Ubuntu 23.04 Beta Released - Powered By Linux 6.2, GNOME 44 & Other Updates

[zookeeny]

I find it doubtful, Pop get a ton of stuff for free from Ubuntu which is not available from Debian because of their philosphy that they would need to provide themselves. It's why Mint is still based in Ubuntu, to name one.

Well, you might be right about that, but they are jettisoning Gnome in favor of their own homegrown solution, and that’s a massive leap of faith. That said, I guess there’s no need for them to discard all of the testing and patches that Ubuntu provides without a good reason.

[Mirox]

Was planning to use Ubuntu 23.04. Not really concerned by snaps on Gnome. But I got tired of the snap shenanigans on Kubuntu 22.04, as soon as snap app is updated, taskbar shortcut no longer works and Firefox settings reset. To simplify the matter, I will switch all computers to Debian.

[sarmad]

Well, you might be right about that, but they are jettisoning Gnome in favor of their own homegrown solution, and that’s a massive leap of faith. That said, I guess there’s no need for them to discard all of the testing and patches that Ubuntu provides without a good reason.

Well, they ditched Gnome without a good reason, so...
Not sure if PopOS has built their own package archives or are just using Ubuntu's. If it's the latter they might eventually need to switch to Debian as Ubuntu removes more and more packages in favour of snaps.

[cl333r]

I am very curious about the snap experience also... I have played with snap's on a few occasions and have always had a horrible experience. When I install a .deb everything typically just works, and when it doesn't its easy to find the logs, configs, etc. When I install a snap there is almost always some permissions issue somewhere that hours of searching will lead to hints of a possible solution but nothing concrete.

Snaps are a layer of confusion mixed with chaos in every attempt I have made to use them. I have tested flatpak on a couple of occasions and it generally worked out to the box, but still .deb is by far the most successful experience.

True, though while flatpak is much better it's also still bad/raw. Flatpak mpv simply can't make screenshots (when you press "S") and upstream apparently won't fix it because flatpak sux.

[zexelon]

True, though while flatpak is much better it's also still bad/raw. Flatpak mpv simply can't make screenshots (when you press "S") and upstream apparently won't fix it because flatpak sux.

Mostly I am finding these days that Flatpack/Snaps/etc. solve one or two fairly significant challenges with application deployment.... then they create at least a dozen more usability and integration problems that are vastly more difficult to work out!

In concept both are great... in my personal opinion (based on my attempts to use it) snaps are a dumpster full of manure on fire... Flatpak has worked for me typically, but it was a long time ago (sqlLite front end if I recall...) but typically I just go for the .deb for everything... and if it doesn't exist in the Ubuntu ecosystem then its time to dump Ubuntu.

[rclark]

How's the post-boot snap experience? Does it still take a while for e.g. firefox to load?

Took just a couple of seconds at most on my desktops and laptops (all run KUbuntu 22.04) . To 'me' I also didn't see any difference in how I use the application. Only way I could tell it was a 'snap' is that I have to use 'snap refresh' to update it. Can't say I am for or against 'snap apps'. For FreeCad and InkScape I use the appImage versions and have had no problem with that either.

[vb_linux]

How's the post-boot snap experience? Does it still take a while for e.g. firefox to load?

That's honestly my biggest turn-off with Ubuntu.

It has been fixed, it was because the squashFS filesystem was using a single core to extract, but now it does it multi-core. The launch is near-native now.

This was a kernel configuration which is why snaps worked faster earlier on Fedora than Ubuntu.

[Yalok]

I don't like snaps, but I think people make too much fuss about it.
Just run the unsnap script and install Firefox as deb from ppa, same for any other "snap-only" package.
It's just a thing you do once after installation, not every day.

[cl333r]

Mostly I am finding these days that Flatpack/Snaps/etc. solve one or two fairly significant challenges with application deployment.... then they create at least a dozen more usability and integration problems that are vastly more difficult to work out!

In concept both are great... in my personal opinion (based on my attempts to use it) snaps are a dumpster full of manure on fire... Flatpak has worked for me typically, but it was a long time ago (sqlLite front end if I recall...) but typically I just go for the .deb for everything... and if it doesn't exist in the Ubuntu ecosystem then its time to dump Ubuntu.

I had one try with Flatpak like 2 years ago and it failed the hard way - after trying a lot I learned I was developing (apparently) the only type of software Flatpak is not designed to deal with - file managers/browsers because they by definition must be allowed to do anything and Flatpak can only allow subsets of actions. Since then I dislike Flatpak as well.

[ffs_]

I don't like snaps, but I think people make too much fuss about it.
Just run the unsnap script and install Firefox as deb from ppa, same for any other "snap-only" package.
It's just a thing you do once after installation, not every day.

Totally agree.