago
This is a bad strategy, I fell victim for. I configured so it would use apt instead of snap package, but canonical silently stopped shipping packages and I was running some packages that were not updated for a long time and debugging weird bugs, because I didn't assume that this was a problem. If one wants Ubuntu, one must accept snap. If you use apt with disallowed transition to snap, you might be stuck with old packages that were transitioned to snap. My choice for now is Debian, didn't finish transition yet, very annoying to plan this in my schedule. I'll churn from Ubuntu after more than 15 years of daily driving... I also don't like ubuntu user with uid:gid 1000 in their Docker images. It's a cancer.
- boneitis 7mo ago
  +1. I recently picked up a secondhand Framework, and, after almost 15 years of holding out with Mint + MATE, berated myself for resisting change and put in an unreasonable amount of effort trying to modernize and reacclimate to Ubuntu + GNOME 3. It was painful, with an endless laundry list of things to troubleshoot, tinker with, and add to my digital notebook in attempt to get anything resembling a personally ergonomic workflow. I implore anyone to just go with Mint or anything else that takes care of ripping out snaps for you if you don't want snaps (but otherwise still like or are used to most things about Ubuntu). There were too many downstream and other issues, related and unrelated, for my sanity.

flakeoil 7mo ago

I have a year ago switched from Ubuntu to Fedora and I like it. Clean and stable. Uses Flatpak. I'm using Fedora Workstation which is the default, but Fedora KDE Plasma seems to be nice as well if you want to have more configuration options available directly in the GUI. And the layout is more Windows like with start button menu etc for people coming from the Windows side.

troupo 7mo ago

Gaming-oriented distros like CachyOS and Bazzite might be what you want. I'm on Cachy and can recommend it. Because they try to "just work" without jumping through hoops. Even though I very much intenseley dislike the completely unintuitive idiosyncratic package management that Arch has. Which is further not helped by the fact that Cachy's default GUI for it isn't even integrated properly.

nreece 7mo ago

Linux Mint.

newtwentysix 7mo ago

I was in the same spot recently, and my friends recommend Linux Mint. It is built on top of Ubuntu LTS, and no snap. I've been using it for the past few weeks in my old desktop computer. Definitely Good. Perfect fit for your needs

foresto 7mo ago

I switched to Debian and have been happy with it. The release cycle is less frequent than Ubuntu Desktop, which means fewer disruptions, and Debian Backports make it easy to pick new versions of the important stuff. Flatpak is also available on Debian. Linux Mint is widely praised for being basically Ubuntu without the worst Canonicalisms (such as Snap). They maintain a Debian edition in parallel to their main one, as an exit strategy in case Ubuntu ever becomes unsuitable for their base. Some people already use that as their daily driver. Just in case you're not aware, the default desktop environment on whatever distro you pick doesn't have to be what you use. I switched to KDE Plasma when Gtk-based desktops became intolerable, and haven't looked back.

everybodyknows 7mo ago
> worst Canonicalisms Do the Mint team treat fixing the other half of the problem, the GNOMEisms, as out-of-scope? Asking because I maintain my own pile of gsettings and .gtkrc tweaks as mitigations yet pain points remain, apparently unfixable outside the source code.
- foresto 7mo ago
  Their approach to GNOMEisms is to officially support three desktop editions: Cinnamon (based on GNOME 3), MATE (based on GNOME 2), and Xfce (based on more recent Gtk). I don't think they try to tame modern GNOME, and I wouldn't expect them to, since that would be an endlessly difficult moving target. If you want more detail, you should ask someone who still uses Gtk-based desktops, or try them yourself. I gave up on Gtk a couple years ago.
foresto 7mo ago
P.S. MX Linux also looks interesting. Like Ubuntu, it's a Debian derivative. It offers a supported path for avoiding systemd and has an official KDE Plasma edition, both of which appeal to me. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

prmoustache 7mo ago

> Seems like Ubuntu has the best hardware and driver support It is an urban myth

dspillett 7mo ago
“Urban myth” kind of suggests that it was never true, which isn't the case, though it is one of those out-dated truths that doesn't go away quickly. At one time Ubuntu as the easiest distro to get certain hardware running with because of the inclusion of proprietary drivers & codecs (unlike its Debian parent, amongst others, at least at the time) and making them easy, near-automatic, to configure compared to others that did include them. The distinction is long gone, and Ubuntu is simply one of several (many) good ones in that regard, but the perception that others have not long since caught up persists.
cpburns2009 7mo ago
It used to be true. I've never had problems using the proprietary Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu. You used to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get them installed on Debian. Now Ubuntu lags behind on kernel versions leaving new hardware less usable.

beAbU 7mo ago

Just don't use snap. No need to throw out the baby woth the bathwater.

bluGill 7mo ago
Problem is most things are only snap. You can get them ocherwise but not by default
- amelius 7mo ago
  I can't believe people like Snap when in the name of security it breaks basic things such as accessing a folder on a different mount point that the user normally can access perfectly fine. A packaging system should not break the basic abstractions of an OS.
  - chocochunks 7mo ago
    Yeah, this was the frustrating bit to me. I use Firefox to look at stuff that lives in /tmp/, Snap Firefox can't do this. I'd remove Snap Firefox, pin the priorities and it would still silently crawl it's way back in after a week or two no matter what I tried. I gave up Ubuntu. Earlier versions used to respect the priorities but something changed.
bravetraveler 7mo ago
Easier said than done, surprise: apt, who we know and love, is redirected to Snap for an ever-increasing number of packages. "Don't use Snap", you say? I'll do you one better! Skip Ubuntu. 'Just' use anything else more suitable. Debian is an excellent replacement being upstream, but I hold no illusions over undeclared requirements.
- throw0101a 7mo ago
  > Easier said than done, surprise: apt, who we know and love, is redirected to Snap for an ever-increasing number of packages. With 24.04 at least, doing an 'apt purge snapd' seems to be quite useful. Is that not sufficient?

pezgrande 7mo ago

I think snap is not preinstalled in Kubuntu.

lproven 7mo ago
This is not correct. Snap is preinstalled on all official Ubuntu graphical editions. However, Xubuntu's _Minimal_ install does not include any snap packages at all, not even a browser. This means it's trivial to remove snapd: sudo apt purge snapd Then you can install the `extrepo` command, and use it to install Firefox ESR direct from Mozilla's repos, or Chrome from Google's repos. Once it's online you can copy and paste a couple of commands to "pin" snapd and prevent it from being reinstalled. Then you can switch to current Firefox or anything else without snapd sneaking back in. Xubuntu Minimal is also available as a separate ISO file, which is not true of any of the other flavours.

amelius 7mo ago

If you're using Ubuntu on Jetson then you're out of luck. That platform is tied to Ubuntu.

ButlerianJihad 7mo ago
That statement may have been true in 2014, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Jetson#Software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Jetson#Software
- amelius 7mo ago
  Linux for Tegra (L4T) is an Ubuntu based OS. The other things mentioned in that Wikipedia page are not open source. (as far as I can tell)

ddtaylor 7mo ago

Best of luck avoiding all of the system level packages that just shim a snap. Use Fedora if you dislike snap. Canonical has made their stance clear and are hostile to users for a long time now on this matter.

Qem 7mo ago

LMDE: https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

lexlambda 7mo ago
LMDE is Debian-based, I believe you meant Linux Mint itself, which also doesn't use snaps. You get all the driver support and tools from the Ubuntu base, with some nice additons. However, not all desktop environment are supported.
- Qem 7mo ago
  Both are great. I'm currently using the Debian Editon, that at least for me works out of the box. The transition from the Ubuntu-based traditional edition was seamless. I used Mint MATE before.

KronisLV 7mo ago

Debian is good! If you want something desktop oriented and Ubuntu based without the focus on snaps, take a look at Linux Mint: https://www.linuxmint.com/ https://www.linuxmint.com/ (there's Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE versions; personally I think Cinnamon is pretty good nowadays)

throw0101a 7mo ago

> What should I use if I like Ubuntu but not snap […] Because of business needs, if you're stuck with using Ubuntu (at least in some situations), an `apt(-get) purge snapd` helps. It's in all of our auto/post-install stuff.

snarfy 7mo ago

Try Arch linux.

dartharva 7mo ago

Linux Mint was my go-to but I have shifted to MX Linux, its KDE edition is a decisive upgrade in every way.

CoastalCoder 7mo ago

I'd usually say Pop_OS! But my recent upgrade to Pop version 24.04 has been a bit of a step back in terms of desktop experience. I suspect it's growing pains from (switching to Wayland) + (non-System76 hardware) + (laptop with nVidia dGPU + external monitor). So with different hardware, and/or some more time to mature, this Pop release will probably be a very solid choice.

cr125rider 7mo ago

Debian is fine but their kernels are so old if you have any new hardware it can be clunky and you have to fiddle with backports of the bleeding edge version

foresto 7mo ago
1. Enable Backports. 2. Install the kernel from Backports. I don't think of such a simple process as "fiddling", but to each his own I guess.