What do you think about Snaps

[FinixFighter]

Hi folks! You surely heard about snap packages introduced by Ubuntu. I'd like to know what you think about that. What you find good and what bad about this idea and why? Personally, I'm not sure if I agree with this idea or not. I think that the idea of developing a program that will run on EVERY Linux machine is great! Plus, this would also solve a lot of problems concerning the Ubuntu-Linux migration. At the same time, I'm not sure if this is the best way to to that. Let me know what you think!

[catweazel]

Hi folks! You surely heard about snap packages introduced by Ubuntu. I'd like to know what you think about that. What you find good and what bad about this idea and why? Personally, I'm not sure if I agree with this idea or not. I think that the idea of developing a program that will run on EVERY Linux machine is great! Plus, this would also solve a lot of problems concerning the Ubuntu-Linux migration. At the same time, I'm not sure if this is the best way to to that. Let me know what you think!

Flatpaks have been part of Mint since 18.3. You're a bit behind the times.

[FinixFighter]

Flatpaks have been part of Mint since 18.3. You're a bit behind the times.

I started using Linux on September 2018, that's why I don't know so much about it. Is there a difference between Flatpaks and snaps?

[gm10]

Flatpaks have been part of Mint since 18.3. You're a bit behind the times.

I started using Linux on September 2018, that's why I don't know so much about it. Is there a difference between Flatpaks and snaps?

Yes, but the idea and basic concept are the same.

[BenTrabetere]

At the same time, I'm not sure if this is the best way to to that. Let me know what you think!

IMO, there is no genuine need for Snaps and flatpak - it was more political (Canonical vs Redhat/FreeDesktop) than a solution to a problem. I think this because AppImage was an established portable, universal package system that had been in place years before Snaps and flatpak were created, and the way it addresses the problem is more efficient, effective, user-friendly and flexible than Snaps and flatpak.

[trytip]

the thing that eats me up about snaps is that snap packages have the nerve of spawning into two and leaving breadcrumbs all over your root partition and in the home user directory. i installed tmnationsforever from https://snapcraft.io/search?category=games and is my only snap i have but having it in my apps i now learned the way snaps work
not only does the snapd create 2 versions of itself so does every snap package you install. the developer say it's a way to backup in case you need to revert to a version before the current
so if you have 10 snaps lets say at 3 GB in few weeks you will have gained an extra 3GB of extras that are not needed and you will have gained more boot time because all these snaps you install are mounted at boot which you can check with systemd-analyze blame

in etc/systemd/system/ there should only be one version of a snap to be mounted at boot but not the case. i just noticed that since my last check i now again have two snap-core- loading at boot.

Code: Select all

snap-core-5548.mount
snap-core-5662.mount

so i delete the older one, reboot and then find the version folder where the files are kept, because what i just deleted was only the startup service and not the actual files. but you can't delete the files without first deleting it's coinciding startup service version first and then deleting the extra files

[FinixFighter]

Thank you everyone for your answers, and a particular thanks to trytip for sharing his experience!