No more snap for me.

[poorguy]

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/...1+Ubuntu%21%29

[poorguy]

Change is never popular but then a new generation comes along who does not know any difference and what was unpopular is accepted as normal life. And so we live.

You are a wise man grahammechanical.

[forcecore]

With time and skill, you can remove and remaster all you like. Get rid of APT and Python, implement alternatives, write a new C compiler, through out all the GNU tools.
Complaining that you are foced to use things you don't want, is a fight against reality, and a way to blame others for your own shortcomings. Instead, look at the "glass half full" part of the deal.

.....Until you get hefty bill because snap downloaded massive updates without any asking.

[Dennis N]

Firefox snap has been reported as the default in Ubuntu 21.10, but in the just released beta (on Fri. the 24th), both the .deb and snap are installed by default. This may not be the case in the final release. Only the snap initially shows in the dock, so unless you look further at all applications, you would not see the other.

[monkeybrain20122]

Firefox snap has been reported as the default in Ubuntu 21.10, but in the just released beta (on Fri. the 24th), both the .deb and snap are installed by default. This may not be the case in the final release. Only the snap initially shows in the dock, so unless you look further at all applications, you would not see the other.

It is easy to uninstall the firefox snap and then just grab the tarball from Mozilla. Moreover I am sure there will be a ppa by 22.04 since debian will not likely switch to snap so deb version will be there

[vo-nguyen]

I think snap is kind of clunky sometimes. But, I got Discord using snaps.

[forcecore]

My old thread, but still similar scenario almost happened, but this time i terminated snap before and that was wisest decision once again. Snap is clunky, slow, updates cannot be disabled easily. Ubuntu itself is still very good OS, almost just like OS X and it is open unlike Apple.

I use good old Synaptic to update system when i want. As for software, i use almost all software as a portable software depending of app type. Snap virtual machine should be re-written in hi-performance and lightweight C++(latest revision)

[TenPlus1]

First thing I do is uninstall snaps and then use LibreWolf.net to install either the .deb or use .appimage depending on machine.

[TheFu]

If we update/upgrade through the terminal snap apps do not get updated.

This has not been my experience.

Snap packages are checked for available updates daily, even though I have disabled all APT updates on the system. Further, the default settings keep 3 versions of every snap package on the local system, so falling back to either of the prior 2 versions is possible. I've modified the snap settings to only keep 2, but there's no way to keep just the current package. Another override that the snap team decided we weren't smart enough to decide for ourselves. Haven't snaps use 3G of storage on a 16G system drive is offensive.

The only way I've been able to prevent snapd from checking for updates was to block the snap remote repo at the network layer.

Forcing a new package system isn't very nice, especially when the default constraints which cannot be locally changed, conflict with local policy choices. For example, create a user's HOME directory in /u/{username} and try to run any snap - doesn't matter which - using that account. No snaps work. This is a huge failure. It isn't like the /etc/passwd or LDAP HOME directory location shouldn't be trusted. There are a number of other choices made in the name of 'security' which seem more about control, and less about true security.

But what do I know? I just expect my workstations to allow users to do their jobs in the way they decide it should be done, not under the control of someone creating package tools.

Flatpak allows local controls WITH sandboxing. That's the right mix of more security AND flexibility, IMHO.

So, here's an example:

$ snap list
Name      Version        Rev    Tracking       Publisher     Notes
core18    20220309       2344   latest/stable  canonical✓    base
core20    20220329       1434   latest/stable  canonical✓    base
lxd       5.0.0-b0287c1  22923  latest/stable  canonical✓    -
snapd     2.55.3         15534  latest/stable  canonical✓    snapd
wormhole  0.12.0         349    latest/stable  snapcrafters  -

I want to use wormhole to share a file with a buddy. It works on other systems here. But not on this system:

$ /snap/bin/wormhole 
Sorry, home directories outside of /home are not currently supported. 
See https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/11209 for details.

See, we have users placed into different directories. Local-only users can be in /home/, but LDAP users are placed on storage elsewhere using NFS mounts. The suggestion to use a bind-mount to place those other directories over /home/ would break all the users already there. Plus, their "workaround" requires that we change the HOME specified in LDAP to /home/{userid} ... which will break the users' access across all other systems where it works fine. Most users have access to 20 other systems - that aren't Ubuntu. Canonical needs to realize their desktop isn't the only system in a corporate environment. It is common to have AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, RHEL, and other systems too.

Local control for a few items in the constraints is needed. Until then, snaps are useful for IoT stuff without users. Desktops require much more flexibility.

Sigh.

[Paddy Landau]

I originally liked snaps, and I was puzzled by all the hate that it receives on Reddit. A number of posters claim, incorrectly, that Ubuntu forces you to use snap, and that removing it breaks Ubuntu. Utter nonsense.

However, since 22.04, snap's slowness has become an issue, even on a modern computer with plenty of RAM and everything on SSD. Compare Firefox or Opera in snap vs either flatpak or deb. Chalk and cheese.

Hence, now, I don't use snaps unless I have no choice. I'm not going to uninstall it; there's no point. But I won't use it unless I have to.

I don't think that snaps will become strictly enforced. For example, Linux Mint specifically comes without snap to cater for the snap-haters. (I personally don't understand why people go so far as to hate something; if you don't like it, just don't use it.)