Could Apt Package Manager Be Eventually Fased out of LTS Releases?

[lammert-nijhof]

Ubuntu Core is a snap based OS without a desktop. If we do not like the development of Ubuntu Core with a desktop then do not switch to Fedora SilverBlue. It is an immutable desktop. And it seems far more advanced the Canonical's Ubuntu Core Desktop.

Addressing another misunderstanding about snaps. The other immutable system are based on having two OS images on disk, one to run and one for the updates. After the update you reboot from the newer image.

In the Ubuntu Core case the desktop and kernel are divided in snaps, e.g networking or printing are snaps. Those snaps will be updated using largely the current mechanism in combination with the facilities of Ubuntu Pro. E.g the new print-snap will be downloaded and installed, but the new version will be activated, when e.g the print queue is empty. You can already see those phases, if you use "snap refresh". Currently in Ubuntu-Pro the kernel is updated and prepared for usage and as soon as a (re)boot occurs, the new kernel will be activated. For me in the Caribbean a power-fail restart will happen at least once per day, so now I don't have to manually reboot my system for a kernel update, my electricity company takes care of it In future I will never have to update my system manually anymore, it will happen on the fly

In other words the new Ubuntu Core Desktop will be more advanced than the other relative simple immutable systems.

[mikodo]

All dependencies are included in the snap. Whether or not this is a positive is up for debate. Since you can effectively have countless versions in a set of snaps you lose all benefits of the shared library model. Normally a security update to one library fixes every program that relies on it in a shared library system. AppImage and Flatpak are similar in concept to snaps and require each to be updated separately. This assumes they ever get updated in the first place.

Herein lie my objections to Snaps et al. So it is with a great many users.

With Snaps we lose our shared library system, and its' combined security updates. I don't see this changing with AppImage, Flatpak, nor with Snaps.

Many of us who hold alliance to Ubuntu, do not want to have to leave because of this, but are feeling the pressure to do so. Many people have felt their 'hands have been forced' already, to leave Ubuntu, and have done so. This is an unfortunate circumstance of, Canonical forcing Snaps on Ubuntu.

As I stated in this thread earlier, the only solution for this, that I can see for Ubuntu, would be to have both dpkg and snaps OS offered by Canonical. This allowing people to choose which Ubuntu system they wish to use. With out that, many people are feeling *forced to change to another distro like ** DEBIAN ** to be without the likes of Snaps.

[DuckHook]

Herein lie my objections to Snaps et al. So it is with a great many users.

With Snaps we lose our shared library system, and its' combined security updates. I don't see this changing with AppImage, Flatpak, nor with Snaps.

Many of us who hold alliance to Ubuntu, do not want to have to leave because of this, but are feeling the pressure to do so. Many people have felt their 'hands have been forced' already, to leave Ubuntu, and have done so. This is an unfortunate circumstance of, Canonical forcing Snaps on Ubuntu.

As I stated in this thread earlier, the only solution for this, that I can see for Ubuntu, would be to have both dpkg and snaps OS offered by Canonical. This allowing people to choose which Ubuntu system they wish to use. With out that, many people are feeling *forced to change to another distro like ** DEBIAN ** to be without the likes of Snaps.

I agree with your assessment. A lot of old Ubuntu users feel compelled to change to Debian or some other distro because of Snaps. But most of those concerns (not all) are addressable without having to leave Ubuntu.

The only real workaround that could be considered as "required" at this point is to do something about Firefox. And this forum has witnessed many solutions, from installing the standalone version to tweaking apt to install the PPA version.

I am one of the few who are truly "stuck" with Snaps because I use LXD, which is only available as a Snap. But even in my case, Firefox is an old‑fashioned deb package using one of the above workarounds.

I suppose one can say that it is frustrating and ought to be unnecessary to have to look for workarounds, but Linux is acknowledged as a geek OS. Workarounds are also needed in other distros to fill in for their shortcomings. I daresay that many users resort to workarounds for the proprietary OSes too.

I haven't found Snap LXD to be so bad that it prevents me from using it. In fact, it has been well behaved and trouble free.

I'm not in love with Snaps because it has many drawbacks (like the aforementioned bloat and breakage of the shared library philosophy), but it is also unfair to characterize it as just all negatives. The fact is that Snaps allow app authors to issue up‑to‑date apps even for LTS releases nearing EOL and, in the case of ESR, far beyond EOL.

Those who change distros are perfectly within their rights to do so. But citing Snaps as the reason is a bit of an overreaction, IMO.

I do like your suggestion of having both debs and Snaps though.

[mikodo]

@DuckHook:

Well, once there is a "work around" providing Security Updates for snaps, then concerns might be addressed. Currently, this "work around" isn't available.

See again:

All dependencies are included in the snap. Whether or not this is a positive is up for debate. Since you can effectively have countless versions in a set of snaps you lose all benefits of the shared library model. Normally a security update to one library fixes every program that relies on it in a shared library system. AppImage and Flatpak are similar in concept to snaps and require each to be updated separately. This assumes they ever get updated in the first place.

Addendum:

I might as well add this for any lurkers that haven't seen it before. Possibly, it will aid in understanding of the Security Issues with snaps:

https://wiki.debian.org/Flatpak#Security_Warning_Note

[kevdog]

IDK @DuckHook. I greatly respect most of your opinions, but Snaps just suck. They are slow and take up a lot of room. I've moved some of servers to Debian and some actually over to Arch. I really like Ubuntu and actually more invested in this forum community to be honest, however the Snaps seems to become more invasive with every LTS release. I've been with linux a long time and with Ubuntu since Edge Eft. Hell I loved the Feisty distribution. My Linux knowledge has greatly increased and I'm now using a ton of installations within hypervisors -- proxmox and xcp-ng. Through just a lot of experimenting and wasting time over the years, I become pretty proficient with Linux. Is there a role for immutable distributions -- YES there are without a doubt. Is there a role for immutable distributions in my workflow -- absolutely not. Today is Ubuntu offering me a better experience or ease of use features I can't find in other distributions -- and sadly the answer is no -- it is not. Do I like my Ubuntu server installations -- absolutely!!!! But switching to another distro -- particularly an apt based Distro such as Debian for server use -- really isn't that difficult or complicated. LXC containers can be simply used in Proxmox without LXD. Snaps are a problem particularly in light of a lot of the other options from other distributions. I don't think a lot of users outside the Ubuntu ecosystem use snaps, and other containerization options such as flatpack and docker just have a lot larger user base.

[ian-weisser]

Sigh. The endless stream of snap-hate.
Sigh. The stream of snap-hate that's sometimes proxy for Canonical-hate.

It's all just so...tedious. How can so much anger be so flaccid and dull?
So needlessly melodramatic. (Kneel, hand over my heart, pointing to the future with/without Flatpak!)

[exploder]

@ ian-weisser

I think it is more disappointment than hate. Most rely on the LTS releases these days. Ubuntu 22.04 was a train wreck of bugs on release, snaps, package management, NVIDIA issues, install issues, it was like a beta release. It's clear to anyone that releasing on time was more important than the quality of the release. I ran 22.04 on most of my systems hoping that the bugs would get fixed over time. Instead, I ended up with "phased updates" randomly being installed on some systems breaking things... Kernel upgrades being installed that I never wanted, totally screwing up one of my systems.

If 22.04 was a car, I would tell you that it's going to be the prettiest one in the junkyard! Adding snaps that work poorly does not help the situation either, they clearly are not mature enough for daily use. The point is that the majority of users look to the LTS release to use for 2 to 5 years use and it should be of reasonably good quality, that's clearly not the case with this release.

Ubuntu is starting to fade in popularity. Articles written about Ubuntu draw far more negative comments than in the past. Even Ubuntu fans are finding the quality of Ubuntu very hard to defend. Many user's have simply moved to Debian. Some developer's have even left Ubuntu. I know DistroWatch stats are not real accurate but you can see Ubuntu is steadily declining where Debian is enjoying quite an upward trend. Given Debian's reputation this might indicate user's choosing quality over new features.

If snaps worked as well as flatpak and none were installed by default all the complaining would likely settle down. Again, looking at Debian's trends, user's are enjoying stability with updated flatpak apps available if they choose to go that route. My personal experience is that this works amazingly well! Ubuntu is presented with a choice already made to use snaps, Debian leaves the choice up to the user. You can see why user's feel snaps are forced on them.

Many have thought Ubuntu development cycles are too short, this very well could account for some of the quality issues. Poor quality, in my mind is the biggest thing hurting the Ubuntu desktop.

[ian-weisser]

Seems like you had a couple bad experiences, and I sure empathize. That seems really frustrating

Counterexample: Back in 2021 I polled my local LUG their daily driver. 100% of them used Ubuntu to get work done. Even the angries who had been historically Ubuntu-averse and quite vocal about it. They use Ubuntu now, they just don't make any noise about it. Last year, one of those formerly-angries mentioned that he "threw Ubuntu onto" his new box for testing, believing that it was most likely to work. It did. He later replaced it with something else for his experimenting and playing.

And I think we've all seen the angries who claim "I'm leaving Ubuntu forever!" ...return a few cycles later, pretending that they hadn't slammed the door behind them.

I've seen Ubuntu-is-declining articles since about 2008. Increasing popularity of Debian is not a threat to Ubuntu. I view it as a measure of Ubuntu's success at contributing upstream to improve Debian. A firehose of testing and integration feedback and bugfixes flow upstream from Ubuntu. Mozilla, Gnome, KDE, Debian, and lots of other projects have lots of activity from Ubuntu developers, including volunteer and third-party-paid and Canonical-paid.

We are currently waist-deep in testing for 23.10. We need folks like you, who have been burned, so you know what fire looks like. We NEED you, please (pretty please!) to try a pre-release spin of 23.10, find some rough edges in your actual workflow, and file some great, usable bugs. Test your hardware on newer kernels using the Live environment, and report those pain points! Now is when the developers are paying the most attention. Now is when your experience can make the biggest difference. Don't wait for 24.04 -- spot the issues and get them fixed now, when it's easier.

[#&thj^%]

We are currently waist-deep in testing for 23.10. We need folks like you, who have been burned, so you know what fire looks like. We NEED you, please (pretty please!) to try a pre-release spin of 23.10, find some rough edges in your actual workflow, and file some great, usable bugs. Test your hardware on newer kernels using the Live environment, and report those pain points! Now is when the developers are paying the most attention. Now is when your experience can make the biggest difference. Don't wait for 24.04 -- spot the issues and get them fixed now, when it's easier.

But I agree frustration can sound like hate, and there is a difference.
The Tone can take that in any direction.....

[ademccade]

[QUOTE=kabirgandhiok;14152939]

I only used to use apt-get but now working on snap and pip.