• Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      The current most popular distribution is MX Linux (based on Debian Stable), which I use. You certainly don’t have to, but I would say least start with a distro that respects you and adheres to FOSS standards…

      Edit: context

  • BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Could someone ELI5 whats wrong with snaps? I see hate for them all over the place but as an end user with little technical knowledge of linux packaging they seem fine? I can install them and use them, they don’t appear to have any anti-FOSS gotchas, so whats the big deal?

    • vector_zero@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s another fine example of Canonical pushing its own products rather than supporting and enhancing existing standards (flatpak and appimage), which people are getting tired of. Also, as I understand it, the snap store itself is proprietary and is therefore controlled by Canonical.

    • Solar Bear@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      The server isn’t open source, so Canonical has the sole ability to control snap distribution. It’s also yet another example of Canonical’s “Not Invented Here” syndrome, where they constantly reinvent things so they can control it instead of working with the rest of the open source community. They also trick you into using snaps; for example if you explicitly tell it to use apt to install Firefox, it’ll install it as a snap anyways.

      Historically they performed really poorly as well, but my understanding is that they’ve largely fixed that issue.

    • notatoad@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      there was a time when they were slow, but that’s mostly been resolved.

      but it’s really just a cult thing now. people hate snaps because they think they’re supposed to hate snaps.

      • Solar Bear@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        I hate snaps mainly because the server is proprietary. Everything else wrong is negotiable or solvanle, but that’s a nonstarter.

  • Triton@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Honestly, instead of trying to remove Snap from Ubuntu, I’d just install another distro (PopOS for example is mostly like Ubuntu but with Flatpak instead of Snap)

      • constantokra@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Pop is great, even without the wm. The app store is top notch, if you’re into that sort of thing. Basically it’s Ubuntu minus snaps, so slightly more modern Debian, with good flatpak integration making up for all apt’s drawbacks. Perfect for the computer you want to be able to use without dealing with out of date packages or rolling release tinkering.

        Even so, the wm is worth taking the time to get familiar with, because it’s intuitive enough for a non power user, and you’re not going to approach its efficiency in terms of workflow unless you can consistently use several dozen keyboard shortcuts on a more bare bones tiling wm. Anyway, that’s my opinion, having used a wide variety of window managers since the 90s.

        • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Been using pop for months now. The one thing I have a complaint about my part has to do with Steam. I was drawn to Pop because it had good Nvidia support out the box. Steam flatpak is fine but it can’t do some things that the normal deb version can, such as accessing other drives you may have steam games installed on, or that you want to install them on. You have to make some sacrifices with your library setup and your freedom with it when using flatpak.

          It took me a while.to figure this out. I like to share it when I can. The deb version of steam is much nicer to use.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    How many time does Canonical have to do sketchy shit before people catch on? Seriously.

  • emhl@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    If Canonical gives up on snaps, do we call the current Ubuntu time period “the Blip”?

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Couldn’t you just install it in a container? Distrobox makes it easy to get something like Fedora which has newer packages.

        • Dym Sohin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          if i wanted containerized environments, i would pick alpine, but it all makes most trivial things so much more complicated — i just want global install dang nabbit, just keep all your sandboxing on process level controlled by the kernel, give me my userspace freedom

    • Ooops@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s a bad, slow and inefficient solution for a problem that is already solved. And because nobody would use their proprietary shit over flatpack, they force the users to use it. Even for things that exist natively in the repositories and would need neither snap nor flatpack.

      • shininghero@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I still don’t even know what problem snap and flatpak were intended to solve. Just apt or dnf installing from the command line, or even using the distro provided store app, has always been sufficient for me.

      • yaaaaayPancakes@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Flatpack isn’t without its own quirks and flaws. There is no One True Way. Being open-source, there shouldn’t be one.

        It is definitely slow though, mostly on first run.

        • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Being open-source

          Yeah, that. That’s exactly the problem. To quote @Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever above, who put it much better than I could:

          . . . the main issues boil down to concerns over some parts of the Snap ecosystem being closed source, Canonical’s ongoing efforts to try to get some of the Red Hat “premium linux” money, and arguments that other solutions (e.g. flatpaks and appimages) are “just as good, if not better”. And it doesn’t help that Canonical/Ubuntu is increasingly pushing snap as “the only solution” for some applications.

          When you speak of no single One True Way and things being completely open source, Canonical/Ubuntu have already left the chat.

      • 520@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The main reason is that it is completely controlled by Canonical, with no way to add alternative repos.

          • 520@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            You can, but that completely negates the reasons why you’d want to have a repo system in the first place. You gotta do the legwork to get updates, for example.

            • JoeyJoeJoeJr@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              This isn’t necessarily true - a developer choosing to not include their app in a repo can always opt for a self-updating mechanism.

              Don’t get me wrong - repos and tooling to manage all of your apps at once are preferred. But if a developer or user wants to avoid the Canonical controlled repo, I’m just pointing out there are technically ways to do that.

              If you’d question why someone would use snap at all at that point… that would be a good question. The point is just that they can, if they want to.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        For computer idiots it’s not bad at all. It mostly just works if you don’t mess with it and Canonical relies on it to ship software for Ubuntu. It’s one of those you should know what you’re doing situations if you’re using standard Ubuntu and messing with it. If you remove it, you will have to figure out what’s shipped via snap and how to supplant it if you want it working, among other potential headaches.

        • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Those are all valid points, but there’s one more. As a person who is just coming back to Linux after 25-30 years and relearning it all from scratch, I just don’t want the hassle.

          Sure, there’s overlap between distros, Linux is Linux, and any knowledge I might glean from Ubuntu would also largely apply to any other distro – but why should I bother with investing time into a product that is already heading toward future politics and regressive policies when I can just install [NotUbuntu] and swerve the entire mess?

          There are hundreds of distros from which to choose these days, literally. Why start with one that’s already obviously moving toward the dark side? For all that I could just stay on Windows. I’m trying to get away from triple-E and paywalls and gatekeeping, not just find different ones.

          Right now I’m testing out over a dozen distros on an old laptop in my spare time, and I think the only Ubuntu related one in my list is Pop!_OS, and it’s there only because Pop!_OS doesn’t rely on snap.

          It’s one of those you should know what you’re doing situations

          And I absolutely DO NOT, so that’s that, lol. These days every brain cell counts, so damned if I’ll waste any time wading into that mess.