SNAP IS CRAP! 20-year Ubuntu user saying "bye bye"

[mnealbarrett]

I hate snap with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Since Canonical is making snaps more and more mandatory with every new version, I am now researching new Linux distributions that do not use it. I wish there was a Ubuntu disto that eliminates the snap crap, like how Ubuntu Mate eliminated Gnome 3. I am leaning toward Mint, but PopOS looks promising also.

[oldfred]

Still running Kubuntu with no snaps.

I used this to install Firefox.
You also have to reset priorities as shown or it will reinstall the Firefox snap.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/...t-ubuntu-22-04
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...-without-snapd

With 24.04 I will have to do the same for Thunderbird.

[guiverc]

You do realize you can install even 24.04 without snapd infrastructure...

You mention Ubuntu MATE, thus aren't worried about flavors, where I performed QA (Quality Assruance) testing of flavors of 24.04 that installed a minimal system which is actually snap free too. Those systems have no disabled snap, so it can be easily installed too, but Ubuntu developers have documented many times how to disable snapd so it won't install.

Note: the minimal system was not the default install, it was optional.

[TenPlus1]

I got tired of removing snap with every install and quite happily moved to Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon Edition which works really well and is still based on ubuntu LTS. I am eagerly awaiting LM 22 which will be based on the newer 24.04 LTS.

[Morbius1]

Just keep in mind that Mint = Ubuntu - snap + flatpak

[ian-weisser]

I hate snap with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

Healthy folks do not feel such passion for software that they did not create.

[gezzer2]

im not a lover of snaps but in Ubuntu 24.04 they have managed a vast improvement with the snap packages.
the only one that i found to have problems was Gnome Boxes everything is running as expected ..

[zebra2]

Healthy folks do not feel such passion for software that they did not create.

+1
I use all snap where available. It all takes care of itself with no problems. I don't get what all of the highchair banging is about.

[spinnekop1962]

If it works I really couldn't care less whether it is deb, snap or flatpak. (Only a 12 year Ubuntu user though)

[TheFu]

I switched to Linux Mint for my desktop about a year ago. I'm not much of a desktop DE user, so it is less about the GUI and more about which apps are there and how they work. I like to control the constraints for certain applications. Snap constraints happen to conflict with my standard setup, so snaps haven't worked on most of my systems already. Useless. I find the suggested work-arounds from the snap team to be highly undesirable. Their work-arounds would impact EVER OTHER SYSTEM here, not just Ubuntu systems. That's unacceptable.

Got tired of fighting with Canonical's ideas on a few things, but mainly snaps. I don't run stock Mint either, but not having to deal with snaps for many commonly used tools is great. I'll probably switch to MX Linux next install to dump systemd too. Eventually, systemd will be production ready. Someday. Systemd was created to fix problems I never had. Lots of things are added/replaced in modern Linux distros to solve problems that very few people actually have.

I have found a use for a few snap packages. I use lxd, though I'd much rather it not be a snap package. I also use the nextcloud snap, which has drastically simplified my nextcloud install and maintenance, though it does break addons periodically. It is better, overall, than manually maintaining nextcloud. Just wish the auto-upgrade disable commands actually worked. I wanted to stay on v24 of nextcloud and entered snap commands to prevent updates to any new major release. Alas, today, it is running ... NC29 ... er ... somehow. That's a bunch of major upgrades that I didn't want.