I’m going to create a distro where EVERYTHING including your web browser is launched through systemd and it’s built from nothing but snaps, just for you guys. I’ll call it “Oops! All snaps.”
Sounds great. SnapOS.
ThanOS
What the hell? Half of the bytes on my drive are missing!
It should have a custom desktop environment called Crackle (or Krackle if KDE based).
System sounds are snaps, cracks and pops.
Just have to patch in the Linux sound drivers from the 90s!
SnapOS sounds better than the current hybrid that is Ubuntu.
It seems like that is where Canonical wants to end up anyways, its going to be very weird to see a non Debian Ubuntu.
What’s with all the systemd hate? It seems to work well for me…
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Another problem is that there is (or was, I don’t follow these things) friction between the Kernel and systemd, as systemd developers did not respect certain development philosophies.
More information on this here:
When systemd sees “debug” as part of the kernel command-line, it will spit out so much informaiton about the system that it fails to boot… The init system just collapses the system with too much information being sent to the dmesg when seeing the debug option as part of the kernel command-line parameter. Within the systemd bug report it was suggested for systemd not to look for a simple “debug” string to go into its debug mode but perhaps something like “systemd.debug” or other namespaced alternatives. The debug kernel command-line parameter has been used by upstream Linux kernel developers for many years. However, upstream systemd developers don’t agree about changing their debug code detection. Kay Sievers of Red Hat wrote, “Generic terms are generic, not the first user owns them.”
tl;dr: systemd parsed kernel command line information; when “debug” was present, systemd enabled logging that was so verbose that it would cause the system to become unbootable. systemd developers were notified of the issue and started acting passive aggressive instead of fixing the issue.
Or to put it more simply: if you make changes that cause Linus Torvalds’ system to stop booting properly, you’re probably gonna have a bad time.
Don’t forget the development issues. Last I read up on this was several years ago, so things may have changed, but:
It’s open source, but it’s entirely controlled by a handful of people who work for RedHat, and they don’t publish any of their communications about development nor any supporting material like code documentation. It’s a massive complicated codebase and they’ve made no effort to make it accessible, nor do they allow contributions from anyone outside the RedHat team, so it remains a closed black box controlled by a private, for profit corporation.
It’s open source in the worst way possible.
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Oh SNAP!
Chaotic evil
The systemd devs should create a desktop environment so they can make an entire distro with nothing but systemd from bootloader to screensaver.
I’m personally waiting for kerneld
desktopd here we goooooooooo
You could call it… Ubuntu 24.10 the way things are going lol
Just got to hope that Canonical will host all of the software for it on their Snap repository (singular) I don’t think they’d object to it but that is a big issue with snap, you can’t add other repositories and the server code isn’t open source.
That’s the actual plan. They are working on moving system components like cups to a snap
please add a trigger warning!
Bruh, more like I was already using Ubuntu, and then they uninstalled my firefox and replaced it with a snap.
Thissss
I’ve been on Ubuntu 14.04 until mid this year and now I have a new build with 22.04.
I was cool to have an updated Chromium via snap on 14.04, but it’s bullshit that the latest LTS release relies on snaps for FF.
I made sure to remove that shitty ass version and I installed FF the classic way.
Just install debian or mint
Mint, maybe. Debian, I’ve tried it twice before and it’s just not user-friendly enough for me.
Well true. I had to install flatpak and setup steam working, but since then I don’t see why it shouldn’t be like Ubuntu or Mint.
Well I am already very deep into Linux and it’s quirks. So maybe I am having a biased view
I have no idea why people still use Ubuntu when all the news and talk about it has just been negative the last few years.
because it’s so easy 🤷♂️
How is it easier then any other distro
Community support is great. I can search up any problem and instantly find good results, which is not always true for other distros. I use it mostly at work and I want to minimize the time I spend fixing things. Plus, most programs will have out-of-box support (binaries, tests, install instructions, etc) for Ubuntu.
Compared to say arch, gentoo, lfs. ubuntu is easier to install, but I believe the point you wanted to make is that there are distros that are as easy if not easier to install than ubuntu
edit: I see now that this might have sounded more condescending than I had intended, and for that I’m sorry.
The point I wanted to make was that there are both better and worse installers out there. Which is something I enjoy about linux and the different distros. You have the option to install something easy and just use your computer as you see fit, or you can tinker and learn different ways your computer can be set up.
What about compared to Linux Mint or Pop!_OS?
Pops is my daily driver now. It’s great.
meh even arch has archinstall now. not as flashy as some others, but it will set you up with a fully functional desktop as well
you can’t convince me that anyone is actually using lfs in 2023. tinkering with it maybe, and I can see someone doing alfs for specialized shit, but there’s no way in hell anyone is actually using it as their regular daily driven os on their personal computer. it just doesn’t make sense.
real people outside of the ubuntu space are using debian, fedora, manjaro, maybe something like pop os or mint. there’s no barrier to entry, performance difference is negligible if present at all, and you don’t have to spend a full day getting it ready
The only real difference I can think of is that Ubuntu’s installer is actually really nice and had the dual boot install option, which I don’t think any other distro has.
most distros that aren’t like slackware/gentoo/arch/etc. install with calamares these days, it handles dual boot configs simply and without issue. even doing like debian netinst, I don’t remember it having any trouble
In terms of ease of use, no. They’re capable, but in Ubuntu it’s literally as easy as choosing how much space do you want to leave for Windows and Ubuntu, then it handles all the partitioning for you.
That is the most bad faith example you could have picked. You know I meant distros like Pop OS Fedora, Linux Mint, etc. You picked the uncommon outliers which are the most user unfriendly ones possible.
My intentions were never to be condescending, and I feel bad for sounding that way. I edited my comment in hopes to clear things up.
You’re comparing apples and reactors. Ubuntu is one of the easy to use distros by design. Distros like that try to keep config file changes and things like that from the user. When that fails, the falling height for users is higher, as they now have to deal with a complex problem. The other ones are designed to be simple and require you to handle potential breaking changes manually by default, which means you’re taught to do these things and won’t be clueless when things get hairy.
You shouldn’t compare Ubuntu to Arch. Compare it to Mint, Fedora, Pop!_OS, …
I legit have no idea how Mint or Pop is not the default by now.
Because they’re both based on Ubuntu?
But don’t push snaps as much
I was unfortunately forced back onto it for my latest laptop due to hardware issues. I tried to get mint and other distros to work, but I ended up just being a Linux failure and swallowed the Ubuntu pill… it keeps bugging me to this day, but too critical of a system to mess with now :(
Hey you’re on Linux and that’s all that matters in the end. That being said, there’s a bunch of Ubuntu derivatives you could swap to if you really care enough, but it’s really not a big deal.
Historical attachment in my case, coupled with “I need my PC and don’t have the time or spare machine to toy around with other distros”.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to try others, but that’s not currently a feasible option. VMs are suboptimal when you’re trying to see how games perform under those distros.
Computer is a tool at the end of the day anyways, nothing wrong with that
From the context of this thread, I have no idea what a snap is
and I’m conflicted on whether I should inquire
Say you have a web browser, and to play videos it needs some codecs and a player, and to display pages it needs fonts, and to … on and on.
Before Snaps, when you installed the browser it would install the programs it needed at the same time, because the developer designed it to do so.
With Snaps, the program, and everything it needs, and everything they need, and they need, on down the chain all gets zipped together.
The good is that dependency management is easy, everything is in one place. The bad is that they’re slow to launch because of how everything is stored, and you now end up with many copies of the dependencies, and their dependencies, on your hard drive instead of 1.
The above is just representative, but those who prefer optimized systems do not like snaps. Those who like things tidy with easy dependencies are wrong. I mean, they like snaps.
What’s the problem with static linking if all this is considered worth the pain?
Nothing in particular other than needing to update your builds when any single dependency has an important fix and still needing to build and maintain packaging for every single distro you support. For small applications shipping a static binary should be fine, but when you’re talking about something like Chrome or Firefox that’s a whole lot of overhead.
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Please correct me if I’m off base (I don’t use snaps), but this is only true for in-memory mounted snaps, not for first-run or expired. Meaning you sacrifice RAM for speedy repeat starts.
I don’t know how does Snap handles its loops (which I believe mounting is or was the slow part), but Linux always caches as much as possible in the unused memory.
Snap is a universal packaging format (like flatpak) developed by Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu).
Look up snap and flatpak, they’re both based on a distro agnostic image/packaging model that allows developers to package for multiple distros rather than building native packaging for every single one. Both systems also solve the problem of two softwares requiring separate versions of the same dependency which is a fiddly problem at best for native packages.
Personally I’m a fan of flatpak, snap is similar but wholly driven by Canonical and their business interests.
Both have features that provide a solidly good reason to use them, there isn’t a clear “better” system yet. I prefer Flatpak personally but snap still handles some cases (daemon software run by the system or as root) better than flatpak.
people get way too riled up over this
No they fucking don’t asswipe, how dare you? The fuck is your problem? I’m going to burn your house down.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.
That missing comma is really confusing. For a moment I thought people weren’t wiping their asses…
I will burn, your heart, in a fire
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I would be fine if it was optional. However Ubuntu forces it
I would love to love snaps, it seems so easy, but for some reason it always is super buggy once stuff is installed. I installed and removed docker via snap like 5 times in a one month period before just using apt and haven’t had an issue in months.
It was weird because I set a static ip for my server on my local network via my ASUS router (e.g. used the admin console to set the locks up to 10.0.0.5 instead of the 10.0.0.49 it was). After a couple days docker would freak out and refused to work because it kept looking for stuff on 10.0.0.49. I would have to reset some config files then it would work again. Finally gave up and used apt and haven’t had an issue since
Sometimes apps installed through snaps have borked UI.
Or strange, non-standard settings / configuration. It’s weird. Sometimes it’s fine, other times it’s like they have some preconfigured package that works with snap.
wtf?! docker is installed from snap now? does that mean your docker container is actually running inside a snap container?
I liked snaps until I tried them
Aw, Snap!
How does the fediverse feel about flatpak?
As far as I’m concerned Flatpak has won the “universal Linux package manager” war.
Snap is a non-starter because of its proprietary back end, appimage has no distribution or automation built in. Flatpak has its faults (why does it put things in /var of all places?) but it’s the best I’ve seen.
I’d like to add: I think it’s won not by being the best, but being the least worst. I would like to invite whoever came up with that com.flatpak.FlatPak bullshit to consider a career more suited to their skill set than computer programming, such as vagrancy.
I thought the com.flatpak.Appname came from Android, so I guess google is to blame?
/var is really annoying, especially when partitioning, previously I could just have a /var partition, but now I need to do /var/log specifically
Holy shit the end (skull emoji)
I really like flatpak! But it has its limitations. Thats okay!
There is just a space for containerized images of desktop apps that are distro independent. Linus talks about this at a QA, but having a maintrainer for every app and every distro under the sun is just a waste (he used his diving app as an example). Flat park is a good solution for packaging up apps, and it makes sense for stand alone apps that have a lot of moving parts and don’t need to integrate with the rest your intro. Their are basically 5 apps that I use everyday that install through flatpak. Stuff like discord and Joplin.
At the same time, if something is supported through the distro package manager directly, I would rather install through that. Especially for core system components, but also for apps that aren’t really daily drivers for me. I definitely feel like I have to actively maintain flatpak installations, so if I can install without a flatpak, I would rather not. For small apps, especially simple command line apps, their probably isn’t that much maintenance work to get them on the distro anyway.
I don’t really consider myself a power user, so I’ll use flatpak if it’s easy to use and doesn’t block certain features. Otherwise I’ll just look for an appimage or debian package because I already know how to use those.
The biggest issue I see is big labels like “potentially unsafe” and “proprietary” on flathub that scare people away from popular, well trusted non-FOSS software like Discord. At the same time, FOSS-friendlyness is one of the selling points for many people. How can it appease both camps?
Plus, casual users aren’t going to flathub to download programs, they’re downloading from the software site. Since most of the most popular flattpak images are not officially verified by the software owners, nothing is linking to them to increase their popularity.
Yeah, I agree, I don’t like that aspect of flatpak development either. The idea that the containerization is supposed to provide some kind of resistant form of a sandbox that prevents malicious programs from breaking into your system; I don’t buy it.
Look, you need to trust your application sources, there is no way around that. The idea that this is supposed to be a “safer” way to install software than any other package manager is silly.
I still like that flatpak apps are separated from your system and locked to their own dependencies because it makes these apps more portable to different distros. But not for security reasons.
It’s as close to a “universal packaging system” as can get now.
There was a lot of talk back in time, when Ubuntu decided to forcefully shove snaps onto users. The thing is, Ubuntu could have embraced flatpaks like many other distros but it chose snaps which is not ideal for people who like an OS whose primary goals revolve around freedom and privacy. You see, it is the proprietary nature of snaps that gets them this hate.
Appimage and other packaging methods don’t get this hate because they are open source and users have a “choice”. What we are seeing against snaps is the result of forcing people to a choice, ofcourse the people in question are linux users - people who are famous about taking freedom of choice seriously. Yes, you can get ride of snaps on Ubuntu but you can get rid of lot of ads and stuff on windows with a lot of tinkering too - I think you see the point.
Many people tend to have a preference for flatpaks because they do basically what snaps do but better and ofcourse flatpaks fit into the “freedom and privacy” spirit of linux.
Solid choice
I see why it exists but avoid it (and all other universal package formats) like the plague. Never had a good experience with it.
Fixes every issue with Snap and has a big company behind it to keep it developing.
We hate it, you must build your own binaries! Sacrifice all convenience for maximum compatibility and security! Don’t know enough to ensure stability or security? Too bad, go use Windows pleb. /s
I like Flatpak. It does what it needs to and I rarely, if ever, have issues with Flatpak apps. It’s night and day compared to Snap.
Because my work literally forces me to use Ubuntu Desktop on server VMs if I don’t want to use Windows. Yes, it sucks, yes, they don’t know what they are doing, no, they won’t give me other options.
Why are they using the desktop os for servers?
Probably the delusion that any windows admin can manage it if it has a graphical UI.
I’ve run into this several times
I’ve seen this before. And half the time they just leave a prompt open anyway…
Believe me, I have no freaking idea. I think someone in the company prepared an image with some security tools for them, and they keep using it since as a starting point.
I hate snap. On my installation of Ubuntu, snap applications can only access non-hidden directories and only certain directories in home. This is Microsoft Windows levels of bullshit and I just can’t have it. I switched to Arch just to escape snap.
Snapplications was right there and you sailed past.
I will never understand this controversial stupidity, why people can not use what they want and this without having “prejudice”?
The thing about Ubuntu and snaps is that they are pushing it and “forcing” its users to use it.
You can uninstall it using
sudo apt remove snapdbut if you then try to install eg. firefox usingsudo apt install firefox— voilà! — snapd is back.Not sure how they are forcing their users to use snaps any more than debian is forcing their users to use apt. It’s a package manager the distro is consciously supporting. If you don’t like snaps then you should probably just stop using Ubuntu.
Yes, I agreeing that symlinking sunsetted apt packages to install the snap version without prior notification is a bit underhanded: I can see they want to make the switch easy for casual users, but the transparency isn’t there for advanced users. I still think it’s a fine distro for newer and casual users.
People installed Ubuntu ages ago without snap. They were perfectly happy with that decision until Canonical decided to shove snap down their throats leaving them with three choices:
- accept snaps
- remove snaps painstakingly from your system entirely (Windows and Telemetry equivalent)
- switch distro
There is a very clear divide between work needed to achieve these options so saying that snaps are forced on users is fair to say imo. For an example how it should be done: Fedora ships with Flatpak support but I can chose if I want to install Firefox as a Flatpak or a RPM package.
Every distro decides what features to introduce and when. Distros and DEs are making the choice when to implement new standards like Wayland and Pipewire, GNOME shifts its features over time and in the latest release is redesigning how its window management workflow is going to work. When you choose a distro and DE, you’re choosing to trust them with these decisions. That doesn’t mean users are “forced.” Users can and will vote with their feet.
Ubuntu introduced snaps in 16.04, and has been gradually increasing their presence since then. Users have had 7 years to decide they don’t like them and change distros.
When people use apt they get apt. That’s not the case with snap
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The comic is depicting someone who doesn’t want to use snaps then being upset when they run into snaps after choosing a disto that is known for snaps. The comic is not making fun of people who like or dislike snaps, it’s making fun of people who dislike snaps but then choose to use a disto with snaps.
I, too, enjoy being locked into a single Canonical run repo.
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Just accept that Ubuntu uses Snap for its packages. Same as other distros use other packages solutions.
I’ve been using Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 daily for years now without any Snap issues. I haven’t once had any problems and I have 20 snaps installed.
You know last week there was malware found in the snap repos
Yep, but that’s a problem with all package managers where users can publish their own code without auditing. Every app store has these problems. Both npm and pip have these issues too.
People shouldn’t install unvetted binaries from random people. I wouldn’t install random binaries that I’ve downloaded through a web browser—why would installing through snap be any different?
Maybe because you used apt to install the package and instead Ubuntu installed a snap.
That was what made me switch anyway.
Oh shit I didn’t know it could do that… Fuck can I uninstall snap from pop_os or mint lol
Pop doesn’t use snap. It’s great. You should give it a shot. I have nothing but good things to say about it.
Great you are the 1%
Hey let’s install a tiny little command with snap!
3 houweurs laturrr…
Aaaaand we’re still doing something, are we even downloading yet?
Snap sucks sooooo bad.
Straight up opposite experience here. Snaps work great for me.
