• Thyrian
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    1 month ago

    I think most snap haters mostly hate, that Canonical forces snap upon them, an wouldn’t hate so much about it if they had the choice.

    • Shareni@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      Yeah, who’d hate using a package manager that increasingly slows down your boot time with every package installed, or that uses a closed source store to provide you FOSS

      Maybe there’s a reason canonical has to force it on their users

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Yeah typing “apt install firefox” and getting the Snap version does loudly and obnoxiously disqualify Ubuntu from any devices owned by me or my family.

    • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      Thanks to snap I switched to arch. It gave a linux beginner so much drive to learn the terminal and install a harder os lol. The firefox snap was the worst shit.

    • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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      1 month ago

      Isn’t that kinda the same with, for example, Fedora and Flatpaks? Or Debian and debs? Or Ubuntu and debs? Or Fedora and rpms?

      The packaging system that your distro provides gets you the packages you get. For a small number of packages that were a maintenance nightmare, Ubuntu provides a transitional debs to move people over to the snaps (e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird), but if you want to get it from another repo, you can do exactly what KDE Neon does by setting your preferences.

      • Shareni@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        No, Debian doesn’t take your apt install ... command and install a snap behind your back…

        • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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          1 month ago

          I don’t understand how a transitional package that installs the snap (which is documented in the package description) is any different from a transitional package that replaces, say, ffmpeg with libav.

          $ apt show firefox
          Package: firefox
          Version: 1:1snap1-0ubuntu5
          Priority: optional
          Section: web
          Origin: Ubuntu
          Maintainer: Ubuntu Mozilla Team <ubuntu-mozillateam@lists.ubuntu.com>
          Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
          Installed-Size: 124 kB
          Provides: gnome-www-browser, iceweasel, www-browser, x-www-browser
          Pre-Depends: debconf, snapd (>= 2.54)
          Depends: debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0
          Breaks: firefox-dbg (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-dev (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-geckodriver (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-mozsymbols (<< 1:1snap1)
          Replaces: firefox-dbg (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-dev (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-geckodriver (<< 1:1snap1), firefox-mozsymbols (<< 1:1snap1)
          Task: ubuntu-desktop-minimal, ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-full, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop-minimal, ubuntu-mate-core, ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-budgie-desktop-minimal, ubuntu-budgie-desktop, ubuntu-budgie-desktop-raspi, ubuntu-unity-live, edubuntu-desktop-gnome-minimal, edubuntu-desktop-gnome, edubuntu-desktop-gnome-raspi, ubuntucinnamon-desktop-minimal, ubuntucinnamon-desktop
          Download-Size: 77.3 kB
          APT-Manual-Installed: no
          APT-Sources: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble/main amd64 Packages
          Description: Transitional package - firefox -> firefox snap
           This is a transitional dummy package. It can safely be removed.
           .
           firefox is now replaced by the firefox snap.
          
            • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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              1 month ago

              If you don’t want to explain, you’re perfectly welcome to not explain. But saying what amounts to “if you don’t know I’m not telling you”, especially when you weren’t specifically asked, is a pretty unkind addition to the conversation.

              • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 month ago

                One selects a different package, same source repo.

                The other completely changes the installation, invisibly to the user, potentially introducing vulnerabilities.

                Such as what they did with Docker, which I found less than hilarious when I had to clean up after someone entirely because of this idiocy.

                The differences seem quite clear.

                • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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                  1 month ago

                  In both cases, the packages are owned by the same people? (Fun fact: mozilla actually owns both the Firefox snap and the firefox package in the Ubuntu repos.) I’m non sure how that “potentially introduces vulnerabilities” any more than “having a package which has dependencies” does.

                  I’m not sure what you’re referring to with Docker. Canonical provides both the docker.io package in apt and the docker snap. Personally I use the snap on my machine because I need to be able to easily switch versions for my development work.

                  • curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    1 month ago

                    Because the separate installation means you can actually end up with both an apt installed and a snap installed.

                    My comment about docker was a specific example of such a case, where vulnerabilities were introduced. It was actually a commonly used attack a few years ago to burn up other CPU and GPU to generate crypto.

                    Yes, canonical provides both. Guess what? They screwed up, and introduced several vulnerabilities, and you ended up with both a snap and apt installed docker.

                    The fact that they are both packaged by Canonical is both irrelevant and a perfect example of the problem.

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        1 month ago

        the thing people dislike about that is that you’re silently moved from an open system to a closed-source one.

        Debian’s .deb hosting is completely open and you can host your own repository from which anyone can pull packages just by adding it to the apt config. fedora, suse, arch, same thing.

        only Canonical can host snaps, and they’re not telling people how the hosting works. KDE seems to upload their packages to the snap store for Neon, judging from their page.

        also, crucially, canonical are not the ones doing the maintenance for those apt packages. the debian team does that.

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          the thing people dislike about that is that you’re silently moved from an open system to a closed-source one.

          Yeah. I didn’t realize I had fallen for it until I tried to automate a system rebuild, and discovered that a bunch of the snap back end seems to be closed and proprietary.

          And a lot of it for no reason. Reasonable apt and flatpak alternates existed, but Canonical steered me to their closed repackaged versions.

        • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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          1 month ago

          While Canonical’s particular snap store implementation is closed source, all of the client software as well as the store API are open, and snap isn’t even tied to using snaps from their store. One could easily make a client app that treats snapd much the way apt treats dpkg. (In fact given apt-rpm I think it would probably be feasible to quite literally use apt for that.)

          KDE seems to upload their packages to the snap store for Neon, judging from their page.

          KDE also maintains most of the flathub.org packages for KDE apps. Not sure what the point is here.

          canonical are not the ones doing the maintenance for those apt packages. the debian team does that.

          This is wrong in two ways. First, Canonical are the primary employers of a lot of Debian developers, including to do Debian maintenance or development. This includes at least one of the primary developers of apt. Canonical also upstreams a lot of their work to Debian. Second, of the three (!) whole packages that Canonical decided to make transitional packages to the snap, none were coming from upstream Debian. Firefox was being packaged by Mozilla (and Mozilla were the ones who decided to move it to the snap), Thunderbird’s package had been something Canonical was packaging themselves due to the Debian/Mozilla trademark dispute that they never moved back to syncing from Debian due to technical issues with the port, and Chromium was, at least at the time, remaining frozen at old versions in a way that was unacceptable to Ubuntu users.

          • lime!@feddit.nu
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            1 month ago

            Good info. thanks.

            One could easily make a client app

            sure, and convince people to switch. it’s been done before of course but it’s a big effort. And anyway, the main point with the closed-server issue is that it’s impossible to know what the server does other than serving packages. this is true for other package repositories to a certain extent since there’s no real guarantee that they run the source code they show, but there’s a distributed trust network there. as for the snap store, they could be doing anything in there.

            KDE also maintains most of the flathub.org packages for KDE apps.

            what i was trying to get at is that they’re not hosting their own thing. they do host their own flatpak repo but it seems to be only for nightlies so that point wasn’t as strong as i originally thought.

            Canonical are the primary employers of a lot of Debian developers, including to do Debian maintenance or development. This includes at least one of the primary developers of apt.

            that does not mean that the particular developer agrees with or even approves of the snap thing. it’s good to know though. i know they upstream, but that’s sort of the bare minimum expected of them.

            i’ve not really used ubuntu desktop lately, but i’ve been hearing more complaints from friends about it deciding to install snaps instead of debs lately. steam was a big one that a friend had trouble with, and they just installed that though apt i’m pretty sure.

            • lengau@midwest.socialOP
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              1 month ago

              sure, and convince people to switch. it’s been done before of course but it’s a big effort

              I agree! But this, IMO, is a better argument for how flathub.org being (theoretically) open source doesn’t actually make it any better than snapcraft.io. The technical hurdle, either of writing another snap store or of setting up a flatpak host, pales in comparison to the social hurdle of getting people to switch. Which is likely why the previous open snap store implementation died. Nobody wanted to host their own and convince people to switch, because at the end of the day there wasn’t any benefit.

              that does not mean that the particular developer agrees with or even approves of the snap thing.

              Never said it did, although in the particular case of the developer I mentioned, he’s also an Ubuntu Core developer, which depends entirely on snaps. I can’t imagine he’d have put himself in that position if he were particularly anti-snap

              steam was a big one that a friend had trouble with, and they just installed that though apt i’m pretty sure.

              Ubuntu has never had a steam package in their apt repos, and the steam-installer package still behaves the same way as ever. Personally, I do use the Steam snap and haven’t had any issues with it, though I do know that others have.

      • Laurel Raven@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        Fedora with Flatpaks is open and up front about whether you’re getting a Flatpak or a system installed package, and lets you choose if both are available. And installing through dnf/yum isn’t going to do anything at all with Flatpak.

        And what about Debian with debs? That’s literally what apt was designed to work with. If it gave you Flatpaks, or the flatpak command installed debs, that would be more like what Ubuntu is doing.

        The fact that Canonical shoehorned snaps into apt is the problem. I’ve heard bad things about snap, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never used it, and I never will because of this.

        When I tell my computer to do one thing and it does something completely different without my consent, that is a problem, and is why I left Windows. I don’t need that in Linux too, and Canonical has proven they can’t be trusted not to do that.