What use to be the PPA that allowed Ubuntu users to use native .deb packages for Firefox has recently changed to the same meta package that forces installation of Snap and the Firefox snap package.
I am having to remove the meta package, then re-uninstall the snap firefox, then re-uninstall Snap, then install pin the latest build I could get (firefox_116.0.3+build2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1~mt1_arm64.deb) to keep the native firefox build.
I’m so done with Ubuntu.
Yeah they’re all in on snaps. Vote with your distro choice.
What I don’t get is why. What with the recent Red Hat debacle one would think Canonical would make a stronger case as opposed to force feeding the issue.
haha… ubuntu on enterprise doesn’t even touch 5% of the market, where 90% of it is RHEL and 5% another is Windows Server and some OSX… so… I don’t think canonical is dumb enough
*please read, enterprise market, not hobbyist. Hobbyist doesn’t make money for ubuntu. Well if the hobbyist is a decision maker in enterprise, they probably will have effect, but the problem is, most of them opt in RHEL/Clones
I’m afraid they’ll break off Debian one day. Supporting snap is one thing, sabotaging well established user cases (apt installing deb, not being a snap prozy) is another.
On my corporate laptop, because they require ubuntu to… well spy on us, I wrote a interface in front of snap to works like flatpak… as snap forcing through on everything I work on…
At least I tried to disable it. and failed, so I wrote a piece of junk code to accomodate my flatpak muscle memory
Mint is great. Definitely one of the best distros around. PopOS I’d wait for their new DE. Though with Ubuntu going balls deep on snaps, all those ubuntu based distros hang in the balance. At least Mint got a Debian edition already and they are working on a new version right now. Or just use straight up Debian with flatpaks, which is what I do.
Mint also does not force either dpkg/apt-get/apt nor flatpak.
Even its GUI installer is a GUI wrapper around dpkg and flatpak, every application available on both shows a drop-down allowing you to choose between the two.
You can also change its config to allow other sources, in case you want to add something else like snap.
So, as someone that’s been on flavors of Ubuntu/Linux Mint for me personal computer since Breezy Badger, any good distro recommendations? I’ve been using Ubuntu Mate and upgrading in place for the last ~5 years, so I’ve mostly avoided Snaps, but I’m looking to upgrade my computer and I’m probably going to need a fresh install. I’d like to stay on the Ubuntu/Debian tree, but I’ve been using RHEL on my work computer for a while now, so I’m not totally unfamiliar with that distro branch.
Also, should I be as concerned about Flatpaks as everyone seems to be concerned about Snaps?
Linux Mint doesn’t do snaps, you can add them but they are more flatpak friendly out of the box (software manager supports deb and flatpak install and upgrades). They also have a Debian edition that is nearly identical once installed.
For stuff like Firefox and other areas Ubuntu is pushing snaps, Mint builds their own deb.
That is to say, if you liked Mint there’s not a big reason not to use it.
I was on Ubuntu for almost ten years. The snap BS really started bugging me a few years ago, and I started distro hopping to find a new home.
If you’re really wanting to stick with an Ubuntu derivative, you could try Pop!_OS. They remove Snaps.
I ended up settling on Manjaro. Access to the AUR is pretty awesome.
Manjaro and aur are not a good idea. I ran manjaro for a year or two. Things from the aur were constantly breaking and causing problems because of the manjaro repositories. If they were even able to be installed at all. There are many reasons not to use Manjaro. But if you want to use the Aur. Check out endeavor os. Very straightforward simple easy to install Arch. The Aur works perfectly and doesn’t break randomly. Because they use the Straight Up Arch repositories with just slightly different configs
I hear ya and have recently been scaling-back my personal use of Ubuntu. I am a long-time Debian user for servers (since around the time potato was released), but always found it far too “long in the tooth” for use on a desktop. When Ubuntu first came out, it filled that gap perfectly and it was always my recommendation to people that wanted/needed to use Linux and needed it to “just work”. This is especially the case with laptops. However, times have changed and vanilla Debian is actually a viable distro as long as you are not on the bleeding edge hardware-wise and/or don’t want/need the very latest desktop software.
For my personal desktop, I’ve actually been using Linux Mint since around the time Ubuntu switched to Unity. From the moves Mint has been making lately, it seems that they are also wary of Canonical (i.e. having to revert things like snap out of their Ubuntu base). Mint has always been hedging their bets through their LMDE release, so I would not be surprised if they cut over vanilla Debian as their base sometime soon. I have LMDE on some older machines and it works great (they are still based on bullseye, last I checked).
I was a Xubuntu user for about 15 years but have an old EeePC running Debian.
I just recently moved my main, home computer (10+ yo EliteBook) to Debian 12 and am very happy. I will be soon moving my amateur radio “shack” computer (bought last year) to Debian as well.
Forcing Snaps and Snaps’ terrible usage of disk space (in my experience) is what made me move. The annoying Firefox update warning only served to aggravate me further.
I do use a couple Flatpaks (did with Ubuntu as well) but it was my choice - not a requirement. I haven’t had any disk use problems or bad experiences with them.
I can’t comment on specifics. I’m back in linux after several years away in mac land. The snap experience is awful, and confusing. I have not had the same experience with flatpaks. They seem to act more like regular apps that you update. The issue with snap is that firefox will say the snap needs to update, and that the update is pending warning my I only have days (or hours) to use it, but no way to actually do the upgrade. Then it will say its upgrading, but nothing happens. I just keep using firefox, and every once in a while it may say something like the update failed (I honestly can’t remember, since I just ignore any notification with the word ‘snap’ in it since they’re all meaningless). Eventually, when I quit firefox, it might update and quit pestering me. But how knows? Maybe it won’t upgrade, and then I’ll open it again and it won’t be upgraded.
Flatpaks, I can just update in the package GUI (Discover for me, since KDE) alongside other updates, and we roll on.
Distro-wise, I dunno :/ I like ubuntu cause its more standardized in terms of software availability — most things will support an ubuntu package. However, I’m really considering just jumping into debian and going with the rolling releases.
Check out VanillaOS. I think it’s pretty neat. Their webpage doesn’t really get into the benefits as much as I think they should, but a very quick summary is that it leverages distrobox and some custom package manager to allow you to seamlessly install and run packages from other distros. It’s also kind of an immutable OS (but not really). It lets you pick which types of apps you want during the install (snaps, fltapak, AppImage, etc)
I am not super in the loop about why people are so against snaps, but I don’t like the centralized nature of them, and if that’s also the general concern, then flatpak should be fine, since it’s decentralized.
I saw a couple youtube videos about VanillaOS; I could certainly find you one of them if you want to know more.
Why do you say it’s “not really” immutable? It is immutable with an A/B partitioning system using ABRoot.
Imo avoid Mint. If you like apt/debs PopOS.
If you don’t care about debs Fedora is an awesome distro. I’ve used it for several years and upgrades never go bad.
Imagine having to fight your OS to do what you want. True Windows experience.
Yes exactly. This is the main problem. It’s one thing to offer Snaps as an alternative, but to force them on users is not the Libre/FOSS way at all.
I switched away to Mint and I’m very glad I did. I’m in control and it works perfectly. Fantastic distro. No Snaps BS and it uses less RAM and is faster than Ubuntu.
I would encourage all Ubuntu users to switch to Mint. You won’t regret it.
You know what, enough is enough. Snaps run like shit in my system (IDK/DC why), I hate companies forcing their shit down my throat, and I was planning a clean reinstall anyway from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. Might as well use the opportunity to go back to Debian. Or Mint. Or Mint Debian Edition. Who knows.
Next on the news, Ubuntu (“humanity”) gets renamed to Amasimba (“shit”). /s
I toyed with the idea of gentoo. Not because I want a rolling distro, but because of that 4chan meme.
After using it since Lucid Lynx 10.04, I switched from Ubuntu to Mint last weekend. I’m lazy about distros these days, and I really didn’t want to switch, but Firefox instability was driving me nuts. The web browser must be reliable, IMO. It’s a fundamental requirement for a desktop OS, and this problem didn’t exist before snaps.
There’s a simple reason why Mozilla/canonical does this and that is security fixes. Due to the difference in support cycles of Firefox and Ubuntu LTS versions fixes would have to be manually backported to the system Firefox version and newer versions won’t run due to library dependencies. Snap solves all of that.
Don’t get me wrong though, snap is still terrible, but other than flatpak or doing the work of backporting it’s the only option to get security fixes to Ubuntu
Previous to the switch to snaps, Ubuntu was providing the latest version of Firefox built for each supported Ubuntu release. I’m sure this was more work, but the older system library version issue was not a blocker.
Edit: in fact, Mozilla still provides an apt repo with Firefox deb packages built for each supported Ubuntu release.
and newer versions won’t run due to library dependencies.
Mozilla seem to be able to limit library dependencies in their builds: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/system-requirements/
But are they actually doing this? I am not seeing any changes: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa still has the .deb packages
literally every other distribution can solve this problem but Ubuntu can’t?
Not really. After working with CentOS (RIP) for a half decade, that Firefox version was so out of date I was practically in diapers when it came out. Getting the latest version of Firefox was such a pain that my org didn’t bother even if it would have given us some niceties.
LTS and other “enterprise” distros don’t push the latest version precisely because of dependencies.
