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Disabling automatic refresh for Snap from store

128 points by ccmcarey 4y ago

elmerfud 4y ago
Where Microsoft leads with its bad ideas Linux distros will follow blindly. The sad thing is those who decried a Microsoft for their evilness of doing things like this are the same ones that have turned right around and started defending it in the name of "users are stupid so give them less freedom".
- deleted 4y ago
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- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  more like "ubuntu will follow blindly" other big guys like redhat, suse, etc have more sane defaults.
anotherevan 4y ago
So... I have been using Ubuntu 18.04LTS for my half-dozen servers and was planning to replace them with 22.04LTS later this year. Bad idea? I've tended to use every second LTS release, replacing with new (cloud) servers during the overlap in support periods. I use Ansible to configure. Should I be considering Rocky or straight Debian instead? Something else?
- matthews2 4y ago
  If you aren't paying Canonical for support you might as well just use Debian.
kzrdude 4y ago
The snap thing makes me want to switch distro (for work) from ubuntu. Unfortunately we have some benefits from using ubuntu as the common platform for less divergence from each other
- jjgreen 4y ago
  Maybe look at Mint?
- canadaduane 4y ago
  Pop!_OS is a solid Ubuntu-based distro that uses Flatpak in place of Snap (among many other great decisions).
  - duped 4y ago
    This is why I don't use it anymore: https://support.system76.com/articles/enable-hibernation/ https://support.system76.com/articles/enable-hibernation/
    - stjohnswarts 4y ago
      That's fine, but my system boots so fast that hibernate is slower. Pop_OS is a very nice distro, particularly the LTS.
    - cmeacham98 4y ago
      Because they support hibernation? I assume the answer here has to be "because it's a PITA to enable", but as far as I know no distro does this correctly by default on an encrypted drive.
      - duped 4y ago
        Because it's a pain in the ass for what should be the default, especially if you want to use it on a laptop and not have the battery die overnight.
PaulHoule 4y ago
Never used a snap. Never will.
- ugjka 4y ago
  I use it only for Spotify
  - jmholla 4y ago
    I install Spotify through `apt`. What benefits do you get from installing their snap?
    - ugjka 4y ago
      They sometimes forget to update the .Deb version >@Romario74 That is not the case; while on Snap they packaged v77, if you look here you will find that the Spotify devs have not been updating the .deb releases. Re-packaging Snaps is less convenient than using a .deb tarball, and is being done through scripts by this Github project, which is in turn repackaged by @Edu4rdSHL. https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/spotify https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/spotify So i run snapd on system
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Can’t you just use the web site?
    - Kelteseth 4y ago
      I tried this but for me closing the browser sometimes means, being done with work or a task and this would always also shut down my music. It's the small things that still drive me to install their client, even though I know it is just another electron app.
    - Avamander 4y ago
      Both major browsers are Snaps as well. The web site also has a significant additional control latency when playing on a device on your local network.
user3939382 4y ago
> The issue that makes us resist the idea of simply disabling updates altogether is that very often that will mean never update rather than update at someone’s discretion, and then we’re getting back to some of the problems that got us here in the first place. I’m sorry, who owns the machine here?
- danamit 4y ago
  You will get the updates, and you will be happy.
  - hn_version_0023 4y ago
    “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
- ctxc 4y ago
  Counter point for general software: some people don't upgrade software for _years_, due to which vendors have two problems - 1. Open security vulnerabilities 2. Necessity to maintain backward compatible infra To offset this, two channels of releases can be maintained - one for security fixes, another for general features etc. But again here, we run into problems where maintenance of two channels isn't economical, and you end up testing security fixes on various versions. How can these be addressed if upgrades are not forced, are there standard processes followed that provide the best compromise for both vendors and end users?
  - chockchocschoir 4y ago
    > How can these be addressed if upgrades are not forced, are there standard processes followed that provide the best compromise for both vendors and end users? There is an easy way to solve this problem. Default to auto updates, allow people to turn it off, by acknowledging what that means. Most users use whatever is the default anyways. Vendors gets to push their updates, users who don't want those, can reject them. If someone gets hacked because they turned off auto update, the vendor won't be on the hook for it, because the user said they were aware of it when they turned it off. I think the core problem here is not that people are asking for auto updates to be off by default, they simply want to have the option. And frankly, for professional use cases, you have to be able to turn off auto updates, as otherwise it'll harm the workflow as you can't control when the update happens.
bitcharmer 4y ago
I love Ubuntu, it's been my daily driver for over a decade now but if they continue with going against the community on this nonsense this will be a strong indication for people like me that an era has come to an end and it's time to move on. It used to be a community focused distro. This bs feels outright user-hostile.
- rubyist5eva 4y ago
  Just switched to Fedora about a week ago because I was getting fed up with user hostile Ubuntu bs, I like it a lot.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I don't like that you have to update it so often. I like the idea of an LTS. On systems I want to update often I just put arch on them so there is never major breakage that I can't roll back easily with snapper.
    - rubyist5eva 4y ago
      Each version of Fedora is supported for 14 months, so you can keep it a little behind but still get updates. They also will update the kernel so you’re getting updated hardware new support. With flatpak having up to date desktop applications is not an issue either. For development libraries I’m usually in some kind of a container with a fixed version, so updates shouldn’t much of an issue either. For example I just installed Fedora 35, I will probably install 36 at some point after 37 comes out, and stay one release behind current. Major upgrades are still relatively safe because of FS snapshots. I just personally prefer a slightly slower pace than “bleeding edge all the time”. For a server I would just put Alma/Rocky Linux on it.
      - dralley 4y ago
        >Major upgrades are still relatively safe because of FS snapshots. Also, in general the upgrades are quite reliable. I have a few systems that have been upgraded in-place for years without any issues (regardless of snapshots, since they're using ext4).
gjsman-1000 4y ago
I warned them half a decade ago on a super-long thread (on that forum, it’s called “External repositories”) that having Canonical in charge of everything, having no support for external repositories, and no ability to disable updates was going to be the death of Snap. They would not listen at all to me or anyone on that discussion. It was nothing but double-down. Well… what, five years later, here we are. They are still trucking on although the Linux community at large has turned against them, yet they remain in their echo chamber of a forum and don’t see it, convinced it will all work out or some crap.
Thaxll 4y ago
I think auto updates are ok but not for everything, client side app are ok to auto update the rest not so much.
- mikro2nd 4y ago
  No. No they're not OK. Sometimes I am forced to live on eye-wateringly expensive bandwidth (because dodgy rural DSL and trees falling) and I'd go broke letting things autoupdate during those times.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    I don't understand this remark. They charge you more when trees/systems are down? Are you talking about using some backup service (like your cellphone) or something? Your comment is hard to reason out without information like that.
    - RobotCaleb 4y ago
      They're saying that sometimes their internet goes out either because of their rural situation or because trees fall and knock out copper lines. When that happens, they have to switch to an expensive internet solution.
dsr_ 4y ago
If you give people tools to enforce their own policies, you have an adaptable system. If you create a set of policies that users can choose from, you have limited your usefulness to just those cases that fit in those policies that you have implemented. If you choose a single policy for everyone, only people who are willing to use that policy will use your system. These patterns repeat across operating systems, services and applications.
Avamander 4y ago
Snap developers have refused to rename $HOME/snap to be less visible for nearly as long, they have and are shipping very broken software, all while using update methods that corrupted people's data unannounced until very recently (the update mechanism made data directories non-writable unless you enable some experimental option). They very much do not care about the end-user with Snap, only how to appear attractive to potential customers.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  It's a pretty wild switch of power from the usual distro packaging where the packager is a neutral middle ground between the application's and the user's interests, often swinging to the side of being the user advocate. Of course, compared with other platforms and auto updates, it is clear why app developers prefer and expect to be in charge of updates.
- deleted 4y ago
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- acabal 4y ago
  This is its most egregious sin, IMHO. Imagine low level system software with such a high opinion of itself that it thinks it deserves a front and center place in your home directory for you to look at every single day. We don't have ~/ssh or ~/dconf do we? We've had the XDG spec for decades now - this selfish decision makes me so irrationally angry that it's the one reason I'd switch to Fedora to avoid snaps.
- nemetroid 4y ago
  It’s not even $HOME/snap, it’s /home/$USER/snap. https://snapcraft.io/docs/home-outside-home https://snapcraft.io/docs/home-outside-home > The snap daemon (snapd) requires a user’s home directory ($HOME) to be located under /home on the local filesystem. This requirement cannot currently be changed.
nik736 4y ago
Please correct me if I am wrong, but you can simply snap install with a --channel, which could be a specific version. This way it is not auto updating, since it's on that specific channel/version.
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  You are wrong :) updates are published to channels and anyone following that channel will get the update. More about how snap channels work here. https://ubuntu.com/blog/controlling-snap-releases-with-channels-tracks-and-branches-part-1 https://ubuntu.com/blog/controlling-snap-releases-with-chann...
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  Aren't channels things like "stable" or "bleeding edge" or something like that? Which means that this would only work if the snap vendor cooperates.
  - bboozzoo 4y ago
    But then you can't really blame Canonical and that makes the wole agument moot.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      The argument is that "channels" are not "versions". So inside a channel, you cannot disable updates. And that's the way Canonical operates, they regularly push updates to their "stable" channel. There is no "v1.2.3" channel that will forever stay at that particular version until you switch channels. The point is that you are the mercy of the snap publisher, and as the sysadmin, you cannot prevent the software from updating. Whether you should or not do that is a different debate.
      - bboozzoo 4y ago
        Canonical directly maintains only a handful of snaps, and even so it's up to the individual teams to do the relevant QA before publishing a version to the stable. You'd expect that publishers follow the same process, that a stable channel means it's really stable, whereas version breaking changes really end up in per version channel. Ideally you have the latest/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} which follows the latest version of the software, and eg. v1/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v2/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v3/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} for individual version. A simple concept but surprisingly hard to follow. Maybe the publishers are really lazy and don't care about the users or the maintenance cost of keeping n versions around is just too high, in which case it's up to the users to make their effort worth it.
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jabiko 4y ago
We use microk8s on our dev clusters and its really great when an automatic upgrade goes sideways. Also using channels didn't help since even a minor upgrade managed to break our setup once. The last half year or so went ok, but not being able to stop automatic upgrades is ridiculous. In general I like opinionated software, but sometimes it goes to far.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Canonical currently has their head in the sand for how Linux users at large see it. If you try to talk about how Linux distributions don’t like it, they’ll just say, “but Snap is available on all the distributions” or some crap cop-out. I had a long forum thread about all the issues people are complaining about half a decade ago. They wouldn’t budge, and still won’t budge.
  - kd913 4y ago
    Linux users are some of the most opinionated people. At the end of the day, money/convenience matters. Why exactly would they pay attention to you when they have their own priorities? Snaps reduce reduce their maintenance burdens, and they have the stats themselves for how popular they are. They are by and far more used than flatpaks from what I remember from the video by Martin Wimpress. Oh and they have third party buy-in from software vendors like Mozilla, Microsoft, VLC, JetBrains, Spotify, slack etc... Why would they budge?
    - gjsman-1000 4y ago
      So according to a Snap developer, Snap is more popular on Ubuntu, the only distribution that comes with it preloaded. That does not say anything about Snap’s popularity. Vendor interest they have, community interest they lack. And if it continues, lack of community interest will result in a lack of vendor interest.
      - kd913 4y ago
        They literally have stats for each snap download and install. https://snapcraft.io/slack https://snapcraft.io/slack You see the map at the bottom with a list of OSes? They have the interest, commercial and from the populace. Vendors have already integrated it into their pipelines. What they don't have is the vocal minority. Frankly I don't get why people care so much, if you don't like it switch to something else. No need to whine about it online. They aren't preventing you from using flatpak.
FpUser 4y ago
Snap was the reason I said goodbye to Ubuntu
- henriquez 4y ago
  Same here. If I want forced updates I can use Windows.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    I would have left even without forced updates. I just do not want to waste my computer power on this virtualization crusade. When / if I need it I want it to be explicit and under my control.
rsolva 4y ago
Having observed (well deserved) criticism of both Snap and Flatpak during the years, Flatpak seems to emerge as the most sensible solution, continuously addressing and improving on the pain points and security challenges. I have been using Fedora 34/35 the last year or so, and Flatpaks are well integrated and mostly just works without any performance hit. Being able to adjust permissions per app (with Flatseal) has also been a great experience. I have little experience with Snap, but the few times I have had to deal with it on Ubuntu-based distros, it has left a bad impression from a user perspective.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  It’s not even remotely close. Snaps take longer to load, still sometimes have theme issues, you have to manually install Snap on almost all non-Snap distributions, you’ll be littered with garbage mountpoints, you’ll have a useless snap folder in your home directory, you can’t add external repositories of any kind, and you get no ability to stop updates easy without going into duct tape solutions. Snap wants to be a desktop, and server, system. Not with a 10 foot pole - Docker is literally 100x better. Not on my Desktop - Flatpak is superior there.
  - zamalek 4y ago
    > Snaps take longer to load Without fail, on multiple machines, shutdown/restart is stalled for the maximum 2:30 timeout for snapd. It's a useful reminder to uninstall Snap whenever I find myself in the unfortunate situation of using Ubuntu.
  - azalemeth 4y ago
    Don't forget odd permissions problems. From memory, ipfs is distributed as a snap. Try saving a file to another location outside of the snap jail. Almost impossible.
- throwaway984393 4y ago
  As an Alpine user, Flatpak is invaluable. Snap isn't supported because it requires systemd.
tjoff 4y ago
Somehow when googling software snap will often come up and try to push users to install snap and the software. Almost feels like malware on every level. Can't comprehend why they are pushing it so hard. Ubuntu is on borrowed time.
- oofbey 4y ago
  I have been a huge fan of Ubuntu for a long time. But the way they push snap is really making me question this choice. The more I learn about snap the less I like it.
  - okasaki 4y ago
    It seems that sometimes the push is external. A few days ago Canonical announced that they would switch Firefox to snap because that's the only way Mozilla will allow them to redistribute it.
    - codethief 4y ago
      > because that's the only way Mozilla will allow them to redistribute it. I doubt this is the whole truth, compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30800957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30800957
    - oofbey 4y ago
      Having a user app like Firefox force autoupdate is not that bad IMHO. Having server infrastructure components update themselves automatically can be disastrous. This caught me by surprise, painfully. Snap for GUI apps, okay, fine. Snap for system infrastructure, no thank you.
      - broknbottle 4y ago
        It's bad when the user is actively using the application and snapd decides to update the Firefox snap and cause issues.
account-5 4y ago
Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.
- cbmuser 4y ago
  Flatpak is incredibly useful for installing proprietary software. I use it for Spotify, Zoom, Slack among others. Installing and updating Flatpak apps for proprietary software works very well.
- 542458 4y ago
  Over manual install - snap/flatpak is typically way faster and easier to install and configure. Installing Nextcloud manually if you’re not familiar with the process is an hour or more of setting up all the essential and optional dependencies. It’s a few seconds of snap install nextcloud. Over distro repos - no dependency version hell. I don’t really love snap/flatpak (too much “magic”, hard to tweak installs) but I see why they get used.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I'd be curious to hear a good explanation as well from someone who knows more about this than me. My feeling (and feelings/suspicions are all I've really got) is that there are 2 factors driving it - maintaining repos is mundane work, and containers are fashionable again.
- emerongi 4y ago
  Flatpak's benefits: - Cross-distro packaging (no need to provide N package formats - this one runs on all distros) - Faster update cycle for each app, if the package is maintained by the original developers - Sandboxing - Better compatibility all around, as the package runs the same on all distros (as opposed to some too-old or too-new module breaking something on X distro) - Some other goodies, like checking new releases of the source on Github etc Flatpak's drawbacks: - Modules are not shared, which can result in somewhat larger packages and potential vulnerabilities - Many packages are community-maintained by people who are not necessarily experts in the Linux ecosystem. Distro-provided packages usually have tighter requirements Personally, I use Flatpaks for the sandbox. I restrict all apps very heavily.
indymike 4y ago
Users are telling the snap team exactly what they want: give us a way to disable automatic updates. Snappy's vision is to take this control away. This is why people hate snaps. They don't fit user workflows, make extra work and even cause show stopping problems. Snaps could be great but the team really needs to listen. For me I'm removing snaps from my configs before I get surprised. (edit: mobile autocomplete typos)
- deleted 4y ago
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- ethbr0 4y ago
  It's the nature of creating a currated experience: saying "No" to a lot of things. Chrome/Google did the same thing. Snap clearly has a philosophy. And a lot of people clearly disagree with that philosophy. Thankfully, instead of "advertised from google.com", Snap has less ability to push itself on users, and users have more ability to choose it... or not.
  - indymike 4y ago
    >Snap clearly has a philosophy. And a lot of people clearly disagree with that philosophy. Seems like that philosophy is the user is not to be trusted. The problem here is that users in reality, not just philosophically, CANNOT trust snap because it will force updates (or dns trickery to stop it) that may cause a system to stop working.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Snap's philosophy appears to be: Given the option to not patch, users will not patch. And this is even worse in IoT land. Which I can't say is wrong. Who probably shouldn't use Snap are users with mature patch application skills, who are willing the invest the time to review and patch regularly. That class of users is far smaller than {all users}.
      - indymike 4y ago
izoow 4y ago
The only thing still keeping me on Ubuntu is the font rendering that somehow looks so much better than any other distro, otherwise I would've already switched to another distro because of snap. I feel like I've never seen anybody actually like snap.
- xeromal 4y ago
  Snap is probably that thing that the people who do use it or don't mind it, don't notice it.
throwawaymanbot 4y ago
NGRhodes 4y ago
One of a number of reasons Ubuntu does not even meet the minimum requirements to tender for a cut of the millions the University I work for invests in Linux systems (research workstations (often packed with NVIDIA GPUs), clients to control specialist equipment, HPC, regular desktops/laptops/servers, network/lustre/backup storage etc).
gpspake 4y ago
Wow. This thread isn't controversial at all. I haven't found a single comment making a case for Snap. It seems to be universally disliked - at least by this crowd.
- apexalpha 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    My reasons for hating for example the FF snap are quite valid thank you very much. Shall I ponder out loud my own unflattering assumptions as to why you are ok with something like snaps?
    - apexalpha 4y ago
      Sure, I'd be interested to hear why you prefer (why hate?) traditional packages over containarized ones like Snap or Flatpak. I'm just a bit weirded out by the vocal hate and anti-Canonical sentiment in this thread. Some people even proudly complaining they've "never used Snaps and never will!" I mean in the end it's a packaging format with pros and cons, I suppose. But the threads on this subject feels almost an American political debate where everyone is dug in and flinging shit to the other side.
      - Brian_K_White 4y ago
        That's not what I asked, and apparently you missed the point of why I asked it.
- kd913 4y ago
  It's disliked by the same Linux purists who complain constantly about systemd. Bit odd how the same community hates Canonical considering how it's now the only FOSS commercial entity considering Red Hat was bought by IBM. The community treats them worse than Microsoft for no good reasons. If you don't like snap, fine, use flatpak, apt, AppImages. Nobody is forcing you on ubuntu systems, but they spend their effort and time whining here. I like snaps, I use them for everything I can. - They are better confined than flatpaks, and come with a permission based model. Hence why there are some rougher edges. I appreciate the increased security. - I appreciate the ability that when I remove a snap, the entire thing is removed with no littering. - They are significantly easier to distribute on ubuntu than dealing with ppas or launchpad. - They are a one-stop shop for finding the software I care about. I don't need to hit the command line, or add another repo. - They save time and money because devs only need to support 1 base. - I can install software on ubuntu without giving root privileges in a self-contained fashion. Some common complains: - The store isn't open sourced. Well yes, that is because they wasted time from the same whiny people over launchpad. Nobody else runs and supports launchpad. Hence nobody else would frankly bother running the snap store. - People can't run their own store. Well yes, that is because Canonical learned from a decade ago with the security nightmare that is PPAs. Yea, it is a bad idea giving devs root access to 100k worth of machines to run arbitrary scripts. Also really bad UX. -It's slow to startup with theming issues. Well the situation has improved 100x since a few years ago, and also I run an ssd, 32gb of RAM and a 3600, I don't really care for a few seconds in launch time.
lvs 4y ago
Brian_K_White 4y ago
I really don't understand all these "flatpak is better" comments. It's not. https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future Maybe it is better than snap, but it's not good and its not better than a traditional package, on either philosophical or technical grounds.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  It is better on a "keep it updated by the developer" grounds and that's all I need. I liek to have the latest with things like spotify, libreoffice, qbittorrent, etc. I like the sandboxing. Sure it ain't everybody's cup of tea, but you can't discount other people's opinion as "wrong". They're just opinions. I know other people value the aspects of .deb/.rpm only based system, and I have weighed the pros and cons personally. Don't expect that we haven't looked into it for ourselves by default.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Check out how long this flatpak bug was on adding a pin function :) https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/3078 https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/3078

128 points by ccmcarey 4y ago

Where Microsoft leads with its bad ideas Linux distros will follow blindly. The sad thing is those who decried a Microsoft for their evilness of doing things like this are the same ones that have turned right around and started defending it in the name of "users are stupid so give them less freedom".

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stjohnswarts 4y ago
more like "ubuntu will follow blindly" other big guys like redhat, suse, etc have more sane defaults.

anotherevan 4y ago

So... I have been using Ubuntu 18.04LTS for my half-dozen servers and was planning to replace them with 22.04LTS later this year. Bad idea? I've tended to use every second LTS release, replacing with new (cloud) servers during the overlap in support periods. I use Ansible to configure. Should I be considering Rocky or straight Debian instead? Something else?

matthews2 4y ago
If you aren't paying Canonical for support you might as well just use Debian.

kzrdude 4y ago

The snap thing makes me want to switch distro (for work) from ubuntu. Unfortunately we have some benefits from using ubuntu as the common platform for less divergence from each other

jjgreen 4y ago
Maybe look at Mint?
canadaduane 4y ago
Pop!_OS is a solid Ubuntu-based distro that uses Flatpak in place of Snap (among many other great decisions).
- duped 4y ago
  This is why I don't use it anymore: https://support.system76.com/articles/enable-hibernation/ https://support.system76.com/articles/enable-hibernation/
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    That's fine, but my system boots so fast that hibernate is slower. Pop_OS is a very nice distro, particularly the LTS.
  - cmeacham98 4y ago
    Because they support hibernation? I assume the answer here has to be "because it's a PITA to enable", but as far as I know no distro does this correctly by default on an encrypted drive.
    - duped 4y ago
      Because it's a pain in the ass for what should be the default, especially if you want to use it on a laptop and not have the battery die overnight.

PaulHoule 4y ago

Never used a snap. Never will.

ugjka 4y ago
I use it only for Spotify
- jmholla 4y ago
  I install Spotify through `apt`. What benefits do you get from installing their snap?
  - ugjka 4y ago
    They sometimes forget to update the .Deb version >@Romario74 That is not the case; while on Snap they packaged v77, if you look here you will find that the Spotify devs have not been updating the .deb releases. Re-packaging Snaps is less convenient than using a .deb tarball, and is being done through scripts by this Github project, which is in turn repackaged by @Edu4rdSHL. https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/spotify https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/spotify So i run snapd on system
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  Can’t you just use the web site?
  - Kelteseth 4y ago
    I tried this but for me closing the browser sometimes means, being done with work or a task and this would always also shut down my music. It's the small things that still drive me to install their client, even though I know it is just another electron app.
  - Avamander 4y ago
    Both major browsers are Snaps as well. The web site also has a significant additional control latency when playing on a device on your local network.

user3939382 4y ago

> The issue that makes us resist the idea of simply disabling updates altogether is that very often that will mean never update rather than update at someone’s discretion, and then we’re getting back to some of the problems that got us here in the first place. I’m sorry, who owns the machine here?

danamit 4y ago
You will get the updates, and you will be happy.
- hn_version_0023 4y ago
  “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
ctxc 4y ago
Counter point for general software: some people don't upgrade software for _years_, due to which vendors have two problems - 1. Open security vulnerabilities 2. Necessity to maintain backward compatible infra To offset this, two channels of releases can be maintained - one for security fixes, another for general features etc. But again here, we run into problems where maintenance of two channels isn't economical, and you end up testing security fixes on various versions. How can these be addressed if upgrades are not forced, are there standard processes followed that provide the best compromise for both vendors and end users?
- chockchocschoir 4y ago
  > How can these be addressed if upgrades are not forced, are there standard processes followed that provide the best compromise for both vendors and end users? There is an easy way to solve this problem. Default to auto updates, allow people to turn it off, by acknowledging what that means. Most users use whatever is the default anyways. Vendors gets to push their updates, users who don't want those, can reject them. If someone gets hacked because they turned off auto update, the vendor won't be on the hook for it, because the user said they were aware of it when they turned it off. I think the core problem here is not that people are asking for auto updates to be off by default, they simply want to have the option. And frankly, for professional use cases, you have to be able to turn off auto updates, as otherwise it'll harm the workflow as you can't control when the update happens.

bitcharmer 4y ago

I love Ubuntu, it's been my daily driver for over a decade now but if they continue with going against the community on this nonsense this will be a strong indication for people like me that an era has come to an end and it's time to move on. It used to be a community focused distro. This bs feels outright user-hostile.

rubyist5eva 4y ago
Just switched to Fedora about a week ago because I was getting fed up with user hostile Ubuntu bs, I like it a lot.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I don't like that you have to update it so often. I like the idea of an LTS. On systems I want to update often I just put arch on them so there is never major breakage that I can't roll back easily with snapper.
  - rubyist5eva 4y ago
    Each version of Fedora is supported for 14 months, so you can keep it a little behind but still get updates. They also will update the kernel so you’re getting updated hardware new support. With flatpak having up to date desktop applications is not an issue either. For development libraries I’m usually in some kind of a container with a fixed version, so updates shouldn’t much of an issue either. For example I just installed Fedora 35, I will probably install 36 at some point after 37 comes out, and stay one release behind current. Major upgrades are still relatively safe because of FS snapshots. I just personally prefer a slightly slower pace than “bleeding edge all the time”. For a server I would just put Alma/Rocky Linux on it.
    - dralley 4y ago
      >Major upgrades are still relatively safe because of FS snapshots. Also, in general the upgrades are quite reliable. I have a few systems that have been upgraded in-place for years without any issues (regardless of snapshots, since they're using ext4).

gjsman-1000 4y ago

I warned them half a decade ago on a super-long thread (on that forum, it’s called “External repositories”) that having Canonical in charge of everything, having no support for external repositories, and no ability to disable updates was going to be the death of Snap. They would not listen at all to me or anyone on that discussion. It was nothing but double-down. Well… what, five years later, here we are. They are still trucking on although the Linux community at large has turned against them, yet they remain in their echo chamber of a forum and don’t see it, convinced it will all work out or some crap.

Thaxll 4y ago

I think auto updates are ok but not for everything, client side app are ok to auto update the rest not so much.

mikro2nd 4y ago
No. No they're not OK. Sometimes I am forced to live on eye-wateringly expensive bandwidth (because dodgy rural DSL and trees falling) and I'd go broke letting things autoupdate during those times.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I don't understand this remark. They charge you more when trees/systems are down? Are you talking about using some backup service (like your cellphone) or something? Your comment is hard to reason out without information like that.
  - RobotCaleb 4y ago
    They're saying that sometimes their internet goes out either because of their rural situation or because trees fall and knock out copper lines. When that happens, they have to switch to an expensive internet solution.

dsr_ 4y ago

If you give people tools to enforce their own policies, you have an adaptable system. If you create a set of policies that users can choose from, you have limited your usefulness to just those cases that fit in those policies that you have implemented. If you choose a single policy for everyone, only people who are willing to use that policy will use your system. These patterns repeat across operating systems, services and applications.

Avamander 4y ago

Snap developers have refused to rename $HOME/snap to be less visible for nearly as long, they have and are shipping very broken software, all while using update methods that corrupted people's data unannounced until very recently (the update mechanism made data directories non-writable unless you enable some experimental option). They very much do not care about the end-user with Snap, only how to appear attractive to potential customers.

kzrdude 4y ago
It's a pretty wild switch of power from the usual distro packaging where the packager is a neutral middle ground between the application's and the user's interests, often swinging to the side of being the user advocate. Of course, compared with other platforms and auto updates, it is clear why app developers prefer and expect to be in charge of updates.
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acabal 4y ago
This is its most egregious sin, IMHO. Imagine low level system software with such a high opinion of itself that it thinks it deserves a front and center place in your home directory for you to look at every single day. We don't have ~/ssh or ~/dconf do we? We've had the XDG spec for decades now - this selfish decision makes me so irrationally angry that it's the one reason I'd switch to Fedora to avoid snaps.
nemetroid 4y ago
It’s not even $HOME/snap, it’s /home/$USER/snap. https://snapcraft.io/docs/home-outside-home https://snapcraft.io/docs/home-outside-home > The snap daemon (snapd) requires a user’s home directory ($HOME) to be located under /home on the local filesystem. This requirement cannot currently be changed.

nik736 4y ago

Please correct me if I am wrong, but you can simply snap install with a --channel, which could be a specific version. This way it is not auto updating, since it's on that specific channel/version.

loloquwowndueo 4y ago
You are wrong :) updates are published to channels and anyone following that channel will get the update. More about how snap channels work here. https://ubuntu.com/blog/controlling-snap-releases-with-channels-tracks-and-branches-part-1 https://ubuntu.com/blog/controlling-snap-releases-with-chann...
vladvasiliu 4y ago
Aren't channels things like "stable" or "bleeding edge" or something like that? Which means that this would only work if the snap vendor cooperates.
- bboozzoo 4y ago
  But then you can't really blame Canonical and that makes the wole agument moot.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    The argument is that "channels" are not "versions". So inside a channel, you cannot disable updates. And that's the way Canonical operates, they regularly push updates to their "stable" channel. There is no "v1.2.3" channel that will forever stay at that particular version until you switch channels. The point is that you are the mercy of the snap publisher, and as the sysadmin, you cannot prevent the software from updating. Whether you should or not do that is a different debate.
    - bboozzoo 4y ago
      Canonical directly maintains only a handful of snaps, and even so it's up to the individual teams to do the relevant QA before publishing a version to the stable. You'd expect that publishers follow the same process, that a stable channel means it's really stable, whereas version breaking changes really end up in per version channel. Ideally you have the latest/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} which follows the latest version of the software, and eg. v1/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v2/{stable,beta,candidate,edge}, v3/{stable,beta,candidate,edge} for individual version. A simple concept but surprisingly hard to follow. Maybe the publishers are really lazy and don't care about the users or the maintenance cost of keeping n versions around is just too high, in which case it's up to the users to make their effort worth it.

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jabiko 4y ago

We use microk8s on our dev clusters and its really great when an automatic upgrade goes sideways. Also using channels didn't help since even a minor upgrade managed to break our setup once. The last half year or so went ok, but not being able to stop automatic upgrades is ridiculous. In general I like opinionated software, but sometimes it goes to far.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Canonical currently has their head in the sand for how Linux users at large see it. If you try to talk about how Linux distributions don’t like it, they’ll just say, “but Snap is available on all the distributions” or some crap cop-out. I had a long forum thread about all the issues people are complaining about half a decade ago. They wouldn’t budge, and still won’t budge.
- kd913 4y ago
  Linux users are some of the most opinionated people. At the end of the day, money/convenience matters. Why exactly would they pay attention to you when they have their own priorities? Snaps reduce reduce their maintenance burdens, and they have the stats themselves for how popular they are. They are by and far more used than flatpaks from what I remember from the video by Martin Wimpress. Oh and they have third party buy-in from software vendors like Mozilla, Microsoft, VLC, JetBrains, Spotify, slack etc... Why would they budge?
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    So according to a Snap developer, Snap is more popular on Ubuntu, the only distribution that comes with it preloaded. That does not say anything about Snap’s popularity. Vendor interest they have, community interest they lack. And if it continues, lack of community interest will result in a lack of vendor interest.
    - kd913 4y ago
      They literally have stats for each snap download and install. https://snapcraft.io/slack https://snapcraft.io/slack You see the map at the bottom with a list of OSes? They have the interest, commercial and from the populace. Vendors have already integrated it into their pipelines. What they don't have is the vocal minority. Frankly I don't get why people care so much, if you don't like it switch to something else. No need to whine about it online. They aren't preventing you from using flatpak.

FpUser 4y ago

Snap was the reason I said goodbye to Ubuntu

henriquez 4y ago
Same here. If I want forced updates I can use Windows.
- FpUser 4y ago
  I would have left even without forced updates. I just do not want to waste my computer power on this virtualization crusade. When / if I need it I want it to be explicit and under my control.

rsolva 4y ago

Having observed (well deserved) criticism of both Snap and Flatpak during the years, Flatpak seems to emerge as the most sensible solution, continuously addressing and improving on the pain points and security challenges. I have been using Fedora 34/35 the last year or so, and Flatpaks are well integrated and mostly just works without any performance hit. Being able to adjust permissions per app (with Flatseal) has also been a great experience. I have little experience with Snap, but the few times I have had to deal with it on Ubuntu-based distros, it has left a bad impression from a user perspective.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
It’s not even remotely close. Snaps take longer to load, still sometimes have theme issues, you have to manually install Snap on almost all non-Snap distributions, you’ll be littered with garbage mountpoints, you’ll have a useless snap folder in your home directory, you can’t add external repositories of any kind, and you get no ability to stop updates easy without going into duct tape solutions. Snap wants to be a desktop, and server, system. Not with a 10 foot pole - Docker is literally 100x better. Not on my Desktop - Flatpak is superior there.
- zamalek 4y ago
  > Snaps take longer to load Without fail, on multiple machines, shutdown/restart is stalled for the maximum 2:30 timeout for snapd. It's a useful reminder to uninstall Snap whenever I find myself in the unfortunate situation of using Ubuntu.
- azalemeth 4y ago
  Don't forget odd permissions problems. From memory, ipfs is distributed as a snap. Try saving a file to another location outside of the snap jail. Almost impossible.
throwaway984393 4y ago
As an Alpine user, Flatpak is invaluable. Snap isn't supported because it requires systemd.

tjoff 4y ago

Somehow when googling software snap will often come up and try to push users to install snap and the software. Almost feels like malware on every level. Can't comprehend why they are pushing it so hard. Ubuntu is on borrowed time.

oofbey 4y ago
I have been a huge fan of Ubuntu for a long time. But the way they push snap is really making me question this choice. The more I learn about snap the less I like it.
- okasaki 4y ago
  It seems that sometimes the push is external. A few days ago Canonical announced that they would switch Firefox to snap because that's the only way Mozilla will allow them to redistribute it.
  - codethief 4y ago
    > because that's the only way Mozilla will allow them to redistribute it. I doubt this is the whole truth, compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30800957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30800957
  - oofbey 4y ago
    Having a user app like Firefox force autoupdate is not that bad IMHO. Having server infrastructure components update themselves automatically can be disastrous. This caught me by surprise, painfully. Snap for GUI apps, okay, fine. Snap for system infrastructure, no thank you.
    - broknbottle 4y ago
      It's bad when the user is actively using the application and snapd decides to update the Firefox snap and cause issues.

account-5 4y ago

Can someone explain why I'd use snap or flatpak over the distros repo or manual install for something not in the repo or unavailable via adding a repo? Apart from auto-managed updates. Snap and flatpak are massive compared to "traditional" packages.

cbmuser 4y ago
Flatpak is incredibly useful for installing proprietary software. I use it for Spotify, Zoom, Slack among others. Installing and updating Flatpak apps for proprietary software works very well.
542458 4y ago
Over manual install - snap/flatpak is typically way faster and easier to install and configure. Installing Nextcloud manually if you’re not familiar with the process is an hour or more of setting up all the essential and optional dependencies. It’s a few seconds of snap install nextcloud. Over distro repos - no dependency version hell. I don’t really love snap/flatpak (too much “magic”, hard to tweak installs) but I see why they get used.
hotpotamus 4y ago
I'd be curious to hear a good explanation as well from someone who knows more about this than me. My feeling (and feelings/suspicions are all I've really got) is that there are 2 factors driving it - maintaining repos is mundane work, and containers are fashionable again.
emerongi 4y ago
Flatpak's benefits: - Cross-distro packaging (no need to provide N package formats - this one runs on all distros) - Faster update cycle for each app, if the package is maintained by the original developers - Sandboxing - Better compatibility all around, as the package runs the same on all distros (as opposed to some too-old or too-new module breaking something on X distro) - Some other goodies, like checking new releases of the source on Github etc Flatpak's drawbacks: - Modules are not shared, which can result in somewhat larger packages and potential vulnerabilities - Many packages are community-maintained by people who are not necessarily experts in the Linux ecosystem. Distro-provided packages usually have tighter requirements Personally, I use Flatpaks for the sandbox. I restrict all apps very heavily.

indymike 4y ago

Users are telling the snap team exactly what they want: give us a way to disable automatic updates. Snappy's vision is to take this control away. This is why people hate snaps. They don't fit user workflows, make extra work and even cause show stopping problems. Snaps could be great but the team really needs to listen. For me I'm removing snaps from my configs before I get surprised. (edit: mobile autocomplete typos)

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ethbr0 4y ago
It's the nature of creating a currated experience: saying "No" to a lot of things. Chrome/Google did the same thing. Snap clearly has a philosophy. And a lot of people clearly disagree with that philosophy. Thankfully, instead of "advertised from google.com", Snap has less ability to push itself on users, and users have more ability to choose it... or not.
- indymike 4y ago
  >Snap clearly has a philosophy. And a lot of people clearly disagree with that philosophy. Seems like that philosophy is the user is not to be trusted. The problem here is that users in reality, not just philosophically, CANNOT trust snap because it will force updates (or dns trickery to stop it) that may cause a system to stop working.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Snap's philosophy appears to be: Given the option to not patch, users will not patch. And this is even worse in IoT land. Which I can't say is wrong. Who probably shouldn't use Snap are users with mature patch application skills, who are willing the invest the time to review and patch regularly. That class of users is far smaller than {all users}.
    - indymike 4y ago

izoow 4y ago

The only thing still keeping me on Ubuntu is the font rendering that somehow looks so much better than any other distro, otherwise I would've already switched to another distro because of snap. I feel like I've never seen anybody actually like snap.

xeromal 4y ago
Snap is probably that thing that the people who do use it or don't mind it, don't notice it.

throwawaymanbot 4y ago

NGRhodes 4y ago

One of a number of reasons Ubuntu does not even meet the minimum requirements to tender for a cut of the millions the University I work for invests in Linux systems (research workstations (often packed with NVIDIA GPUs), clients to control specialist equipment, HPC, regular desktops/laptops/servers, network/lustre/backup storage etc).

gpspake 4y ago

Wow. This thread isn't controversial at all. I haven't found a single comment making a case for Snap. It seems to be universally disliked - at least by this crowd.

apexalpha 4y ago
[flagged]
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  My reasons for hating for example the FF snap are quite valid thank you very much. Shall I ponder out loud my own unflattering assumptions as to why you are ok with something like snaps?
  - apexalpha 4y ago
    Sure, I'd be interested to hear why you prefer (why hate?) traditional packages over containarized ones like Snap or Flatpak. I'm just a bit weirded out by the vocal hate and anti-Canonical sentiment in this thread. Some people even proudly complaining they've "never used Snaps and never will!" I mean in the end it's a packaging format with pros and cons, I suppose. But the threads on this subject feels almost an American political debate where everyone is dug in and flinging shit to the other side.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      That's not what I asked, and apparently you missed the point of why I asked it.
kd913 4y ago
It's disliked by the same Linux purists who complain constantly about systemd. Bit odd how the same community hates Canonical considering how it's now the only FOSS commercial entity considering Red Hat was bought by IBM. The community treats them worse than Microsoft for no good reasons. If you don't like snap, fine, use flatpak, apt, AppImages. Nobody is forcing you on ubuntu systems, but they spend their effort and time whining here. I like snaps, I use them for everything I can. - They are better confined than flatpaks, and come with a permission based model. Hence why there are some rougher edges. I appreciate the increased security. - I appreciate the ability that when I remove a snap, the entire thing is removed with no littering. - They are significantly easier to distribute on ubuntu than dealing with ppas or launchpad. - They are a one-stop shop for finding the software I care about. I don't need to hit the command line, or add another repo. - They save time and money because devs only need to support 1 base. - I can install software on ubuntu without giving root privileges in a self-contained fashion. Some common complains: - The store isn't open sourced. Well yes, that is because they wasted time from the same whiny people over launchpad. Nobody else runs and supports launchpad. Hence nobody else would frankly bother running the snap store. - People can't run their own store. Well yes, that is because Canonical learned from a decade ago with the security nightmare that is PPAs. Yea, it is a bad idea giving devs root access to 100k worth of machines to run arbitrary scripts. Also really bad UX. -It's slow to startup with theming issues. Well the situation has improved 100x since a few years ago, and also I run an ssd, 32gb of RAM and a 3600, I don't really care for a few seconds in launch time.

lvs 4y ago

Brian_K_White 4y ago

I really don't understand all these "flatpak is better" comments. It's not. https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future Maybe it is better than snap, but it's not good and its not better than a traditional package, on either philosophical or technical grounds.

stjohnswarts 4y ago
It is better on a "keep it updated by the developer" grounds and that's all I need. I liek to have the latest with things like spotify, libreoffice, qbittorrent, etc. I like the sandboxing. Sure it ain't everybody's cup of tea, but you can't discount other people's opinion as "wrong". They're just opinions. I know other people value the aspects of .deb/.rpm only based system, and I have weighed the pros and cons personally. Don't expect that we haven't looked into it for ourselves by default.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Check out how long this flatpak bug was on adding a pin function :) https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/3078 https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/3078