[HN Gopher] The Future of Snapcraft
___________________________________________________________________
The Future of Snapcraft
Author : worble
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-01-07 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (snapcraft.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (snapcraft.io)
| GNOMES wrote:
| As a learning exercise I switched by Plex setup from Docker to
| Snaps during 2020.
|
| While not the most popular idea, I love Snaps ability to auto
| update packages. I configured my box to check for updates every 4
| hours. This felt like a good compromise on security/annoyance if
| there was a security issue for a non-Enterprise environment.
| Docker I used to use one of the WatchTower images to check for
| updates/pull images, but it needed to monitor the Docker socket
| which is a big security no no.
|
| I do find it strange that Canonical doesn't allow you point
| to/host a third party Store.
| egberts1 wrote:
| except from the said website:
|
| Your tracker settings
|
| We use cookies and similar methods to recognise visitors and
| remember preferences. We also use them to measure campaign
| effectiveness and analyse site traffic.
|
| By selecting 'Accept', you consent to the use of these methods by
| us and trusted third parties.
|
| For further details or to change your consent choices at any time
| see our cookie policy.
|
| Accept all and visit site
|
| - no thanks
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| I started looking at Ubuntu Core for a locked down psuedo-
| embedded Raspberry Pi use case that's reliable and has ways of
| preventing file system corruption. The only way to use that is
| with snaps, I hope it isn't going anywhere even if everyone seems
| to strongly dislike them.
| dylan-m wrote:
| I've used Ubuntu Core for a few things. I've used it for my
| nextcloud + syncthing + home assistant server; an abandoned
| photo booth project; and a plug and play slideshow thing using
| a web app in kiosk mode (hilariously involving the remnants of
| Mir, which is now a Wayland compositor?).
|
| I think snaps are the wrong idea for the desktop and I hope
| Canonical finds a way to coexist with flatpak instead of
| whatever it is they think they're doing. But for Ubuntu Core in
| particular, where everything is working towards a headless, low
| maintenance kind of system, it really does shine.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Do you have any recommended reading on Ubuntu Core? The docs
| seem good but there's little content online for it. In
| particular I've been trying to understand how to get GPIO and
| I2C etc working on the Pi with Core and then allowing the
| snap access.
| heax wrote:
| https://techwiser.com/remove-snap-ubuntu/
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I've been daily driving Linux for a few months now.
|
| Snaps rarely work. Like they install fine and launch but you
| can't upload photos on chat programs or load your existing
| config.
|
| Flatpak is somewhat better in that file access seems to behave as
| expected but many flatpak apps still have serious issues.
|
| Please just publish as a normal, plain old apt. Security is great
| but it only matters if I can actually do useful things with my
| computer. The last thing desktop linux needs is some pain in the
| ass badly setup sandboxing system that half works.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| To me, Snap and Flatpak are less about security than they are
| about universal application distribution that doesn't rely on
| third party maintainers and is free of conflicts. There are
| much simpler ways to achieve that goal[0], but the fragmentary
| nature of the Linux Desktop community makes the necessary
| standardization all but impossible. Similar to your statement
| about security, I _loathe_ the traditional package manager
| /repo model because it consistently makes software unavailable
| to me either because it is missing from the repo, isn't updated
| yet, isn't maintained at all, or has library conflicts. All of
| its supposed advantages are useless if I can't actually run
| software.
|
| To that end, I've put my money on Flatpak. I have my issues
| with it, both in practice and in design, but it isn't as user-
| hostile as Snap and seems decently popular and growing.
|
| [0] AppImage is a valiant attempt, but simple AppDirs before it
| were much simpler
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I've only come across a few AppImage apps in the wild but
| they have worked flawlessly. My only complaint is that
| installing their desktop icons is a bit of a doing and should
| be automatic - but that is a very fixable problem.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Appimages are the only ones I ever bother with, and
| everything snap/flatpak related is removed as soon as
| possible. I spent enough time trying to debug the others to
| know they really arent worth the trouble.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I love AppImage, but unfortunately they seem to be
| generally ignored. Very few projects distribute AppImages
| and there doesn't seem to be any momentum behind their
| adoption.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| A lot of project maintainers are very open to people
| porting their project to other distribution methods.
|
| As long as you setup CI, it should be pretty self
| maintaining in most cases too.
|
| No experience building AppImages but if it's something
| you can contribute to projects, that is the best way to
| see more of them in use. This is a big part of how a lot
| of apps got on flatpak.
| Nasreddin_Hodja wrote:
| > Please just publish as a normal, plain old apt.
|
| I personally would prefer appimage or tarball bundle (like
| Mozilla does).
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| unrelated to snaps but i just helped a relative get back into
| dual booting. apparently i had told them about "kde neon" and
| they had used youtube to dual boot. ended up with a broken
| grub. "ow. why does it say grub rescue".
|
| i made them get a live usb, install anydesk and then found out
| https://askubuntu.com/a/531448
|
| which immediately helped the kid reuse his pc. the surprise on
| the phone was genuine. "it worked".
|
| and i kinda wished it should have because the "baby duck
| syndrome", this would've been the linus popos event for this
| person.
|
| i really think we need to improve some sort of "youtube basic
| linux tutorials", because apparently text is old school now
| (thats what i've been told)
|
| are there youtubers who i can recommend to new users who can
| help people to ease into the linux community until they can
| learn their way across even basic troubleshooting their
| systems?
| arboghast wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but I'm not a big fan of Snaps (or Flatpaks
| for that matter). Whenever I tried to use them, I ran into issues
| as soon as I need to do some changes in the configuration.
|
| Take Firefox on the latest Ubuntu for example, it installs as a
| Snap. Unlike the APT package (or any other package manager)
| version, the usual ~/.mozilla/ directory changed location. This
| broke some of my customization scripts and other people's scripts
| I'm using such as https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
|
| I would really, really, like if both Flatpaks and Snaps could
| keep the usual program's config directories. Then I would likely
| use them often because they have big advantages (especially
| Flatpaks) over package managers, especially for dependencies.
| jle17 wrote:
| I kinda like that flatpak forces application created files to
| end up in a predictable place. Firefox, like plenty of
| applications, was doing its own thing despite XDG conventions
| (~/.config etc and associated env vars) being 20 or so years
| old, now everything is in ~/.var/app, plus flatpak knows if it
| belongs to an installed application or not.
|
| Although I would have preferred if the hierarchy was reversed,
| so instead of having ~/.var/app/<app>/{cache,config,data} for
| each application, I could have all files of a category in the
| same place as to be able to manage them more easilly (say
| remove all the cache, version all the config), like it is now
| for the applications that respect XDG dirs.
| egberts1 wrote:
| nothing like Ubuntu introducing a backdoor comprises of an empty
| Chromium APT package that activates SnapPak. :-/
|
| https://techwiser.com/remove-snap-ubuntu/
| legrande wrote:
| From my experience with the Snap Store on Ubuntu, it is always
| terrible.
|
| - Most software is stuck on an older version and lags behind the
| latest release.
|
| - Sometimes software hangs when installing. Gets stuck on 95% and
| stays that way, with no way to get it fully installed.
|
| - Some of the comments on software are un-moderated and you read
| people trying to push a political agenda saying things like 'This
| software is Marxist because it's free'
|
| - The Software Center is buggy as hell and constant error
| messages popup when trying to install software. (Yes I've done
| the update/upgrade ritual before installing anything).
|
| - Most software is lacking screenshots. I like to see what the UI
| looks like before I install.
|
| - I often encounter the software I want flashing for three
| seconds on the screen, and then disappearing for no reason. The
| search functionality is broken.
| csmattryder wrote:
| Snap is a weird bit of tech, Canonical are pushing it, but it's
| hard to find people recommending it online, they'll typically
| say, "here's the Flatpak".
|
| I actually grabbed GIMP last night using Flatpak, and a few weeks
| ago downloaded Tenacity the same way.
|
| I'm still unsure what the reason is to use one over the other,
| but Snapcraft is definitely losing the war of minds online, as
| far as I see.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Snap is a weird bit of tech, Canonical are pushing it, but
| it 's hard to find people recommending it_
|
| A couple of years ago they were looking to recruit dev
| advocates specifically for Snap. I applied and never even got a
| response. I guess they hired the wrong ones ;)
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| The problem people have with Snap is that it's basically a
| fiefdom run by Canonical. Canonical's repo is effectively the
| only one, they get to choose which software gets to be
| unsandboxed and which doesn't, and updates are forced. People
| don't like it because it is Microsoftian in its user hostility.
| bombcar wrote:
| What's the point in a one-repo thing? Just host the apt-
| repositories at that point ...
| toyg wrote:
| _> Microsoftian_
|
| I think the actual word is "Apple-ish". Microsoft never
| succeeded in their appstore attempts, whereas Apple sadly did
| (and spectacularly so).
| oofbey wrote:
| Maybe you don't remember the software industry in the 90s
| when Microsoft was at the peak of their power. Nobody had
| heard of app stores but MS showed the world what a tech
| bully is. Putting profit over customer happiness, because
| they could.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Maybe you don't remember the software industry in the
| 90s_
|
| I very much do. Software was sold in boxes in independent
| store chains. Sure, MS abused their position whenever
| they could, but their various attempts at building
| appstores they could control never really succeeded, the
| best they could do is abusing OEMs to preload this or
| that crapware.
|
| Apple, on the other hand, defined the market for walled-
| garden mobile appstores, with all their orwellian warts
| and obscene profiteering. But unlike with nerdy, cut-
| throat and business-y MS, "the public" loved their hip
| image and let them get away with it.
| r00fus wrote:
| MS clearly sabotaged Dr. Dos. Microsoft was notorious for
| announcing a competitor to a product (which was vapor),
| then buying out the now-struggling competitor and
| releasing that as their new product.
|
| Apple did the same with Sherlock (it's even a verb).
|
| But Microsoft had a monopoly (confirmed by a long federal
| antitrust lawsuit), and Apple did not, so Microsoft
| rightly gets the blame.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| On desktop? Nah...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| @snapcraft.io: Please fix the cookie controls to make it just as
| easy to deny all cookies as it is to accept all.
|
| See https://www.cnil.fr/en/cookies-cnil-fines-google-
| total-150-m...
| brainwipe wrote:
| The question is not "what is the airspeed velocity of a swallow",
| it is "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?".
| You're not going to get across the bridge of death if you can't
| get the question right.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| Cookie tracker dialog on entry... Eject.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-07 23:02 UTC)