Some of you use Snapd?

[chavic]

I want to know what some of you think about it and if you use snapd or not. I know snapd are disabled in mint but I want to know if you installed snapd.
Actually I don't know what to think, it seems a good thing but I saw it like .exe or .deb after all. I want try aether and it has a snap but I don't know if it's worth install all that stuff just for that.

[BenTrabetere]

I installed it to my LM-18.3 box, and the only reason I had it was to run the newer versions of GIMP and darktable. I also have flatpak installed, and for the same reason. I no longer use this system for processing photos, but when I did I preferred to use the Snap editions of these programs.

I do not have Snapd or any flatpaks on my current primary machine.

[Kendoori]

Many many people in this universe won't touch Snap. I have used Mint for many many years and had made a temporary side journey to Pop!_OS which embraces Snaps, so I was used to them and wondered given how vocal Mint folks are about how bad Snap is whether I should install them anyway.

I waited a few months, and finally decided to see what would happen. In my experience, I'm happy with the decision. It has not impacted boot times and has made the installation of certain otherwise unavailable programs an option for me. I realize that some people are religious about this, but I'm also OK with Appimages and flatpaks too (some people don't like those either).

[antikythera]

I did use snap for a time but no longer have the need for it. That was while I was using KDE Neon and I wanted the current version of some applications which weren't available from Neon or Ubuntu's repositories.

Also, I purged Zorin and it's snaps from my Mother's machine a fortnight ago as there was a print process hand-off issue which meant she couldn't print from snaps even with print permission granted to them. I don't have an infinite amount of time to spend there troubleshooting that so I just replaced it with Mint and it's been fine since.

[all41]

I did use snap for a time but no longer have the need for it. That was while I was using KDE Neon and I wanted the current version of some applications which weren't available from Neon or Ubuntu's repositories.

Also, I purged Zorin and it's snaps from my Mother's machine a fortnight ago as there was a print process hand-off issue which meant she couldn't print from snaps even with print permission granted to them. I don't have an infinite amount of time to spend there troubleshooting that so I just replaced it with Mint and it's been fine since.

Curious if you still use neon

Not using snapd here

[chavic]

Reading more about it suppose it's secure cause the way it works im gonna give a try at least with the app I did mention.
I don't trust in snapd

[BenTrabetere]

If you think you would ever again need access to the latest Gimp on your system, you can go here:

I have been using Andrea Ferrero's GIMP AppImage since its initial release, and I really like the assortment of plug ins that are bundled with it. I use the 2.10.22-with plugins release, and I prefer it to the installed version (updated with the PPA). I am a little concerned there has not been activity since Christmas.

Glimpse is something of a fork of GIMP - it is available as an AppImage, and it appears to be in active development. The current version is the equivalent of GIMP 2.10.18, or one release behind the current stable release. I prefer Andrea's GIMP AppImage, but I could switch to Glimpse. (It is also available as flatpak and Snap packages.)
https://glimpse-editor.github.io/

[oldgranola]

I use flatpak for some programs or versions that work better or don't exist in LM repo's and have experienced no negative issues. I haven't used Snaps. For those who have used both, how do you compare?

[BenTrabetere]

I use flatpak for some programs or versions that work better or don't exist in LM repo's and have experienced no negative issues. I haven't used Snaps. For those who have used both, how do you compare?

I have and used both on my old desktop - it is an ancient beast with an Athlon 64 x2 4200+ and 4GB RAM, running LM 18.3 It has been semi-retired nearly two years. When it was my primary machine I had the flatpak and the Snap editions of darktable and GIMP. I preferred Snap over flatpak - I found the Snap edition of these two programs were slightly more responsive than the flatpaks, but to be honest I did not dislike using the flatpaks.

[ajgringo619]

I use flatpak for some programs or versions that work better or don't exist in LM repo's and have experienced no negative issues. I haven't used Snaps. For those who have used both, how do you compare?

I've always preferred flatpak, the #1 reason being that I could install packages per user (binaries residing on $HOME) instead of system-wide; much easier to keep the root partition clean.

[Termy]

I dislike snaps. It's usually the first thing I tear out of a system. I might adopt it in the future, but for now and for the foreseeable future, I'm sticking to good ol' Debian packages.

If I wanted newer versions of software, I'd opt for a bleeding edge distribution, but that's typically just not for me, as I've rarely ever had positive experiences with them. I'm happy to use AppImages though, because they're the most unobtrusive approach, IMO.

I'm not interested in flatpak either, but I'm not familiar with them.

[GNULinux]

well i don't know why but for some reason i did use snap once
may be for anbox
otherwise i am not against snapd that much as long as it works(i use them only if there are no repo or flatpak)
if they improve there behaviour and make it more open then i guess snaps wont be that bad

so yep i use it but only for anbox(yes, i need anbox for some purposes otherwise i won't bother installing snaps on mint at all )

[old_noob]

I installed snapd because I wanted Chromium, but it looks like that might be effectively going away...

[antikythera]

I installed snapd because I wanted Chromium, but it looks like that might be effectively going away...

Linux mint now offer a traditional deb package build of chromium which is updated within a week of chromium being updated normally. It will be interesting though to see if Clem has strong enough feelings over the API restrictions to pull that package or not.

[old_noob]

[/quote]Linux mint now offer a traditional deb package build of chromium which is updated within a week of chromium being updated normally. It will be interesting though to see if Clem has strong enough feelings over the API restrictions to pull that package or not.
[/quote]

And Firefox seems to be in deep trouble now too. Unsettling times in MintWorld as well as the rest of society.

[David Chiang]

I dislike snaps. It's usually the first thing I tear out of a system. I might adopt it in the future, but for now and for the foreseeable future, I'm sticking to good ol' Debian packages.

The same applies to me, as long as I don't have to set up a large server or a pure development environment, I will do without snaps if possible. The basic idea behind snap from the start was to avoid conflicts with the rest of the file system and other programs. This can save a lot of time in system maintenance, but at the same time the file system inflates in the same way as is known from Windows. I want to keep my file system as consistent as possible and not dilute its infrastructure, as imperfect as it may be, with outside concepts. As long as snap is not able to integrate an automatically monitored and centralised file sharing system or the necessary control of the responsible maintainer for security and functionality, I will avoid it like a virus. Not to be forgotten is the strange dependency on systemd, which doesn't exist in some distros and snap wouldn't work in them.

[Termy]

...

I feel the same.

[Lucap]

The Ubuntu Devs are currently experimenting with an entire snap desktop built around Ubuntu Core so everything including gnome would be in it's own seperate snap.

I would imagine the final install size is pretty big.

[Termy]

The Ubuntu Devs are currently experimenting with an entire snap desktop built around Ubuntu Core

That would be enough to send my straight to Debian. Hopefully it'll still remain an option.

[David Chiang]

The Ubuntu Devs are currently experimenting with an entire snap desktop built around Ubuntu Core so everything including gnome would be in it's own seperate snap. I would imagine the final install size is pretty big.

Oh yes, that's also the reason why since last year more and more former Ubuntu users, totally disappointed, have fled to other distros. According to some rumours, there are now so many refugees that Clem had to set up his own camp for these poor people.

I don't understand why some developers with obvious commercial interests want to establish a completely half-baked sandboxing system by completely overturning the basic principles that define Linux. When did this circus actually start? First with the quarrels in the gnome project and its desktop environment, then not long afterwards a massive argument between Linus Torvalds and some programmers about the kernel structure, then a no less massive argument within Debian and other distros about systemd. But now there is a lot more at stake, namely a horrible competition for sandboxing systems that most users don't need at all.

A real worst-case scenario would really have to take place to justify sandboxing in whatever form. But even then I would flatly reject snap because I consider Flatpak to be much more trustworthy. What we all really want is the freedom to decide what runs on our machine and how. I don't want to be forced to have a specific desktop environment, but to choose it myself, and I don't want to be forced to update just because it cannot be switched off in snap.

But I see the real reason for this development somewhere else, namely with M$ and its announcement that Windows 10 will be the last operating system and therefore a scramble about the commercialization of Linux or at least the attempt to enforce it has arisen.

That would be enough to send me straight to Debian. Hopefully it'll still remain an option.

That would be exactly what I would do too. For the time being it is only an option, but in the coming Ubuntu packages snap will be preinstalled and either the redistributor or the user would have to uninstall it.