Ubuntu Has Started Work On A New Desktop Snap Store

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Has Started Work On A New Desktop Snap Store

Ubuntu's software stores / software centers have gone through several revisions over the years and now a new Snap Store is in development...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Snap-Store-Start

[Jumbotron]

I have to say I'm really warming up to Snaps lately. I've been experimenting with Snaps and Flatpaks in terms of ease of installation, lack of post installation issues, speed of launch and performance once launched and stability overall. Also how many hoops a newbie would have to do in order to find, install and maintain each one. As Snapd is already part and parcel of Ubuntu the hoops one has to jump through to even find them and install them, especially for a newbie, wins hands down over Flatpak or even PPAs. As for performance, until the recent code changes to Snapd to launch faster once installed, I did find that most Snaps took longer and some, such as certain games, ran slower than their Flatpak counterparts. HOWEVER....I had a strange occurrence recently where Libreoffice on my son's laptop crapped the bed for some reason so I tried wiping it clean, reinstalling from Libreoffice's website and it still failed to load. After a couple of attempts at this and then trying to install from Synaptic, I gave up and went to Flathub and tried installing the Flatpak of Libreoffice. Epic fail again. A couple more times of this and I went to the Snap store and SUCCESSFULLY installed and ran the Snap version of Libreoffice. Even better....that version still runs on my son's laptop just fine. It also is at a higher version number than my version from Libreoffce itself on my desktop. Although at first it took FOREVER to launch, recently that launch time has improved CONSIDERABLY.

Once I install 19.04 on my test laptop and giving it a whirl before installing on my desktop and my son's laptop, I think I'm going all Snap on as many apps that I use everyday. If I find that satisfactory I will move to do that on my other platforms. Oh....there is a reason I did NOT mention Appimage. Appimage is dead tech made by lazy developers who don't give a damn about users. REAL users....NOT geeks who don't mind not having the usual download and launch experience of EVERY ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET who use Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and ChromeOS. To FORCE users to LOOK for some Appimage file and THEN give it permission in some cases to EVEN LAUNCH and then DOUBLE CLICK some strange icon for said app that looks NOTHING like an icon for the app should look like is the height of arrogance and laziness. "BUT....BUT....it's UNIVERSAL! " So what? You Appimage geeks BREAK 25 YEARS OF KNOWN APP DOWNLOAD AND USAGE for your single achievement of universality. Because it's CERTAINLY not ease of use for a Linux newbie NOR security. Snaps do that. Flatpak less so BUT MUCH better than Appimage.

[bvbfan]

Just download LibreOffice appimage and it runs fine. There is nothing better than distribution specific, appimage should be natural bundle for open source apps, Snap and Flatpak goes for sand-boxed ones. Linux distribution software is the best at the moment, bundling like dmg, apk, appimage as well, leave things *dangling* to incorporate 3-th party depends that can involve system at risk. That's why Snap and Flatpak take a hand on, they offer sandboxed environment to leave system untouched. So after all if your distro provide a X application it's better to use it from there, if not then you can leverage to what's offered (appimage only if it's open source).

[treba]

...

Flatpak is not limited to flathub. Fedora Silverblue will use flatpak by default, but from official fedora repos, so that's not an argument (or lets say it only applies for ubuntu). For desktop apps I personally find flatpaks far superior to snaps atm, especially the fact that they can share libraries, which saves a ton of disk/network capacity. But competition is good, lets see what will happen

[SWY1985]

Somewhat (un)related. I switched to Fedora this week, as a long time Debian/Ubuntu user: Tried Clear Linux first, but it couldn't handle USB through my Dell TB 16 dock. I've been thinking about a switch for some time now, this was unrelated to the 32-bit discussion, but more related to the fact (opinion) that Canonical hasn't been making the best decisions lately. Then, after switching, I went and installed Dconf editor. To my surprise, I got the Flatpak version from the store... which runs sandboxed... which means it couldn't access my Dconf parameters. Don't even get me started on MonoDevelop through Flatpak. Containerization (the new game by Sid Meier!) has its limits. Took me some time to figure out how to disable flatpak without uninstalling Gnome Software.

My point is: I wasn't ready for Snap on Ubuntu. I'm not ready for Flatpak. The only container format I can somewhat live with is Appimage.
I hope they are able to convince me eventually, since every major distribution is moving ahead with it. The idea of containerized applications isn't terrible, but the execution so far has been.

[abott]

By using snaps and shit throws away every advantage to having the source.

The only acceptable use of a snap is to bundle proprietary garbage without dated shit so it can run. Otherwise, fix your code to the new library versions and ship it, like a normal human being.

[tildearrow]

bundling like dmg, apk, appimage as well, leave things *dangling* to incorporate 3-th party depends that can involve system at risk.

What do you mean?

[muncrief]

Ha! Now Canonical is making a full court press to assure everyone that they don't need 32 bit software in their main distribution any longer, just in Snaps

Hilarious.

This reminds me of when Intel lied and said the x86 architecture was dead and couldn't be resurrected, and then tried to force the world to dispose of all existing software and hardware and switch to Itanium. But of course that was a foolish and transparent ploy, just as the arguments for suddenly dropping 32 bit today are, and Intel simply wanted to make more money.

But guess what? Instead a young and nimble company named AMD came in and developed x86-64 and ate Intel's lunch. So Intel had to come back to the table begging for its customers to return, and bow their heads in shame and admit they were wrong.

Now listen to and remember my words.

The same thing is going to happen to Canonical.

[paupav]

Somewhat (un)related. I switched to Fedora this week, as a long time Debian/Ubuntu user: Tried Clear Linux first, but it couldn't handle USB through my Dell TB 16 dock. I've been thinking about a switch for some time now, this was unrelated to the 32-bit discussion, but more related to the fact (opinion) that Canonical hasn't been making the best decisions lately. Then, after switching, I went and installed Dconf editor. To my surprise, I got the Flatpak version from the store... which runs sandboxed... which means it couldn't access my Dconf parameters. Don't even get me started on MonoDevelop through Flatpak. Containerization (the new game by Sid Meier!) has its limits. Took me some time to figure out how to disable flatpak without uninstalling Gnome Software.

My point is: I wasn't ready for Snap on Ubuntu. I'm not ready for Flatpak. The only container format I can somewhat live with is Appimage.
I hope they are able to convince me eventually, since every major distribution is moving ahead with it. The idea of containerized applications isn't terrible, but the execution so far has been.

idk my dconf works fine. On Fedora for some reason some entries don't exist in Gsettings. E.g you can't extend integrated screen recording to be longer than 30 seconds by setting parameter. I don't know why.

[Jumbotron]

By using snaps and shit throws away every advantage to having the source.

The only acceptable use of a snap is to bundle proprietary garbage without dated shit so it can run. Otherwise, fix your code to the new library versions and ship it, like a normal human being.

You must be new to Linux son...so let me explain.

First of all....bullshit. What you said above is demonstrably, provable and repeatably bullshit.

Second.....Snaps are designed by DEFAULT ( as is Flatpak but in a slightly different way ) to get AROUND the DOWNSIDE of what makes Open Source a POSITIVE which is the "Bazaar" aspect of development vis a vis Open Source vs the "Cathedral" aspect of a lot of Windows development and mainly MacOS development.

So (XYZ) library maintainer(s) decide to upgrade said library which is used by HUNDREDS of other Linux apps without FIRST working with all the upstream developers of said apps about the consequences and then that decision BREAKS some of the apps, PARTICULARLY those used in LARGE ENTERPRISES! You think those enterprises are going to give a shit about your app breaking because of some other party. NO! They point the finger AT YOU! And so do a lot of "freetards" who don't pay a DIME for FOSS but STILL BITCH none the less.

Along comes Snap and its sandboxing all that tech together so as to mitigate that type of breakage, add security AND makes for a stable platform AND a stable, predictable upgrade path.

BUT NOOOOoooo......YOU think ALL it's designed to do is shovel PROPRIETARY garbage around. LOL !!