Mfw I switch from windows to Ubuntu and I start seeing bad stuff about it
I was pretty neutral towards Ubuntu, up until an automatic system update removed my deb Firefox and replaced it with the snap version, even though I specifically set the apt repo to a higher priority.
The entire reason I left Windows is because I don’t want (for example) Edge shoved down my throat after every update, and yet Ubuntu has gone and done the exact same thing with snaps.
After literal hours of fighting, the only solution I found was to fully disable automatic updates. With Pop OS I have all the benefits of Ubuntu, but I also get a company (System76) that does cool stuff and doesn’t try shoving snaps down my throat.
I’m a very happy Manjaro user and have been for more than 5 years.
Let’s just say it doesn’t seem to be a popular opinion around here!
I’ve been curious as to what makes Manjaro better than something like EndeavourOS or just straight up Arch?
I learned better in 2012 when they tried to put an Amazon search bar in their start menu, the same thing people are complaining about with windows today.
If I wanted to use corposhit I would have stayed with windows.
The snaps bad echo chamber
Snaps bad because proprietary
Pre installed Nvidia good because propriety no wait video games!
Ubuntu’s mission was always to build bridges between the user and tech and businesses that the gnu side of Linux wouldn’t.
It’s a good just works distro that has spawned a ton of just works distros and sane server defaults. I see Ubuntu on the same level as macos.
Proprietary Nvidia drivers are seen as a necessity, not a “good thing”, which is why Nvidia was repeatedly pressured to give up the code. Open-source Nvidia drivers suck in all applications, and if you don’t need anything demanding, you probably wouldn’t have a solid Nvidia card in the first place.
Gnu side of Linux tries to change the practices used by said businesses, and the more people embrace it, the more pressured companies become to be compliant.
Any sane copyleft activist (of which there are many in the Linux world) sees this change as a betrayal; security experts and enthusiasts are also not happy about a program doing something unknown sitting on their system.
snaps bad because slow
Snaps bad because shoving updates down throats.
snaps bad because
Are they though? They were at one point, but even then I’ve not seen comparative slowness compared to the equivalent Flatpaks. In some cases I’ve seen them be slow compared to native packages, but even that seems to have all but disappeared for me.
That link includes a whole lot of old things as well as blog posts about how they sped up the performance of the Firefox snap, after which there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, further evidence of the snap being slow.
I don’t like snaps because it’s just another Canonical NIH thing. Everyone else agreed on flatpak which seems to have a good design with portals and all and being fully open.
On the other hand, you have snaps, which is being controlled by Canonical as the server component is l non-public. The packages sometimes work worse than normal debs and the flatpak version (steam being a notable example IIRC).
There is 0 motivation for me as a user to look into that. They have solved the problem in one of the worst ways possible. Even Mint, which is Ubuntu’s biggest downstream, has opted against including it by default.
In addition to all of that, Canonical also installs applications as snap when using the apt\£* command line tools.
So you have a system that is
- proprietary
- worse than the alternatives
- pushed on users even through unexpected channels
Ubuntu’s mission was always to build bridges between the user and tech and businesses that the gnu side of Linux wouldn’t.
Which bridge did they build with snaps?
It’s a good just works distro that has spawned a ton of just works distros
Which in turn have removed snaps by default and replaced the affected packages with native ones because it often didn’t “just work”
I don’t like snaps because it’s just another Canonical NIH thing. Everyone else agreed on flatpak which seems to have a good design with portals and all and being fully open.
Snaps both predate flatpak and do things that Flatpaks are not designed to do.
Canonical have also been a part of the desktop portals standard for a very long time, as they’ve been a part of how snaps do things.
Snaps both predate flatpak and do things that Flatpaks are not designed to do.
By less than a year judging by the article… and for individual applications, there was AppImage.
Snaps can do things flatpaks can’t do. Which is true but also kind of irrelevant if we’re talking about a means to distribute applications in a cross-distribution manner as opposed to a base system A/B partition solution.
Or am I misunderstanding?
The claim that snaps are a Canonical NIH thing is falsified by those two facts. Even if Canonical said “okay, we’ll distribute desktop apps with Flatpak,” that wouldn’t affect the vast majority of their ongoing effort for snaps, which are related to things that Flatpak simply doesn’t do. Instead, they’d have the separate work of making the moving target of flatpaks work with their snap-based systems such as Ubuntu Core while still having to fully maintain that snap based ecosystem for the enterprise customers who use it for things that Flatpak simply doesn’t do.
I like Snaps. They can do more than Flatpak and when packaged well they just work. Sadly some apps on Snapcraft are abandoned or they just don’t work, but the same can be said about Flathub.
Which bridge did they build with snaps?
Proprietary companies are compelled to release on Snapcraft because it gives them advantages over other packaging methods. I’m just a user but I heard Snaps are easy to work with thanks to the documentation.
In addition to all of that, Canonical also installs applications as snap when using the apt\£* command line tools.
Firefox for example isn’t even in their apt repos. So instead of throwing an error, the Firefox meta package installs the snap, and tells you it’s doing that.
But I understand that Ubuntu isn’t for you if you want to avoid snaps.
Everyone should use what suits them best. My negative opinion on snaps doesn’t mean Ubuntu shouldn’t ship it or that users shouldn’t use it. It’s Canonical’s distribution, they can put into it whatever they want for all I care, and if users are happy with it, good for them. But I can still criticize it for perceived issues. (Edit: kind of a straw man since nobody said I couldn’t, I just wanted to stress that I’m not authoritative on the matter)
But I understand that Ubuntu isn’t for you if you want to avoid snaps.
I used Ubuntu in the past, from I think 2004 or maybe 2005 to 2008, but switched away because of other issues that I don’t remember anymore, but I do remember upgrades between major versions were always pain with an Nvidia card (this was before AMD or in the beginning even ATI cards were well-usable under Linux) and I honestly just prefer rolling release nowadays. But snaps are just not at all compelling anyways.
This is a solid take.
Personally, I took snap out of my computer and burned it over a fire, but i toasted my marshmallows first, because I didn’t want snap on my marshmallows.
The only reason I don’t like snap is because useful mount information gets buried in 5 million “loop” mounts.
lsblk is fun with snaps :D
Good thing
grepexists!
I don’t get why anybody uses Ubuntu. Just use Debian. It’s basically more stable and functional Ubuntu, but without snaps and you don’t need an entire distro branch for different DEs.
Because it’s a popular distro. Because when you look for “how to X in linux”, there’s a 90% chance the response will be about Ubuntu. Because your workplace said so. The list goes on.
Because you don’t have to know what to do already if you start with Ubuntu. You have to know your way around the Linux world more if you use Debian
I don’t get why anyone uses windows 7,8,8.1,11, use Linux mint (windows 10 is replaced with a distro that uses kde plasma)
I don’t get why anyone uses, my body makes my own chemicals.
I don’t get why anyone makes chemicals when they could be using my body.
Blursed. Not that I disagree.
I despise ubuntu solely because of snap
may I introduce you to ubuntu pro spamming your apt-get these days? You’re welcome
Hey, you should be careful around Ubuntu fans. They might just snap.
*laugh track*
I am still pissed at Ubuntu
As you should be.
Ubuntu in ~2015 was peak Linux (for me). Everything worked flawlessly with zero bugs, even printers. It’s been downhill ever since with the exception of Steam Proton, but even then I’ve had more bugs with Steam in the past couple years then I did in 2013.
Ubuntu is recommended by microsoft
Damn, that amounts to corporate disparagement…
If it works for you, i literally could not care less
Best answer I’ve seen so far about this!
arch❤️
That behavior fucking sucks actually
I can’t tell if this in-fighting on Linux flavors is in good humor or just snobby opinions.
false dichotomy. Sometimes people justifiably dislike something for reasons beyond elitism (e.g. Canonical is a for-profit corporation that muddies the waters of FOSS), but it’s also not just playful bants.
Also, as with every opinionated topic: do your own research and think critically. Don’t hate Ubuntu until you have tried it and have investigated those who maintain it. Don’t praise it until you do so either.
I don’t care if you come to a different conclusion than me, as long as you didn’t just function on the “wisdom of the crowd”
Like most things in life, it’s somewhere in the middle. Some of the criticism is factual and valid. Some, a matter of taste (mostly relating to GNOME). Some arises from negative personal experience. Some is just elitist bluster.
The best thing to do is to be rational and critical. Never dismiss an opinion outright without separating the truth from the bullshit.
I think it’s just elitism. The worst example is Chris Titus making a video where he explains why you shouldn’t use Ubuntu. And then proceeds to make video explaining how it’s not actually that bad and he uses it with a different DE.
But now 300K people saw that Ubuntu bad for stupid reasons, from a “reputable” source.
