Canonical Continues Snap'ing Up Linux Gaming For Ubuntu

[gabber]

The fact Snaps get more hate then Flatpak should make them think. They are very similar from a user perspective, but there are two key differences: Canonical had to start something new and not use what is already there and (this is what got me): they start to force it down peoples throat.
There are guides out there on how to install firefox without snap in Ubuntu 22.04. And you need it, because sudo snap remove firefox and sudo apt install firefox will NOT install firefox from apt..

Sure it's easier to maintain for some packages. But it's also bigger and slower and it's in a sandbox so certain things may not work. Ok for a calculator, sure. But when we talk about gaming it makes no sense. People buy upwards of 2k$ for their gaming rig only to get a big portion of the performance snap'ed off..

But why complain? Thanks to the moronic decision to force-feed snap I switched from Ubuntu 18.04 to Manjaro instead of 20.04. So thanks Canonical for showing me the way.

[rainbyte]

I think Flatpak is one of the best things that recently happened to Linux distributions.

Just remember when someone was looking for a piece of software to find that distro repos provided an old version of it or even worst, that it was only packaged for another distro.

I migrated to Gentoo and then to Arch Linux because of that, in order to have ways to compile the missing software without too much trouble.

But today the situation is different: if software isn't in the distro repo then probably an updated version will be published on Flathub.

Now I rarely have to compile software I'm not developing myself, and even for that I prefer using some kind of container.

There are still details to improve, but distro agnostic packaging is a great thing for the user and it is here to stay.

[jorgepl]

The fact Snaps get more hate then Flatpak should make them think. They are very similar from a user perspective, but there are two key differences: Canonical had to start something new and not use what is already there and (this is what got me): they start to force it down peoples throat.
There are guides out there on how to install firefox without snap in Ubuntu 22.04. And you need it, because sudo snap remove firefox and sudo apt install firefox will NOT install firefox from apt..

Sure it's easier to maintain for some packages. But it's also bigger and slower and it's in a sandbox so certain things may not work. Ok for a calculator, sure. But when we talk about gaming it makes no sense. People buy upwards of 2k$ for their gaming rig only to get a big portion of the performance snap'ed off..

But why complain? Thanks to the moronic decision to force-feed snap I switched from Ubuntu 18.04 to Manjaro instead of 20.04. So thanks Canonical for showing me the way.

Snaps don't have any effect on app performance. At most, it might be argued that the snap daemon has some effect on ram consumption.

[Leprechaunius]

Mint all the way. I was actually fed up with Mint, because of their lack of resources and honestly retarded prioritization of issues and roadmap with the little resources they actually have.
So I've decided to switch to PopOS a month ago, but as I've tried to boot it up for the first time an error popped up on the screen and I found out that PopOS for some unexplicable reason doesn't support secureboot. Devs' response? Phuk off.
Bye Bye PopOS, hello Mint my old shabby friend.

[user1]

You dislike Snap enough that you'd rather use an inferior distro? You're here posting about it instead of doing it?

Mint isn't inferior to Ubuntu. If you really dislike Mint, please explain why. But don't give me that "they mix Ubuntu and their own Debian packages" or other ideological nonsense.

Canonical isn't stupid, Ubuntu is still the most popular LInux distro, it's the only LInux distro shipping on laptops from Dell and Lenovo, two of the most popular OEMs. Has anyone stopped to think that maybe Snap isn't all that bad?

Ubuntu shipping on popular laptop OEMs was already the case long before Snaps existed.

AppImage and Flatpak aren't publicly used by anyone notable

True, Appimages aren't really used widely, but Flatpaks? Go to the Flathub website and see the amount of apps there before writing utter nonsense like this. Also, if Flatpak aren't publicly used by anyone notable, then how did Valve choose it as the main app distribution method on the Steam Deck. Again, you're wrong here.

People that "know" they dislike Snap aren't using it. People that are using their computer for productivity don't care about this because apps just-work.

So you say Snaps just work right? give me an ffing break. Go ask some people from Belgium who tried the Firefox Snap. Every citizen in Belgium has to use some financial system that works in the web browser. I've seen numerous reports that this system doesn't work in Firefox Snap. How's that for "apps just work".

You really sound like a Canonical fanboy without giving comprehensive arguments and spewing utter nonsense.

[Vistaus]

Firefox, Eclipse. The last one didn't even launch last time I tried.

Firefox is available as distro packages (outside of Ubuntu), Flatpak and tarball as well. And the tarball is self-executable and self-updating, so no need to compile or anything.

[cl333r]

Firefox is available as distro packages (outside of Ubuntu), Flatpak and tarball as well. And the tarball is self-executable and self-updating, so no need to compile or anything.

Yeah, but with the tarball you don't automatically get the desktop integration and a properly updated and placed .desktop file (and who knows what else).

I'm using a tarball version of Firefox and some things became much slower: e.g. after I moved to the .tar.gz version changing the theme in youtube is sluggish while the packaged version used to do that instantly, editing comments freezes for a second or two. But I don't know for sure - it could be a bad youtube update to its website that coincided with my transition to Firefox - didn't bother reinstalling the old version and checking.

[hamishmb]

That's a consequence of running a non rolling release distro. Before Flatpak/Snap, your only choice would be to build your own or look for a PPA like: https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/+arc...s_filter=jammy.

Yep, FlatPak is much better than this. Also, it works on distros that aren't Ubuntu-derived.

[mahurinj]

About to move to Mint, just because snap is such a drag.

Try Pop_OS!

[Britoid]

Snaps negatively affect other distros, because yes as someone said OEMS are shipping Ubuntu on machines and application creators are abandoning other package formats and using Snap.

The reason Snap negatively affects other distros is that it puts Canonical in a complete controlling position on the application market for a desktop that has been the work of multiple companies and individuals. It also makes Ubuntu the "app platform" for these other distros, putting Canonical again in a even more controlling position, ironically on a platform it has done the most to hurt (e.g. Mir, Upstart, Bazar etc).

Snaps also tend to run pretty bad on RPM-based distros (due to SELinux over AppArmor).

Compared to Flatpak, whom has the support of multiple companies, desktops, distros etc, and most apps use the shared freedesktop runtime, rather than being tied to a single distribution. Given that the entire thing is open source (including Flathub), there is very little chance of vendor lock in, the technology works a lot better for desktop apps compared to Snap (Snaps do work better for server apps, but Flatpak has never claimed to support them and we already have Docker/Podman).

So yes, even if you don't use Snaps, the very fact they ship with Ubuntu which is still a goto desktop distribution hurts other distributions directly, and Canonical know this. They know they can't compete normally with Red Hat, but people will prefer to use technologies they use locally, so lock them into Snaps on the desktop and then use that to lock them into Ubuntu on the servers and IoT as well. That is the sole purpose of Snap on the desktop, to promote Ubuntu on other platforms.