12 ms·

And Firefox is a snap package now; the .deb will go away next release. Canonical finally managed to make me switch back to Debian.

by u10242 5y ago

evrflx 5y ago
Is there an alternative source for non-snap Firefox? snapd is the first thing I nuke on fresh installs. I would like to stay with Ubuntu, if possible.
- monsieurgaufre 5y ago
  In the release notes (https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-notes/21951 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-notes/21...): The deb package remains available in the archive and will continue receiving updates for the lifetime of Ubuntu 21.10.
- jraph 5y ago
  Mozilla's own tarballs.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  you can always just download it from the website, unpack it and make a .desktop file or put a symlink under ~/bin or whatever
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  Possibly getting Firefox from Debian Sid (unstable). Will require some advanced apt configuration to make sure that nothing else accidentally comes from sid, and might break or require further apt configuration changes if it starts requiring library versions that aren't in Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu and I sometimes install Debian Sid packages by downloading them in a browser and installing them with dpkg.
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  I uninstalled the snap, then did apt install firefox, worked fine. In principle I am all in favor of more sandboxing for my browser, but when I opened FF on the machine I'd upgraded to Impish, it didn't import anything, open tabs, bookmarks, nada. Not what I'd call friendly onboarding...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- shaicoleman 5y ago
  You can also use the Flatpak version: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.firefox https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.firefox
  - flyingchipmann 5y ago
    I had some weird performance issues. Tried it side by side and flakpak version ran significantly worse. Not sure why
  - CarelessExpert 5y ago
    Unfortunately the container breaks certain extensions (e.g. keepassxc-browser). And that's ignoring the fact that, at least on my machine, the flatpak fonts look terrible for some reason and I often run into issues with the Gnome theme not being properly inherited. I've been using the Debian packages supplied by Ubuntuzilla (despite their being hosted on gag Sourceforge): https://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/
    - gtirloni 5y ago
      Try flatseal and see if you can tweak the permissions. Re: terrible look, I face the same thing with Telegram (the mouse reverts to whatever is the default in Qt and ignores the system settings). I haven't been able to fix that.
      - shaicoleman 5y ago
        This is what fixed the cursor for me (Linux Mint Cinnamon, HiDPI): sudo flatpak override --env XCURSOR_THEME=DMZ-White mkdir -p ~/.icons/default/cursors/ cp -R /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/. ~/.icons/default/cursors/
  - xet7 5y ago
    When installing distro, I usually remove some included packages and install newest Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape etc from Flatpak, because Flatpak has newest versions. Many packages do not update .deb anymore, they have moved to Flatpak.
- heroxbd 5y ago
  You can migrate to Debian if possible. Ubuntu was a derivative from it.
- heroxbd 5y ago
  You can try Debian, from which Ubuntu was derived. No snap.
3np 5y ago
Welcome back! I think it was 20.04 that really did it for me. That being said, in general 21.10 looks like a good incremental update.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
drcongo 5y ago
As someone whose only experience with linux is servers and Raspberry Pi, can you tell me what's wrong with snaps? I've only used them on a self-hosted NextCloud and my experience with them has been decent, but I see a lot of dislike for them on HN.
- chomp 5y ago
  There's pros and cons. It helps developers because they aren't restricted to the distro's shipped library versions, they can build against what they need. It also confines the app to a sandbox. The downsides are that the packages end up larger because they ship with all of the necessary bundled libraries (which can also increase memory usage of the application because it can't share the libraries loaded in RAM by the native operating system), and there's a lack of trust that the developer can keep up with bundled library security updates.
  - larntz 5y ago
    Also I think snap is an Ubuntu thing vs flatpak and appimage which are more distro agnostic. That's my issue with it/Ubuntu. They are doing good things, but at the same time I don't feel they are as "open" as other linux distros. Also, snapd is installed by default on their servers and it's not as to remove as it should be. This is one of the reason that I will always choose a different distro if I have the choice.
    - xet7 5y ago
      Snap is available for many distros https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd It's great Canonical pays all the huge costs of Snap servers and bandwidth. I could not afford to host all that myself.
      - curt15 5y ago
        Does its sandbox work yet on distros that don't use apparmor? Last time I checked, snap apps were essentially unconfined on Fedora, and sandboxing is one of snap's most important selling points.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
In their mind it makes sense: firefox is a user facing app that is frequently updated and requires a lot of dependencies. Perfect candidate for a snap. But yeah, up to now, snaps really sucked, and flatpak is winning.
andrewshadura 5y ago
I've just completed apt upgrade -t testing on my pre-release impish. Good to be back again.
zmk5 5y ago
I don't notice a difference since upgrading from the deb to the snap.
ur-whale 5y ago
> And Firefox is a snap package now Oh, ouch!
- tored 5y ago
  Oh, snap!
jgb1984 5y ago
As a 20+ years Debian user I've never seen the added value of Ubuntu. Why use a derivative if you can get the real thing?
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  It works out of the box for most hardware, install proprietary things easily, including drivers and codecs, and have more up to date softwares. It also have lots of usability tweaks. You can, have all that with debian, but then you have to do the work. I don't want to do the work if canonical can do it for me.
  - larntz 5y ago
    Have you considered Fedora? I recently moved from Arch to Fedora and I have all the same up to date vanilla packages without having to do any real work.
    - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
      I tried so many distros. None of them fit the bill for a pro laptop. I don't want to move out of ubuntu based distros, they get too many things right. I'd rather try Elementary, Pop OS, Xubuntu, etc.
      - 0des 5y ago
        Go for it! Those are great choices, you'll do fine.
      - larntz 5y ago
        I have heard great things about PopOS but haven't tried it personally. Hopefully you find the right distro for you.
  - jgb1984 5y ago
    I installed debian just a few weeks ago on my brand new desktop. AMD Ryzen 5800x, MSI B550 motherboard, MSI Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti. Everything worked, out of the box, without adding anything magical. Including Ethernet, wifi, Bluetooth and hardware accelerated graphics. Have been buying Nvidia gpu's since forever and their (proprietary) drivers have never let me down. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Also, more up to date software, I'm quite certain my Debian Sid has more recent versions of everything compared to what Ubuntu has.

And Firefox is a snap package now; the .deb will go away next release. Canonical finally managed to make me switch back to Debian.

by u10242 5y ago

And Firefox is a snap package now; the .deb will go away next release. Canonical finally managed to make me switch back to Debian.

evrflx 5y ago

Is there an alternative source for non-snap Firefox? snapd is the first thing I nuke on fresh installs. I would like to stay with Ubuntu, if possible.

monsieurgaufre 5y ago
In the release notes (https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-notes/21951 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-notes/21...): The deb package remains available in the archive and will continue receiving updates for the lifetime of Ubuntu 21.10.
jraph 5y ago
Mozilla's own tarballs.
Barrin92 5y ago
you can always just download it from the website, unpack it and make a .desktop file or put a symlink under ~/bin or whatever
ahartmetz 5y ago
Possibly getting Firefox from Debian Sid (unstable). Will require some advanced apt configuration to make sure that nothing else accidentally comes from sid, and might break or require further apt configuration changes if it starts requiring library versions that aren't in Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu and I sometimes install Debian Sid packages by downloading them in a browser and installing them with dpkg.
blacksmith_tb 5y ago
I uninstalled the snap, then did apt install firefox, worked fine. In principle I am all in favor of more sandboxing for my browser, but when I opened FF on the machine I'd upgraded to Impish, it didn't import anything, open tabs, bookmarks, nada. Not what I'd call friendly onboarding...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shaicoleman 5y ago
You can also use the Flatpak version: https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.firefox https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.firefox
- flyingchipmann 5y ago
  I had some weird performance issues. Tried it side by side and flakpak version ran significantly worse. Not sure why
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  Unfortunately the container breaks certain extensions (e.g. keepassxc-browser). And that's ignoring the fact that, at least on my machine, the flatpak fonts look terrible for some reason and I often run into issues with the Gnome theme not being properly inherited. I've been using the Debian packages supplied by Ubuntuzilla (despite their being hosted on gag Sourceforge): https://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/
  - gtirloni 5y ago
    Try flatseal and see if you can tweak the permissions. Re: terrible look, I face the same thing with Telegram (the mouse reverts to whatever is the default in Qt and ignores the system settings). I haven't been able to fix that.
    - shaicoleman 5y ago
      This is what fixed the cursor for me (Linux Mint Cinnamon, HiDPI): sudo flatpak override --env XCURSOR_THEME=DMZ-White mkdir -p ~/.icons/default/cursors/ cp -R /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/. ~/.icons/default/cursors/
- xet7 5y ago
  When installing distro, I usually remove some included packages and install newest Firefox, LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape etc from Flatpak, because Flatpak has newest versions. Many packages do not update .deb anymore, they have moved to Flatpak.
heroxbd 5y ago
You can migrate to Debian if possible. Ubuntu was a derivative from it.
heroxbd 5y ago
You can try Debian, from which Ubuntu was derived. No snap.

3np 5y ago

Welcome back! I think it was 20.04 that really did it for me. That being said, in general 21.10 looks like a good incremental update.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

drcongo 5y ago

As someone whose only experience with linux is servers and Raspberry Pi, can you tell me what's wrong with snaps? I've only used them on a self-hosted NextCloud and my experience with them has been decent, but I see a lot of dislike for them on HN.

chomp 5y ago
There's pros and cons. It helps developers because they aren't restricted to the distro's shipped library versions, they can build against what they need. It also confines the app to a sandbox. The downsides are that the packages end up larger because they ship with all of the necessary bundled libraries (which can also increase memory usage of the application because it can't share the libraries loaded in RAM by the native operating system), and there's a lack of trust that the developer can keep up with bundled library security updates.
- larntz 5y ago
  Also I think snap is an Ubuntu thing vs flatpak and appimage which are more distro agnostic. That's my issue with it/Ubuntu. They are doing good things, but at the same time I don't feel they are as "open" as other linux distros. Also, snapd is installed by default on their servers and it's not as to remove as it should be. This is one of the reason that I will always choose a different distro if I have the choice.
  - xet7 5y ago
    Snap is available for many distros https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd It's great Canonical pays all the huge costs of Snap servers and bandwidth. I could not afford to host all that myself.
    - curt15 5y ago
      Does its sandbox work yet on distros that don't use apparmor? Last time I checked, snap apps were essentially unconfined on Fedora, and sandboxing is one of snap's most important selling points.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

In their mind it makes sense: firefox is a user facing app that is frequently updated and requires a lot of dependencies. Perfect candidate for a snap. But yeah, up to now, snaps really sucked, and flatpak is winning.

andrewshadura 5y ago

I've just completed apt upgrade -t testing on my pre-release impish. Good to be back again.

zmk5 5y ago

I don't notice a difference since upgrading from the deb to the snap.

ur-whale 5y ago

> And Firefox is a snap package now Oh, ouch!

tored 5y ago
Oh, snap!

jgb1984 5y ago

As a 20+ years Debian user I've never seen the added value of Ubuntu. Why use a derivative if you can get the real thing?

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
It works out of the box for most hardware, install proprietary things easily, including drivers and codecs, and have more up to date softwares. It also have lots of usability tweaks. You can, have all that with debian, but then you have to do the work. I don't want to do the work if canonical can do it for me.
- larntz 5y ago
  Have you considered Fedora? I recently moved from Arch to Fedora and I have all the same up to date vanilla packages without having to do any real work.
  - BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    I tried so many distros. None of them fit the bill for a pro laptop. I don't want to move out of ubuntu based distros, they get too many things right. I'd rather try Elementary, Pop OS, Xubuntu, etc.
    - 0des 5y ago
      Go for it! Those are great choices, you'll do fine.
    - larntz 5y ago
      I have heard great things about PopOS but haven't tried it personally. Hopefully you find the right distro for you.
- jgb1984 5y ago
  I installed debian just a few weeks ago on my brand new desktop. AMD Ryzen 5800x, MSI B550 motherboard, MSI Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti. Everything worked, out of the box, without adding anything magical. Including Ethernet, wifi, Bluetooth and hardware accelerated graphics. Have been buying Nvidia gpu's since forever and their (proprietary) drivers have never let me down. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Also, more up to date software, I'm quite certain my Debian Sid has more recent versions of everything compared to what Ubuntu has.