Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

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Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by fbachofner »

Earlier today I responded to another thread regarding video editors which made me think about ApppImage -- and unfortunately about Snap.

First, I want to again thank Clem and team for taking a strong stand against this Snap monstrosity pushed by Canonical!

That said, I am concerned that Snap actually seems to be making significant inroads.

Even trying to "discount" for my "lens of concern," I am fairly certain I am seeing more and more that software developers are abandoning their 3rd party PPAs and turning to Snap (often over AppImage which I believe to be far superior as far as an open source software distribution platform goes). Moving forward, Ubuntu seems hell bent on moving critical (and oftentimes "default") apps over to Snap as well, even on the server edition.

Because of this, I have been playing a bit with "easy to use" Arch-based distros. Ones such as EndeavourOS and ArcoLinux have all the benefits of the strong Arch repository system yet don't "waste" as much time as initially installing "vanilla" Arch. [ Please note, I am not hating on Arch -- it is awesomely powerful -- but it seems time-impractical when spinning up lots of systems for clients and friends each year. ]

If my impression about Snap is correct, what is Mint planning to do about what could be a losing (or lost?) battle?

Is LinuxMint Debian Edition the way forward? [ And why is it relatively "hidden" from view in downloads (have to pay close attention to the menu as it is not referenced on the main download page). Is this simply a discouragement for "newbies" (a potentially valid reason) ? ]

Or could / would Mint possibly try to create a more "stable" Arch-based distribution as an alternative to an Ubuntu LTR based edition? [ Not sure how one might make a rolling release distro "stable," but I'm pretty sure others have already thought this through. ]
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by Pjotr »

fbachofner wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:33 pm That said, I am concerned that Snap actually seems to be making significant inroads.
We'll see. Not too happy with that myself, but if it ultimately would become the new reality, then we'll have to deal with it. That's life: if it can't be done the way it should, it should be done the way it can.
fbachofner wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:33 pm Is LinuxMint Debian Edition the way forward? [ And why is it relatively "hidden" from view in downloads (have to pay close attention to the menu as it is not referenced on the main download page). Is this simply a discouragement for "newbies" (a potentially valid reason) ? ]
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by xenopeek »

Nick on the Linux Experiment just did a video on why he thinks flatpak is the future of Linux application distribution. Worth a watch. And I don't recall if Nick mentioned this but GNOME are funding the development on flathub to make it possible for developers to get paid for their apps and some other improvements to flathub: https://discourse.flathub.org/t/seeking ... oject/1889

There looks to be a lot of software in the snap store https://snapcraft.io/store but I also see a lot of software in it that is readily available as .debs. Not that this is not also somewhat the case with flathub https://flathub.org/apps. I guess for both it depends on what your needs are whether it is a "must have".

As for maybe some developers only offering snaps, unless we're talking about proprietary/non-free software that doesn't mean somebody else can't set up a PPA or a repo on openSUSE Build Service for example and have those build .deb packages of the software. You mention Arch Linux base OSes as option but the software for which you'd look at snap store or flathub currently — i.e., the software that isn't readily available as .debs — is most likely also not in the Arch Linux repository. It may be available in its User Repository (AUR) but don't mistake this for what it is: it's a ports system. That is, a collection of user contributed makefiles and patches to download, compile and package software from outside the repository for use on Arch Linux. Like a PPA or similar, it needs somebody to spend time to make and maintain the build files in the AUR. Don't get me wrong: I personally think Debian/Ubuntu are sorely lacking for not having a ports system. But if nobody has made the build files for the piece of software you need you're still left in the same situation as with Debian/Ubuntu and will have to look for flatpak, snap, AppImage or binary download or compile it yourself from source (and figure out everything that otherwise the AUR maintainer for the software would have done for you).

LMDE is little different from the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint in that both also have software from flathub available in Software Manager and doesn't enable the snap store.

Boiling Steam (a website about Linux gaming) recently did an article All Roads Lead to Arch: The Evolution of Linux Distros Used for Gaming Over Time showing that of the users reporting about Windows games compatibility on ProtonDB roughly half of them are now on Arch Linux-based distros. I think overall it's about as relevant as looking at DistroWatch page hits (which I think mostly tracks what catches the fancy of distro hoppers at a moment) but with gaming gaining more foothold on Linux and gamers needing newer hardware drivers and their newer graphics cards and performance and such I don't think it is strange to ask about Arch Linux. Same as Valve are using it for next SteamOS on upcoming (next month?) Steam Deck. Or it may simply be Arch Linux users are more likely to report on games compatibility than users of LTS distros. Who will say :)
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by fbachofner »

Hi @Pjotr
Pjotr wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 5:13 pm if it can't be done the way it should, it should be done the way it can.
A nice line! Also a tautology of pragmatism! :wink:

Keep in mind: at least some people need to tilt against windmills from time to time so that things eventually come closer to the way things "should" work.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by fbachofner »

Hi @xenopeek:
xenopeek wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:04 pm Nick on the Linux Experiment just did a video on why he thinks flatpak is the future of Linux application distribution. Worth a watch. And I don't recall if Nick mentioned this but GNOME are funding the development on flathub to make it possible for developers to get paid for their apps and some other improvements to flathub: https://discourse.flathub.org/t/seeking ... oject/1889
Funny, I started watching that exact video while waiting to see whether anyone would respond to my concern!

He makes points I have mostly heard before. I like that he is honest about challenges that can come from sandboxing. I also really appreciated how he clearly points out the Flatpak ecosystem is improving over time.

IMO, the best thing about Flatpak and AppImage is how it becomes relatively trivial to support programs relying on "old" libraries on an otherwise fully up-to-date system.
There looks to be a lot of software in the snap store https://snapcraft.io/store but I also see a lot of software in it that is readily available as .debs. Not that this is not also somewhat the case with flathub https://flathub.org/apps. I guess for both it depends on what your needs are whether it is a "must have".
Installing Thunderbird 91.x was actually a fairly big "problem" on Ubuntu-based distros until very recently (~ last week or two). Mozilla were not (nor anyone else I could readily find) releasing a PPA nor .deb file. Meanwhile, Snap would have been "easy" but I avoid them at nearly all costs. An AppImage was available, so also quite easy (but not for my tech challenged clients unless I get involved from start to finish!!). I never looked into Flathub.

The experience loudly underscored for me the rapidly changing nature of app distribution

I would submit that this is a "must have" app for a large portion of business users. I was getting asked left and right how to upgrade to 91.x and had to tell people that it was unlikely easily "solved" until Mint 21.x or if I installed the AppImage for them. In most cases I can do that remotely, but some clients would have required an "expensive" in-office visit.

This changed only when a significant security issue forced Mozilla and Ubuntu's hand.

As for maybe some developers only offering snaps, unless we're talking about proprietary/non-free software that doesn't mean somebody else can't set up a PPA or a repo on openSUSE Build Service for example and have those build .deb packages of the software. You mention Arch Linux base OSes as option but the software for which you'd look at snap store or flathub currently — i.e., the software that isn't readily available as .debs — is most likely also not in the Arch Linux repository. It may be available in its User Repository (AUR) but don't mistake this for what it is: it's a ports system. That is, a collection of user contributed makefiles and patches to download, compile and package software from outside the repository for use on Arch Linux. Like a PPA or similar, it needs somebody to spend time to make and maintain the build files in the AUR. Don't get me wrong: I personally think Debian/Ubuntu are sorely lacking for not having a ports system. But if nobody has made the build files for the piece of software you need you're still left in the same situation as with Debian/Ubuntu and will have to look for flatpak, snap, AppImage or binary download or compile it yourself from source (and figure out everything that otherwise the AUR maintainer for the software would have done for you).
Many in the Ubuntu ecosystem don't have the capacity (and/or perceived time) to set up PPAs. The Thunderbird 91.x example is canoncial (pun intended!)

Meanwhile, as I recall, TB 91.x was almost immediately available in the Arch system.

Re: AUR -- While there is no "guarantee" of quality (or security, I suppose), Arch "user" packagers seem incredibly gifted. This seems to stem from the whole "build it yourself" ethos baked into vanilla Arch.

I haven't paid much attention to it, but showstopping problems seem rare and the sheer amount of software is nearly unbelievable.

I think I might daily drive Endeavor for a month or two to see how frustrated I might get. I would probably use Cinnamon for at least a month so that I limit my changes . . . but a month later it might be a great opportunity to drive KDE Plasma. I have not seriously used KDE for quite some time, so that would likely be eye opening.


Boiling Steam (a website about Linux gaming) recently did an article All Roads Lead to Arch: The Evolution of Linux Distros Used for Gaming Over Time showing that of the users reporting about Windows games compatibility on ProtonDB roughly half of them are now on Arch Linux-based distros. I think overall it's about as relevant as looking at DistroWatch page hits (which I think mostly tracks what catches the fancy of distro hoppers at a moment) but with gaming gaining more foothold on Linux and gamers needing newer hardware drivers and their newer graphics cards and performance and such I don't think it is strange to ask about Arch Linux. Same as Valve are using it for next SteamOS on upcoming (next month?) Steam Deck. Or it may simply be Arch Linux users are more likely to report on games compatibility than users of LTS distros. Who will say :)
"All Roads Lead to Arch" -- hmmmm. My current thought process seems to mirror this! :mrgreen:

I look at Distrowatch at least quarterly. It has not been lost on me that Manjaro (Arch-based) has been ahead of Mint for at least 4 years now. Endeavour has recently bypassed both.

Interestingly, Endeavour has an installation process significantly more like vanilla Arch -- although significantly "prettier" which makes people much less scared.

Various other Arch distros are moving up as well, some fairly quickly.

I posit that Snap, Flatpak and the rest of the app distribution mess (in DEB and RPM distros) is part of the reason.
Last edited by fbachofner on Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by fbachofner »

Hi @xenopeek
xenopeek wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:04 pm that doesn't mean somebody else can't set up a PPA or a repo on openSUSE Build Service for example and have those build .deb packages of the software.
The straw that broke this camel's back?!

Today I am dealing with trying to install dosbox-staging (a more contemporary version of dosbox).

Version >=0.77.x includes inbuilt code for dealing with MIDI (unlike dosbox itself which passes MIDI to the host system), making it attractive for potentially greater ease-of-use.

Problem: the PPA suggested by dosbox-staging is broken (more than a month after publication!). See my notes to the dosbox-staging devs.

Aieeeee! So, the only "easy" alternative at the moment is a flatpak . . . but wait! that is ALSO stuck at version 0.76

Or . . . move to an Arch-based distro -- where the package is current and claimed to work (unfortunately, I can't / won't test until tomorrow or Wed.)


I consider myself a fairly advanced Linux user and devolution of the PPA ecosystem is becoming a significant pain point for me. I have wasted scores of hours in the past few months.

I can not imagine this being workable for many new users unless they just immediately opt for Flatpaks (assuming the versions are even up to date).

The growing problems with PPAs are going to absolutely tank LinuxMint (and Ubuntu, of course) if this is not addressed.

Please understand that I do NOT blame the LM team for this sad state of affairs. But Mint is going to be strongly negatively affected if this continues to regress in the way I am anticipating.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by xenopeek »

Yeah, dosbox-staging is at 0.78.1 from the AUR. It works fine. But it's a bit of a hassle as you will have to also build the new 'munt' dependency from the AUR (or if you don't need MT-32 emulation, change the build files to disable that).

Anyway, it also happens that packages from the AUR are unbuildable for whatever reason. Or that the software you want isn't in the AUR. So you can still at times find yourself using a flatpak or go through manually building the software.

If I consider average users, whether we have something like PPAs or something like an AUR we could guide them through either option. The one is not much more complex than the other. But flatpaks are readily available through Software Manager. Average users can discover those on their own without needing to go find help. I think in that respect flatpak has the edge.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by Agentl074 »

I also hope that Flatpak overpowers this... personally, I love Flatpak! For example, when I upgraded over from 20.2 to 20.3, Spotify lacked the close window, so I had to manually override using ctrl+ alt + down. When I installed Flatpak Spotify and removed the older version, everything worked perfectly.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by mshmm »

Hello fbachofner :)

The issues with PPAs, Thunderbird, Snaps etc. have led me to rolling distros, and I've been running EndeavourOS very happily for five months now. The forum is very helpful and friendly https://forum.endeavouros.com/.

I'm still grateful that Linux Mint exists, and that it makes Cinnamon and many of its apps easily available to other distros. But (for me at least) being based on Ubuntu is now a negative.
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Re: Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"

Post by Portreve »

fbachofner wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 4:33 pm Dealing with what seems to be strong growth in Snap "ecosystem"
In the ordinary course of events, I probably wouldn't even be aware of this. Well, maybe I would to an extent because there's been discussions on LMF about Clem & Co's decision to disable snap in LM by default. However, I'll second the comments made by xenopeek. I like to listen to various Linux-related podcasts, and I think it was either on Destination Linux or Linux Unplugged where they were talking about this subject, both from the perspective of distribution systems (on one podcast) and from the gaming perspective (on another podcast) and there was the whole thing about Arch being the distro people are (or will) migrate to, again for all the reasons xenopeek laid out above.

I think a lot more effort really should be focused, however, on helping to make revenue streams for project devs viable.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel, however, about the whole Proton thing and using it to bring games to Linux. I mean, I think it sounds good in theory and I totally grant there's a LOT of hurdles to jump through vis a vis being able to bring a game to Linux which, to be fair, simply don't exist for either macOS or Windows. Nevertheless, I really don't support the idea of porting proprietary software because I don't support the general concept of continuing to support proprietary software. It's bad enough when we have to let little blobs of proprietary code into the tent. The last thing I believe the libre software community (which includes both developers and users) should do is support anything which leads to laziness.



Pjotr wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 5:13 pm That's life: if it can't be done the way it should, it should be done the way it can.
This is an incredibly profound truth about life. I think I might want to borrow it for use on occasion, particularly for "IRL" conversations.
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