Canonical Shares Top 10 Linux Snaps of 2018 (betanews.com) 102
One of the most refreshing aspects of Linux in 2018 was the popularity of Snaps. Canonical revealed that the containerized packages have been a smashing success. Today, the Ubuntu-maker highlights what it feels are the top 10 Snaps of 2018. From a report: "With 2018 drawing to a close, and many of us spending with family during the holiday season, I thought we'd take a look back over some of our favourite Linux applications in the Snap Store. Some have been in the store for over a year, and a few landed only recently, but they're all great," says Alan Pope, Canonical. [...] Canonical shares the Top 10 Snaps: Spotify, Slack, VLC, Nextcloud, Android Studio, Discord, Plex Media Server, Xonotic, Notepad++, and Shotcut.
Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
The annoying thing with snaps is that it's basically going back in time in away. If you have 350 Snap apps then you likely have 350 different copies of the exact same libraries, many which are old and insecure. If a library needs updating then instead of updating it once on your machine, you need to update it 350 times assuming each Snap package gets updated in a timely matter, but they don't.
Re: Windows (Score:1)
That's why flatpak is better
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Actually no, Snaps use "bases" which are standard collections of common libraries. They all share the same bases which get mounted read-only as the virtualized root filesystem that the snap app sees. Only one copy of each is required.
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* Atomic upgrades
* zero risk rollback
* no dependency hell
* allows apps with different dependency versions to coexist (no need to recompile with --prefix=/opt/dependency-that-would-break-my-system)
* for example powershell (yes, I do use it to interact with windows systems) depends on libcurl3, and conflicts with curl which uses libcurl4. So if I install powershell, curl gets uninstalled via apt. Snaps allow me to have both
* sandboxed execution environment. Snaps only have read/w
Re: Windows (Score:1)
why is my powershell snap mounted six times?
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Exactly this. snap is garbage. It really is because developers are too stupid to design libraries that break on every revision, and bother making usable deb packages.
That is to say, people who think containers are a great idea too.. a result of technical incompetence.
Re: Windows (Score:2)
* Atomic upgrades
* zero risk rollback
have nothing to do with the packaging format, but are a feature of the filesystem. /after snapshot during upgrade, and grub can even boot into older snapshots )
Snapper, by Suse, does exactly that as lonf as a filesystem with snapshot is provided.
(Zypper can ask snapper to mamakmake before
* no dependency hell
as long as a package format can store dependencies, any will do.
it's problems whose solutions depend on packagers (storing that a piece of software depends on "libcurl.so.4(64bits)" instead of "curl-lib") and on a good depe
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on the other hand, a library update won't kill your 350 applications if there's a problem with it. hard drive space is kind of cheap.
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Not Linux. Can't have it both ways. (Score:3, Insightful)
They seem to confuse something here.
Snaps are a concept that deliberately chose the opposite approach to the Linux/Unix one. Namely the mobile OS one.
Mainly because those who came up with it, clearly came from a Windows world, and are utterly clueless about Linux and things like good package managers (that allow multiple versions of the same package to be installed at the same time).
Of course they can still do that, if they like to teach themselves a lesson of suffering.
They can't, however, call things like Snaps, systemd, and Ubuntu as a whole "Linux". As it not only misses, but actively completely rejects the very point of Linux. If you want that, you can aswell just use macOS. Instead of ruining Linux for those who actually need to do work on it.
So srop redefining the term "Linux" to mean "Apple OS clone", Canonical!
It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all Linux has this great thing called a Distribution where all the software you'll likely ever need is just included and can be installed via a package manager.You don't need snap to install VLC as it's already included in the repositories.
Secondly Linux isn't application centric, it's data centric. You exchange data and operate on it via programs you already have. Your set of programs is fairly fixed. It's not like mobile OSes where every external service requires its own app.
Thirdly sandboxes don't work. At best they only keep you from having functionality you want, at worst people will rely on it somehow protecting their system which will give rise to malware exploiting loopholes in the sandboxes. (i.e. Cryptominers, Rowhammer, Spectre, Meltdown, etc)
In short it's a fairly bad idea. It tries to reproduce one of the worst aspects of Windows, namely that you ship around self-contained exe files which get executed on a double click.
Re:It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
We are constantly reinventing the wheel.
https://xkcd.com/2044/ [xkcd.com]
Each generation of programmers seems to think they have more insight than the previous, but ends up repeating the same mistakes.
Re:It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't need snap to install VLC as it's already included in the repositories.
But this gets you an old version of VLC. For the latest version you have to either compile from source, or (possibly) switch to the unstable repository. It is a pain - the snap solves this problem thereby making running VLC on Linux easy. It is a necessary solution if we are ever going to see Linux used by non-IT people.
In short it's a fairly bad idea. It tries to reproduce one of the worst aspects of Windows, namely that you ship around self-contained exe files which get executed on a double click.
There are far more things wrong with Windows. For starters, applications were not self contained. Recall DLL hell? I have not used Windows in some time but a major problem with it was that applications would put shared libraries (DLLs) in the Windows system directory resulting in numerous conflicts. Self-contained exe files are the solution - not the problem.
I personally like the idea of having a solid, well tested base system supported by repositories. The applications are mostly static and rarely see updates. And if I want to run the latest version of an application, a snap allows me to do that without modifying the base system. It is great - I can try out applications then remove them without buggering up my OS.
My only issue with snaps (or flatpak) is that the applications do not integrate with the desktop environment as well as they should. This is noticeable in the open and save dialog boxes. Some implementations are good but not all. Overall, I am quite pleased with how they work. It is great to have the latest version of LibreOffice always available.
But I have to say, if "NotePad++" is one of the top 10 snaps.... not a good sign. I tried it out just for the hell of it. Great to have on Windows but on Linux - what a POS.
Re:It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
The SNAP version of VLC on Ubuntu doesn't work to play video files mounted on NFS, and hasn't been able to do this for months after the bug was posted.
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The SNAP version of VLC on Ubuntu doesn't work to play video files mounted on NFS, and hasn't been able to do this for months after the bug was posted.
It's not a bug. The VLC snap runs under strict confinement which prevents it from accessing files outside of /home/$USER or /media. If you have an NFS mount that you want to access, you just need to bind mount it into one of these two locations. You can also switch to classic confinement if you don't want to restrict its ability to arbitrarily access your filesystem.
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That's bullshit. https://docs.snapcraft.io/snap... [snapcraft.io]
"Classic confinement is intended as a stop-gap measure to enable developers to publish applications which need more access than the current set of interfaces enable. Over time, as more interfaces are developed, snap publishers can migrate away from classic confinement to strict.
Classically confined snaps must be reviewed by the snap store reviewers team before they can be published in the stable channel. Snaps which use classic confinement may be rejected i
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Uh...yes, as I said strict confinement is a purposefully-built security feature of snaps. Classic confinement is intended for developers and is not recommended, but nothing stops you from using it if you want. The easiest solution would be to just bind mount your NFS share into /media as I suggested.
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i think this one is on the list just to show off the ability to make snaps of windows applications.
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he was talking about notepad++
Re:It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
"But this gets you an old version of VLC. For the latest version you have to either compile from source, or (possibly) switch to the unstable repository. It is a pain - the snap solves this problem thereby making running VLC on Linux easy. It is a necessary solution if we are ever going to see Linux used by non-IT people."
i don't think people care about that, they get VLC from the repo and it works, great, as long as it keeps working (and i don't see a reason why it should suddenly stop working), why bother with new versions (security updates should still be provided through normal repo updates)? You think people care about this? just look at all those outdated flash, java, ... installations on windows and it becomes clear they could care less.
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i don't think people care about that
You sound like one of those Linux users. By that I mean those people who preference stability over functionality, whose idea of the ideal computer is one that never changes, never goes down, and always works the same as the day you very painstakingly set it up.
Do you like H.265? It's a next gen CODEC that goes against the core philosophy of Open Source thanks to being patent encumbered to all hell. Well I hope you do like it because the alternative is AV1, and if you want to have any hope of playing that fo
Re:It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:4, Informative)
"Good luck finding that in your distribution repo. If you're running Ubuntu you get 3.0.4. If you're running Debian Stable then you get 3.0.3."
Well, I'm 60 years old, using Linux on Ubuntu (mostly out of laziness, otherwise I'd switch to Debian), and I have the latest VLC, because I am still able to copy-paste two lines from the VLC site into a terminal window. And now it auto-updates, contrary to your snaps....
Your objection only applies to people unable to copy-paste, IMHO...
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because I am still able to copy-paste two lines from the VLC site into a terminal window.
So what you're saying is you customised your carefully curated distribution's repos. Hurrah. More power to you. Just be glad that VLC is stable code and the next version doesn't require library updates that are incompatible with the existing requirements of your repo. You quickly find yourself in the Windows equivalent of DLL hell.
Your objection only applies to people unable to copy-paste, IMHO...
Why copy and paste when you can just click on the snappy? IMHO you're dangerous, advocating copying and pasting rather than understanding is precisely why Linux has bad name, and
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if you want the latest of the latest, you can always use a rolling distro.
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https://www.archlinux.org/pack... [archlinux.org] 3.0.4-7 on the rolling distro.
https://snapcraft.io/vlc [snapcraft.io] 3.0.5-1 on the snap.
I don't disagree that the rolling release is faster however it is not the latest and may be slightly missing the point. This is the same point why I'm happy to delay feature releases to Windows 10 as long as possible and run Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on my system. The complete underlying system should remain as rock solid and stable as possible, the opportunity to install the latest and greatest piece of *ind
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Are there any really good GUI text editors with similar features to Notepad++ for Linux?
Textadept perhaps. It seems that EMACS is the preferred option for power users though.
I also found it a bit ironic that Linux doesn't have any really top notch IDEs for C either. Eclipse is okay, nothing particularly great about it. VS Code might get there one day when they improve C support. But really nothing comes close to Visual Studio, despite a large proportion of Linux users writing at least some code.
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CLion from JetBrains? Not free, but not very expensive at all if you're actually making money coding. And works as well in Linux as anywhere.
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I did try it a while back, but it's not really worth it over Eclipse IMHO.
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QT creator isn't bad. You can build vanilla C++ apps on it IIRC.
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>Are there any really good GUI text editors with similar features to Notepad++ for Linux?
The compelling feature of np++ for me is the column select, insert and edit. Select a column, type on multiple lines.
I've not seen anything else on any platform with as good an interface as that.
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Notepad2 supports it, but that is also Windows only.
Actually I think it's a feature of the Scintilla edit control that they both use. There are some Linux editors that use it too, but none of them seem to be currently maintained.
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https://www.geany.org/
You're right. I tried it a long time ago in geany and it wasn't there. It is now.
If geany a text mode so I could use it in an ssh session, it would be perfect.
VIM remains my goto linux editor, but I'll be giving Geany a go for when working in X and on the mac. BBedit ion the mac is nice but can't do columns right.
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
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So how would I, say, refactor a variable name over multiple files with this system? How would I see a function call and then produce a list of all calls to that function, that I can use to immediately browse to the file and line of each call?
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
On mobile and I didn't catch the auto miscorrect.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you mean sed. That's vastly inferior because it isn't aware of C syntax, so will just blindly change all instances of that string. It's useless if you are trying to fix some code that uses common words for variable names, e.g. "retries" or "counter".
cscope requires me to view the output, then manually navigate to the file and line I want to see. Again, vastly inferior.
Even Eclipse supports both those things to some extent, although not as well as Visual Studio.
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So how do you do it with sed then? Show us how to rename only variables called "retries" and not any of the comments or functions or other random strings containing "retries".
I know about ctags, personally I prefer GNU Global.
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
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Even if you were not lying, why would I bother "doing my homework" when I can just press two keys in Visual Studio and have it all done perfectly with zero effort?
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
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Your don't consider the most popular IDE that is widely used in professional settings to be a "real / professional development environment", and your alternative is EMACS + sed.
Okay.
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
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True professionals insist everyone runs Linux to use their amazing software?
In any case, the number 2 IDE is Eclipse, which runs on Linux and isn't EMACS+sed.
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Snaps are great because apps are self contained. No dependencies, no crapping all over the filesystem, and a completely clean uninstall.
They also give you granular permission control that traditionally is very time consuming or impossible to set up on Linux. Linux is finally starting to move away from the flawed "always trust root" model. You also seem to be in the "security = zero bugs" mindset; sure the sandbox might not be perfect but it's another layer of protection that needs to be overcome and these d
Re: It's still a fairly bad idea (Score:2)
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Secondly Linux isn't application centric, it's data centric.
In my day, we said things were either application centric (Mac / smartphones) verses document cetric (just about everything else).
Security issues with dependencies (Score:2)
And you rely on the snap package author to update each and every single included component in a snap package. A snap contains not only the app but every dependency required to run. Any time a library or other component gets updated, the snap is out of date and the user is at risk. Many snaps are given permission to work with your files anyway.
Snaps should only be used to test bleeding edge software releases and never for actual end users or production.
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Aren't snaps basically just steam for everything?
This is how I understood the concept.
People seem to like steam, why not snaps?
Amazing (Score:1)
Just when you thought nothing could be more horrible and bugger up the works than systemd, Canonical outdid themselves. Amazing! "Snaps" an abomination, a "solution" waiting for a problem. What friggin' moron thought that "snaps" were a good idea? "Talent" poached from Microsoft?
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Concepts like Snaps, Appimage, or even Docker Containers are great for application developers, as they allow you to develop against certain versions (or certain major releases) of libraries, then not have to worry about dependency hell. Sure, whatever your distro comes up with will generally just work, but, when you want to go outside of what your distro has in it (perhaps you need a later version for some functionality or bugfix, or you need an application not even offered), you can quickly end up in Linux
Snaps and Ubuntu (Score:2)
Re:Snaps and Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)
Even worse, the SNAP version of VLC cannot play video files from an NFS mount. This bug has been posted for months with no resolution, demonstrating once again Ubuntu's obsession with shiny distractions over making their distribution truly functions.
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On the upside they can play AV1 unlike the version from the Debian Stable repo.
Re: Snaps and Ubuntu (Score:2)
Re: Snaps and Ubuntu (Score:2)
notepad-plus-plus? (Score:3)
Re: notepad-plus-plus? (Score:2)
Snapper gets uninstalled from all my systems. (Score:2)
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/d... [snapcraft.io]
Clearly, the 'benevolent dictators' in charge of the Snapper project have a severe case of cranium posterior inversion. Whatever technical merits snaps may have become completely irrelevant in the face of people who think *they* are the ones who will dictate how I manage my own system.
Oh, and the whole thing relies on a store that itself is a closed source service.
I appreciate everything that Ubuntu does to make Debian more accessible, and even with the ever growing list of
Avoid snaps, flatpak, docker etc. (Score:1)
Linux distributions come with a package management system. These range from good to great. apt is pretty awesome. Use it. Want a newer version of something? With Ubuntu, use a PPA [askubuntu.com].
Snaps are crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Bloated crapware that doesn't properly integrate with your desktop? No thanks...
sudo apt purge snapd ubuntu-core-launcher squashfs (Score:2)
I did a "df -h" not long ago to check out my disk usage. I got back a whole lot of
Since I didn't recall every giving ubuntu permission to mount a bunch of crap (and none of those snaps seemed to be something I was using), I removed it.