i dont get all the fuss about snaps, i think it's great!

[m3ideh]

i've heard people describe snaps as god-awful

but in the latest versions of ubuntu, the worst i've had to suffer is a small wait before opening programs

I actually think it's fine, and seems to be getting better as each version is released

[TheFu]

Nothing is perfect for everyone. If you have limited storage and/or limited RAM, like many chromebook users have, snaps are extremely wasteful with space and RAM.

If you work in a corporate environment with 'hot-desking', ... where there are computers at desks that you get based on your arrival order in the morning, then your HOME directory is likely mounted via NFS and place under /u1/{username} or /u2/{username} or /nfs/{username} or anywhere else, except /home. Snaps don't work at all without a HOME directory under /home/. In a corporation with thousands of servers and thousands of users, changing how your HOME directories get mounted just for 1 OS isn't going to happen. Did you know that /home/ isn't a mandated requirement for user's HOME directories? It is only recently that people late to Unix have decided that all account HOMEs should be under /home/. Historically, that area was only for local user accounts, never when LDAP+NFS was used.

By default, snap packages update when they want. This can interrupt a productive workday. In a corporate environment, having the version of software changed without weeks-months of prior planning is completely unacceptable. "New" isn't always better. Workflow changed need to be coordinated, tested, validated before being allowed to rollout and that would never happen on a weekday. Snaps can be forced to delay deployments until the weekend, but that isn't the default.

I know of no "approved" method to delay snap updates indefinitely. That's probably just my ignorance. I've tried to force some servers (deployed as snaps) to stay with a specific version that was stable, but those suggestions to the snap subsystem were ignored. I needed to keep nextcloud on v24 after the default upgrade moved my deployment to v25. Fine. that was my fault because I was set to get latest/stable channel updates. I reverted to v24/stable and it seemed to take. Things started working again. About a month later, I noticed an addon broke and discovered that my nextcloud had been pushed to v25 channel again. Something is broke with snaps. That's not the issue, really. Software breaks all the time, but because snaps install automatically weekly, without any real schedule and seem to ignore specific channel requests, it is a no-go for corporate use.

I can see where snap's automatic install infrastructure would be very helpful for home non-power, desktop users and for IoT devices. For power-users and people in a corporate environment, the defaults are all wrong. With this information, can you see why some people may not appreciate snaps being forced?

Snaps need to provide local control over all the major choices. Until that is provided, I think they are broken by design.

What is it that you prefer from snaps that wasn't already working with standard APT packages?

[zebra2]

I like my Ubuntu 23.10 just exactly as installed. No changes needed. Snap and Deb both work just fine. In addition, every corporate computer I have used was locked down tight. It was setup to the conditions of the IT department that didn't ask for my advise. Generally IT was too busy setting up printers and other hardware and dealing with virus's and employees clicking on fake emails to get involved in OS design theory.
Snap is evolving just fine. A bit of patience is in order. Some parts may need to be fixed but the concept is here to stay. I do get that change can create adjustment problems though. Kind of like switching from Windows to Linux in the first place. I'm just eager to see what the next crisis will be.

[TheFu]

23.10? You live in the future?

[ian-weisser]

I actually think it's fine, and seems to be getting better as each version is released

Thanks for voicing the feelings of a lot of people!

[zebra2]

Yes I do! but I disclosed that because the OP's statement was that Snap continues to improve. I can verify that it certainly does. FYI, 23.10 has only been on the buffet for circa 20 days and more than a third of the 5G has been updated. I have been more than pleased with Ubuntu's security over the years and haven't even gone to the effort of activating much of it. However any computer user has to be concerned about the advances the wrong doers have accomplished. I would hate to think that Canonical was sleeping at the wheel. There has been a release to release evolution to every new thing that has got us to today with Ubuntu. This snap thing is just a deja vu. Soon enough it will be a forgotten problem. Or not!

[exploder]

The fuss about snaps revolves around the issues they have! The snap store NEVER updates by itself on my system, always have to run commands to stop the service so it will finally update. I can not uninstall apps using the snap store either, I end up using the command line or synaptic.

They fixed the Firefox snap, it loads faster now. Can not say the same for other snaps. The snap store saves a copy of each installed snap, that takes up quite a lot of space! I ran a script to remove the older snaps, they had used over 1 GB of space! The only snap I had installed was VLC, the others were stock.

I tried installing the Celluloid snap a couple of days ago, what a joke! The two snaps available were both the same version and not current... After installing the package, it took a while to load and the program displayed the github file name rather than the application name. Quality control issues perhaps?

If you are going to use a proprietary system shouldn't it have advantages over competing formats? Mint managed to integrate flatpacks into their update manager and you have control over their updates. Snaps update automatically and my system has completely crashed on three occasions because of this. This should NEVER happen, period.

At the least, snaps should be opt in packages rather than being included by default.

[zebra2]

At the least, snaps should be opt in packages rather than being included by default.

They are already opt-in. The Gnome Software Store has every app in snap or deb or either format. Take your pick. Some are only available in snap, some are only available in deb. It is the app developers that are creating the apps. Canonical provides Snap for whatever sandboxing is available. Firefox is only available in Ubuntu as a Snap. That's not a problem for me because I use Brave Browser that is available as both a snap and a deb but can be installed from the terminal via Brave's install scripts. I don't get the drive space issue. back in the nineties we had to download two hundred meg just to install a HP or Brother printer in Windows. I am unaware of the space consumption due to snap on my multiple computers. It just doesn't matter because that is what drive space is for. It is the equivalent of protesting the demise of the CD-ROM 650M install disk.

[exploder]

They are already opt-in. The Gnome Software Store has every app in snap or deb or either format. Take your pick. Some are only available in snap, some are only available in deb. It is the app developers that are creating the apps. Canonical provides Snap for whatever sandboxing is available. Firefox is only available in Ubuntu as a Snap. That's not a problem for me because I use Brave Browser that is available as both a snap and a deb but can be installed from the terminal via Brave's install scripts. I don't get the drive space issue. back in the nineties we had to download two hundred meg just to install a HP or Brother printer in Windows. I am unaware of the space consumption due to snap on my multiple computers. It just doesn't matter because that is what drive space is for. It is the equivalent of protesting the demise of the CD-ROM 650M install disk.

Should we have two of every app just in case the new app is broken? It's a waste of space regardless of how much space you have. Every time the snap store is updated I have to run this in the command line.

sudo pkill snap-store && sudo snap refresh snap-store

Really, the install script can't do this?

Who checks these snap packages? Who ever packaged Celluloid did a real crappy job! Two of the same package and the app name displays in the top panel as the github title complete with underscores... Isn't one of the advantages supposed to be up to date apps? Quality control is poor.

Here is the script to clean duplicate snaps.

#!/bin/bash
# Removes old revisions of snaps
# CLOSE ALL SNAPS BEFORE RUNNING THIS
set -eu

LANG=C snap list --all | awk '/disabled/{print $1, $3}' |
    while read snapname revision; do
        snap remove "$snapname" --revision="$revision"
    done

The problems with snaps far outweigh any benefit they have in their current form.

[zebra2]

The problems with snaps far outweigh any benefit they have in their current form.

I don't know what release you are using but I don't do any of the things that you are reporting. On a day to day or even weekly scale I don't even think about snaps at all. It is kind of like QT5 or Libhandy there is nothing I actually do aside from installing the app that I want in the first place. I install them all except Brave from the Gnome Software Store. Some as deb and some as snap depending on what is available. After that I don't even think about it.