Canonical To Work On Improving Snap Support Across Linux Distributions

[Daktyl198]

Are there any plans to open source the snap repo server backend?

On the other hand, I do think Canonical should've learned their lesson by now. Their alternatives are mostly a waste of time and money: bazaar, upstart, ubuntu one, mir, unity..
Except cloud-init, which did become the industry standard, the rest were either abandoned or replaced by more popular software: git, systemd, Wayland, gnome.

With containerd on the servers and flatpack on the desktops being the more popular solutions, I don't see any bright future for snaps.

Bazaar was released a month before Git, and was meant to be "a better SVN" which it succeeded at. Linus's project just happened to take off because, well, Linus made it and the Linux Kernel was using it.

Upstart came out before systemd, and was arguably better than systemd in many ways (at the time). It had backwards compatibility with older init systems/files, was configured and logged using text files like any other Linux program, didn't hide anything in binary formats, and solved it's goal of making start times faster. It received adoption across multiple distros before systemd was released. It wasn't perfect, but it would have stood a chance if Gnome didn't force the usage of systemd via logind. Lots of systemd haters might have used upstart instead, but Canonical was forced to drop it and adopt systemd if they wanted to keep using Gnome.

Mir was hated on at the time, but I think we can all look back now and see the reason why. Everybody agreed that X11 needed to be replaced, but the proposed solution was Wayland, a protocol that was missing 95% of what the X server did for compositors. Ubuntu forsaw that we'd be 15 years down the line and still not fully adopting Wayland and tried to get ahead of it by creating not really a protocol so much as a single display server to replace X11 but that used modern concepts like Wayland. They were bullied out of using it, but had completed almost a full display server in about 2-3 years, compared to the 15 years we've been "adopting" Wayland.

Unity was one of the best and most seamless DEs made for Linux. It pioneered several features and APIs, some of which are still used to this day. And not to mention the look itself, which is mimicked by almost every single default Gnome install that modifies Gnome with extensions. Yes, it was a macOS rip-off, but guess what: people like how macOS looks. Even KDE now is switching to a "panel at the top, dock on the bottom/side" look by default rather than a single taskbar.

The only reason Unity was replaced with Gnome is because the next version of Unity was written to utilize Mir exclusively, and by the time they got bullied into dropping Mir the old Unity codebase was too far behind the Gnome upstream to update in a reasonable timeframe and they'd probably gotten tired of chasing Gnome's constant API changes anyway.

Mind you, I say all of this as somebody who hasn't use an Ubuntu or even Debian based distro in over 10 years. I just actually pay attention to things and don't just spout random crap I've read somewhere.

[QwertyChouskie]

Spicy hot take incoming, brace yourselves:

Competition is generally good for the consumer.

[TemplarGR]

Kill Ubuntu. Kill it with fire! Seriously. I have been using Archlinux since 2008 and i sometimes make ubuntu live usbs just for convenience if i need any troubleshooting etc, i have to find a different live distro, no need to give them downloads and exposure anymore. It is time for the Linux world to destroy this pathetic company that always wants to fragment and destroy the Linux ecosystem for their own benefit.

[caligula]

What Snap needs is tighter Wayland, Upstart, Grub, Glibc, Mir, Pulseaudio, Bazaar, Ubuntu One, Launchpad, and LXD integration. Everything should be compressed with xz @ maximum block sizes for speed.

[qarium]

What is your main distro? I've used mostly Ubuntu-based or Debian. Pop OS doesn't use snap - they use flatpak. I used Pop OS - the distro I mostly used, last time. I'm thinking of abandoning Ubuntu though - this is just one reason. The problem is, I'm most familiar with it and Debian-based distros.

right now i use fedora 39... but thats realative new and only because in 2017-2018 i was not able to run any other distro on my new notebook and threadripper hardware Debian and other distros for the notebook i had at hat time added support years later.
before that i did use debian,kubuntu,kanotix mostly .deb based distros. so i run .rpm based distros for like 5 years and .deb based distros for like 20 years.
my argument is not agaist .deb based distros but why not use debian or kanotix or linux mint debian edition ?

just avoid anything what run snaps by default and stick with the options that run flatpak by default.

you should abadoning ubuntu because if you check how they make money 99% of the money they make is by microsoft payment.

if Pop OS use flatpak by default it should be fine to but as i know it uses ubuntu as a base instead of debian i would prever debian as a base to be honest

[TemplarGR]

Because that's what enterprise customers want. You think Canonical is still around decades later because they cater to random Linux users? Either way, it amazes me that people talk shit about Canonical in every Phoronix thread that mentions them, then turn around and suck the toes of the IBM-owned Red Hat who's done more harm to the Linux desktop than Canonical by a mile. They just have a better PR team than Canonical who focuses on their own business, and RH pushes their shit out to every distro by making it required (e.g. making systemd required by Gnome and PulseAudio).

Hello to Canonical PR department! Because no other could spread such blatant lies, like Red Hat harming the Linux Desktop? Seriously? Without Red Hat there would be no Linux desktop at all, period.... Probably not even Linux server to be honest.... Canonical has contributed NOTHING to Linux, they are a disease, they only take from the work of others.

[stqn]

Nobody cares about snap. And flatpak sucks too, just a bit less.

[qarium]

Kill Ubuntu. Kill it with fire! Seriously. I have been using Archlinux since 2008 and i sometimes make ubuntu live usbs just for convenience if i need any troubleshooting etc, i have to find a different live distro, no need to give them downloads and exposure anymore. It is time for the Linux world to destroy this pathetic company that always wants to fragment and destroy the Linux ecosystem for their own benefit.

well they make all money they make by microsoft sending them dollars and their secret mission was always to destroy the linux ecosystem by fragment it.

.RPM vs DEB

snap vs flatpak

microsoft can say: support .exe or .msi or winget with WOW64 and you cover the complete windows ecosystem

they want the linux ecosystem fragmented so that commercial companies avoid to support linux because they do not want to fight over

32bit elf vs 64bit elf and .rpm vs .deb and snap vs flatpak vs appimage...

microsoft makes billions of dollars by sending canonical million of dollars to make sure the linux ecosystem is fragmented.

[sarmad]

I use both Snap and Flatpak on Ubuntu (flatpaks work perfectly on Ubuntu), but I generally prefer snap over flatpak for these reasons:
* Snaps let you install command line apps as well.
* Snaps let you install unconfined apps (necessary in some cases).
* Snaps are more user friendly. For example, to run a snap app you just type the app's name and pass any args you want to it, just like running any regular native app, whereas with flatpak you have to use `flatpak run ...`. Another example is that it's easier to find the data for installed snap apps whereas with flatpak the data is hidden in some convoluted directory structure.
* Installing updates is much faster with snaps. Everytime you run `flatpak update` you are presented with a screen-full of updates and it takes longer to install them.
* Snaps gives you more granular control over app permissions compared to flatpak (not sure if this is just a limitation of the UI in Ubuntu).

My main problem with snaps is that it's locked to a single store which is snapcraft, rather than letting you add repos as you wish like is the case with flatpak. Canonical claims that locking it to a single store is necessary for providing better user experience or something like that, which obviously is just PR BS. Personally, I would stick with snapcraft even if they open it up to other stores, and I guess most people will do the same, but it's just the spirit of open source to keep things, well, open. Locking a package format to a single store is an anti pattern in the open source ecosystem.

If you ask me, both Snap and Flatpaks shouldn't have been developed. Instead, everyone should've adopted AppImages, which was invented way before both formats. So, it's funny when Flatpak fans accuse Canonical of fragmenting the ecosystem with snaps.

[Yalok]

I just actually pay attention to things and don't just spout random crap I've read somewhere.

Nice to see people paying attention and having the time to point out the detailed facts.
I'm actually an Ubuntu user since version 6.06 and am aware of all the facts that you mentioned. I even enjoyed using unity until they stopped supporting it.

To my defense, I did say "mostly" and in the end all of them did get abandoned (except, to some extent, Mir and upstart) and did get replaced in Ubuntu.

And I bet the same eventually will happen to snaps.