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Linux

Ubuntu Flavors Agree to Stop Using Flatpak (phoronix.com) 117

Posted by EditorDavid from the leaving-you-Flat dept.
Phoronix reports: While Ubuntu Linux hasn't provided Flatpak support out-of-the-box due to their preference of using their own Snap app packaging/distribution format, Ubuntu flavors/spins have to this point been able to pre-install Flatpak support if they desired. However, for the 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" cycle and moving forward, Ubuntu flavors will no longer be permitted to install Flatpak packages by default.

Flatpak support for Ubuntu and its flavors will remain available in the Ubuntu archive so those wanting to install Flatpak support can easily do so post-install.

This change going into effect with the 23.04 cycle is making it so no Ubuntu flavors will have Flatpak support installed by default / out-of-the-box: they are supposed to center around Debian packages and Snaps for their out-of-the-box packaging support to align with Ubuntu.
From the blog OMG Ubuntu: Ubuntu developers have agreed to stop shipping Flatpak, preinstalled Flatpak apps, and any plugins needed to install Flatpak apps through a GUI software tool in the default package set across all eight of Ubuntu's official flavors, as of the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 release.

Ubuntu says the decision will 'improve the out-of-the-box Ubuntu experience' for new users by making it clearer about what an "Ubuntu experience" is....

As far as Ubuntu is concerned, only deb and snap software is intrinsic to the 'Ubuntu experience', and that experience now needs to be offered everywhere. Flavor leads (apparently) agree, and have all agreed to mirror regular Ubuntu by not offering Flatpak features in their default install for future releases....

Flatpak will not be uninstalled or removed when user makes the upgrade to Ubuntu 23.04 from a version where Flatpak is already present.
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Ubuntu Flavors Agree to Stop Using Flatpak

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  • Am typing this on a Mint install. Still not sure how this would affect me

    • Not in any way, Mint takes no orders from Ubuntu. Mint is doing it the other way round, they endorse Flatpak and integrate it well (even into the graphical update manager, updating flatpaks together with apt packages), while not allowing snap to be installed out of the box because of the way the Ubuntu maintainers stealthily force it onto users when these install things like Firefox or Chrome through apt from the Ubuntu package sources.

      • >"while not allowing snap to be installed out of the box because of the way the Ubuntu maintainers stealthily force it onto users when these install things like Firefox or Chrome through apt from the Ubuntu package sources.""

        Yep, that is one of many reasons I use and recommend Mint. Ubuntu forcing things that should be native into stupid Snaps is revolting.

        It is no wonder Mint is looking past Ubuntu with LMDE. I am not using it yet, but I like they are exploring the concept https://linuxmint.com/downl [linuxmint.com]

    • Re:Had to google Flatpak (Score:5, Informative)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @03:19PM (#63322962)

      Am typing this on a Mint install. Still not sure how this would affect me

      Mint rightly refuses to use Snap. Snap is at its heart proprietary and problematic [readthedocs.io]. That means this shouldn't cause you immediate problems however if more people use it everyone will all lose out overall as there gets to be less open knowledge about the infrastructure delivering Linux software. Hopefully more people will switch away from Ubuntu as they become aware of the problems and risks for the future of Snap. Linux Mint users could try running LMDE [linuxmint.com] which is Debian based Mint, though you might find that there are more problems since fewer people use it.

      • Switched from Ubuntu to Debian a few months ago. Sure it helps that I'm not a Linux n00b, but I'm never looking back.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c-A-d ( 77980 )

          I moved from Linux Mint proper to Linux Mint Debian Edition to avoid snap. It still uses flatpak for some things though.

          • >"I moved from Linux Mint proper to Linux Mint Debian Edition to avoid snap."

            That is unnecessary. Mint still installs and supports Flatpak and doesn't force any native packages to be Flatpak. And if you want to avoid any ties to Ubuntu, there is Mint LMDE https://linuxmint.com/download... [linuxmint.com] which is based directly on Debian. I don't know how well it works (it is pretty new) since I am not using it.

  • There are so many well documented cases where Snaps suck. Let me cover some of them here. Slow start up. No ability to control when updates happen.. i.e. forced updates that you can only delay. No ability to control what gets pulled in with the application. Many apps with same dependencies bringing in multiple copies of the same dependencies. Maker of an app has too much control over the environment on your PC. Theming doesn't apply correctly to Snap applications. Sharing data between apps is more difficult

    • Sounds like they're following Microsoft's lead.

    • So basically the same as Windows. Are they, by any chance, receiving money from Microsoft? /Jk

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
      For firefox through snap, the trick to use in-memory cache with tmpfs as /tmp doesn't seem to work. had to install firefox outside of it to make all the disk writes go away.

    • Whatever the (de-)merits of Snaps, Flatpak, et al, they exist because consumers need a comparatively simple way to install software that goes: 1. I want it. 2. I got it.

      No consumer wants to learn apt, or even know that dependencies exist. In an era of exploding disk and cloud storage space, they don't care about multiple copies of stuff. They think, wrongly or rightly [their antivirus | no one] well keep them safe.

      Many here seem to think their user is Spock, where desktop Linux concerns are designing for Ho

      • Mod parent up.

        Yes, Snaps and Flatpaks have their faults but they do offer a wham-bam, near-frictionless experience for users to get and try new software.

        I'm not sure where AppImage files fit into all of this, but using AppImages is also about as easy as it gets- download it (one file), set the permissions to executable, and it runs.

        • ...set the permissions to executable, and AppImage runs.

          I got Kdenlive as an AppImage. When it closes, it only sometimes releases its resources. After using Kdelive a few times, I had to kill 44 instances of kdenlive_render after Kdenlive supposedly exited. It seems that AppImage has a persistent component that has a resource leak.

          I like the idea of a complete, easy to acquire package for end-users, but no part of it should EVER persist after the program exits. That robs both the user and the operating system from the guarantee that that OS will clean up after

          • I did a little testing with the AppImages of Rambox, Krita, MyPaint, Ksnip, and Cura. I went through opening, using, closing, reopening, etc. several times for each app.

            I didn't see any persistent resources left behind afterwards from any of those apps, but maybe this varies from app to app. Maybe Kdenlive is leaving something open or not closing something gracefully.

            • kdenlive fires off kdenlive_render as a separate background process to render videos into the final output. I think it's meant to persist after kdenlive closes (i.e. after you finish editing).

      • >"Whatever the (de-)merits of Snaps, Flatpak, et al, they exist because consumers need a comparatively simple way to install software that goes: 1. I want it. 2. I got it. No consumer wants to learn apt, or even know that dependencies exist"

        And they don't have to with native packages. You just install them via the appropriate distro GUI utility and it installs dependencies and updates.

        It is only a problem when you want something NOT natively available from the distro. Even then, it is usually just a m

      • Everything in the distro repositories should be a .deb because the repository handles the dependencies. There've never been any need for users of graphical apt front-ends to understand dependencies or know what they are.

        The proper use cake for a flatpak or snap is a third party distributing proprietary software on their website -- which should be downloaded as rarely as possible.

        Unfortunately, what Ubuntu created is a monstrosity of an "app store" where when you search for an app you get 3 different edition

      • Why would you want to learn apt? Surely Ubuntu has a GUI app where you can search the app, click and install. And it will take care of dependencies too (BTW, did you know Windows needs dependencies resolved too? Try to run a game without the proper DirectX version, or .NET or graphic drivers).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jddj ( 1085169 )

          Ubuntu (currently looking at the Jellyfish one) has not one, but four, which is a really big problem in itself:

          Software Updates
          Software & Updates
          Ubuntu Software
          Additional Drivers

          Once you get into one of them, you have buttons, checkboxes, collapsing sections, tabs and menus. Start digging into the tabs, and you're quickly into sorting out repos, potentially adding repo gpg keys, and more. Very geeky, despite four well-intentioned GUIs.

          Not recommending apt for a consumer, but even apt feels easier than s

      • No consumer wants to learn apt, or even know that dependencies exist.

        This is orthogonal to the discussion about Snap and Flatpak.
        I've been using Ubuntu derivatives since 2006. It has never been necessary for a consumer of these distros to learn apt.
        There have been user-friendly graphical software installers since before I came along, which was long before Snap and Flatpak.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dvice ( 6309704 )

      Don't forget disk space. Snaps take more space and they leave old versions there to it takes even more space. Configuration has its limits so only thing you can do to work around it is to create a script that uninstalls old versions and run that frequently.

  • People keep screaming at Apple to provide alternate app stores, yet so called "open source" distros also tries to force their app stores as well. You're just as bad.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xack ( 5304745 )
      Ideally upon install there should be a "app store choice screen" (similar to the old browser choice screen on Windows) that lists all the various app stores available for Linux that is shown on installation and give users a choice what what stores to install.

    • Re:Remember when arguing over the Apple App Store (Score:4, Informative)

      by computer_tot ( 5285731 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @04:23PM (#63323064)
      How is "We don't allow alternative app stores or side loading" just as bad as offering two repositories by default and allowing users to install any extra stores/repositories they wish? That makes no sense at all. They are not even remotely the same situation.

    • It sucks that I have no choice but to use s
      Snap on my Ubuntu-brand desktop, what with that proprietary Ubuntu firmware and crypto-locked Ubuntu bootloader that will only boot Ubuntu.

    • People keep screaming at Apple to provide alternate app stores.

      Here it's about Ubuntu not installing Flatpak ** by default **. You still can install it. It's also still trivial to add PPA repositories (alternate app stores) in Ubuntu, and their equivalent in all linux distros.

      If the software you want is not packaged for your distro, advanced users can also build the software from the sources. From what I get from the internet, with Apple you'd have to pay $99 a year as developer subscription. If you don't pay, your own app on your own device only works 7 days. WTF.

      • It's also still trivial to add PPA repositories....

        It has NEVER been trivial to add PPA repositories. Even when the instructions are provided, it's far beyond the willpower of the vast majority of computer users.

        Trivial means, "click here" and the system does everything for you. Anything less means the installation system is still half-baked.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Bacila ( 860302 )

          It has NEVER been trivial to add PPA repositories. Even when the instructions are provided, it's far beyond the willpower of the vast majority of computer users.

          Trivial means, "click here" and the system does everything for you. Anything less means the installation system is still half-baked.

          Usually for those users, who cannot add PPA with that simple instructions, there are no need to add those PPA repositories. ;)

        • I never had a problem but the clueless probably don't NEED Linux which is not much of a desktop OS nor need it be.

          I've no trouble using it as such but I would never be cruel enough to direct a noob to it. In other news I don't suggest non-mechanics invest in a home auto shop. The self-selected will find their way.

  • Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Saturday February 25, 2023 @02:55PM (#63322900) Homepage
    I've been using Linux for 23 years and Ubuntu almost since its beginning but wtf are Snap, Flatpack? Is that related to containers and others ways to waste 10 times more memory and disk space instead of sharing libraries?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Which version of ubuntu are you using?

      In order to install firefox or chromium at this point, you need to use snap. Although ubuntu has already integrated snap installer in it's apt installer, so maybe you haven't noticed.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday February 25, 2023 @04:44PM (#63323116) Homepage Journal

        In order to install firefox or chromium at this point, you need to use snap. Although ubuntu has already integrated snap installer in it's apt installer, so maybe you haven't noticed.

        Or you can use the firefox team PPA to get Firefox Beta or Nightlies, which are still provided as real packages. I'm running Devuan, and I'm just downloading the beta tarballs from the source and manually installing them.

        • >"Or you can use the firefox team PPA to get Firefox Beta or Nightlies, which are still provided as real packages."

          And you can also just download firefox from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/fi... [mozilla.org] untar it in /opt and run it from there (or symlink the launcher in /usr/bin). The vanilla compile works fine on just about any linux system (as long as you choose the right package).

          Of course, this is not ideal in several ways, but it is an option.

      • MINT (Score:5, Informative)

        by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Saturday February 25, 2023 @06:14PM (#63323234) Homepage Journal

        Which version of ubuntu are you using?

        Mint.

        so maybe you haven't noticed.

        ...noticed gigabytes of wasted space for every installation? Oh, I'd have noticed. You can't help but notice. They are taking the Tux penguin and shoving a metal tube down its gullet to dump their shit like a fois gras goose.

        I encourage Ubuntu users everywhere to adopt Mint. Mint has the ease of Ubuntu, the ethics of Debian, and the common sense of Slackware. For some mind-boggling reason, they still seem to think user choice is meaningful, and have actually made it work Imagine that.

        And, BTW, the article title is 100% wrong. There was nothing about the Ubunto flavours agreeing to anything. The article was all about Ubuntu forcing them. Ubuntu, and its increasing sellout of common-sense, can suck my minty green shwanshtuker.

        • As a big Mint fan and daily user, I would also suggest giving Mint a try.

          For me, it's what I need without a lot of stuff I don't need. It's slim and fast and pretty much everything just works from the get-go.

          I've been using it for years and really have no complaints. A few quibbles, a few annoyances, but all in all it just works.

        • >"I encourage Ubuntu users everywhere to adopt Mint. Mint has the ease of Ubuntu, the ethics of Debian, and the common sense of Slackware. For some mind-boggling reason, they still seem to think user choice is meaningful, and have actually made it work Imagine that."

          I couldn't agree more. And mod up you should be.

          I don't know why anyone would choose to use Ubuntu for a desktop when Mint has been available for years and years and has proven over and over again to be reliable, easy, and completely user-no

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by pjt33 ( 739471 )

            My distro progression was Redhat, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Debian. I switched from Redhat to Debian for apt, from Debian to Ubuntu for better hardware support, from Ubuntu to Mint because Ubuntu seemed to have lost its way and Mint seemed to have the original Ubuntu philosophy, and from Mint back to Debian because I still prefer KDE and it felt like a second class citizen in Mint. But I would still recommend Mint if someone asked me for a recommendation for their first Linux box.

      • I did this. Wasting resources and no control over the applications I install does not sit well with me.
        https://www.debugpoint.com/rem... [debugpoint.com]

    • Flatpaks can share libraries.

      I don't really use any of them except the steam Flatpak though. Deb/rpm is much better.

    • Is that related to containers and others ways to waste 10 times more memory and disk space instead of sharing libraries?

      The great thing about memory and diskspace is they are there to be wasted, unless you're running a small IoT box or a potato, in which case WTF did you install Ubuntu.

      In my 2 decades of using Linux and helping other people use Linux, about one of the few ways that I have seen many users truly f-up their system is an attempt to install some updated software, not "blessed" by their distribution maintainer (which is to say the update is held back because other libraries aren't up to date), add a bunch of custo

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by blackomegax ( 807080 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @08:47PM (#63323474) Journal
        > The great thing about memory and diskspace is they are there to be wasted,

        This kind of retread thinking is why we have 32GB ram systems that barely handle Chrome but the Apollo guidance computer could go to the freaking moon with 4KB ram.

        OPTIMIZE YOUR FUCKING CODE.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by troff ( 529250 )

          I don't remember the last time I wanted mod points so badly to upvote a post to the stratosphere.

          • You like upvoting irrelevant and off topic posts that don't address the fact that software exists to solve problems or provide functionality?

            Maybe if you ran Lynx and gave up using a modern computer in any way you'll have some mod points too. Otherwise we could just mod you -1 hypocrite?

            What functionality do you want to give up today?

        • Your facetiousness aside (Chrome even for heavy users is fine on 8GB systems), you're missing the point. We have 32GB of RAM systems because 32GB of RAM isn't expensive. If you want to use your computer like a text based terminal, more power to you. The rest of the world expects more.

          Also your comment laughably off topic. Nothing here is about lack of optimisation. Not even your comment about Chrome. The reason for high RAM use on Chrome (or indeed *every* modern browser) is the adoption of an insanely comp

          • Windows XP ran a GUI and some pretty heavy apps with just 256MB. We had sandboxing back then too.

            try again.

            • Windows XP had DLL hell, and uptimes best measured in minutes if you were doing anything intensive. It wasn't really until Windows 7 that Windows wasn't grossly technically inferior to Linux. (I would have said Vista, but they really did ruin the resource requirements in that somehow that they conclusively fixed in 7.)

            • Happily. Windows XPs' UI wasn't dynamic, didn't have even remotely the capabilities of that of Vista and what came ofter. And by capabilities we're talking about GPU accelerated c alpha blending and effects applied therein.

              Now if you want to say you personally don't use or don't care about a feature, that's a very different discussion compared to "windows XP GUI is identical to WIndows 11 and therefore the latter is inefficient" which is simply absurd.

            • Great example by the way. Windows XP was a system where the entire OS could be brought down by an misbehaving app. Windows XP didn't support GPU acceleration of GUI apps or alpha blending of UI elements. Windows XP didn't apply ASLR, or apply any other security measures.

              You can do a lot on very little RAM if you want to give up modern functionality that users expect of their systems. Just don't confuse that term with "optimisation".

    • Is that related to containers and others ways to waste 10 times more memory and disk space instead of sharing libraries?

      Kinda sorta.

      Their distinguishing feature is that they're complete, executable blobs with a delicious software filling containing all of the stuff needed to run, all baked inside.

      That exhausts my knowledge on the subject, even though I do use Flatpaks (like GIMP) and AppImages, which I also don't know much about other than that they're also executable blobs with all the stuff needed to run baked inside.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        It should be interesting to many that macOS has been doing this containerization of applications since OS X.

        We thought it was bad back then and now we're not so bothered by it since we now have tens of gigabytes of memory to spare.

  • While I understand the reasoning behind snap, it's still reminiscent of the bad old days under Windows. Anyway, having multiple install systems (apt/snap) on a system is a problem. Obviously, having three would be even worse.

    Let's get rid of Flatpak *and* snap. There should only be one system.

    • Let's get rid of Flatpak *and* snap. There should only be one system.

      I'm predicting an XKCD link in 3....2....1..

    • While I understand the reasoning behind snap, it's still reminiscent of the bad old days under Windows. Anyway, having multiple install systems (apt/snap) on a system is a problem. Obviously, having three would be even worse.

      Let's get rid of Flatpak *and* snap. There should only be one system.

      I agree 100% with your sentiment.

      But actually, Flatpak/snap are _different_ install systems than apt/rpm and the like.

      Flatpack and Snap are similar to the Windows/Mac App store. the applications are sandboxed (among other things), so they do not trample on each other.

      Meanwhile, old style package managers (like apt ot rpm) are similar to downloading the installer in Windows and Mac.

      So, a distro needs one of each one for the old style and one for the new. Just like windows and mac each has one app store, buyt

    • On one hand, I agree with you, and I try to use system libraries for everything.

      On the other hand, I want to run software that doesn't really accommodate that, so I have to use something.

      Snap seems like the worst, so I removed it when I was running Ubuntu.

      Flatpak seems like the least of evils to me, in that it has the kind of added security you get with snap but also... isn't snap. AppImages are smaller, but don't share libraries, so they're not smaller in memory. I have plenty of disk space, but my RAM is

      • >"Flatpak seems like the least of evils to me"

        Agreed.

        I will use native packages always when possible. The only time I turn to something like Flatpak is if I really need something cutting edge. And it is rare.

        • Flatpak is more or less a good solution looking for a problem.

          Having said that, I'm using it almost exclusively, but on a new "breed" of Linux distro: the ostree-based "immutable base system" kind, like Fedora Silverblue, for instance. That's where flatpak really shines, together with projects like Container-ToolBX.

          I was a Debian user for almost two decades (since version 2), but I really enjoy being up to date with my packages for once. For instance, I have a native python 3.11 now, with a few useful featu

    • i like flatpak for apps i do not trust. it has a lot less overhead than using a virtual machine. i only use it for apps i do not trust and use flatseal to control access. if there is a better solution please let me know.

  • Snap is a nightmare, and if you need just one thing about it, know that it tries to force you to update apps four times a day. You can't disable updates. If you give a use-case as to why you want this, the answer is "why would you want this?" and the feature request is closed. So it's no surprise that Ubuntu embraces it and goes out of their way to stop the competition.

  • It's a power grab (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schoenlepel ( 1751646 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @03:37PM (#63322998)

    I'm using KDE-neon, and am very concerned over this. I need Zoom for something, and that's just not being updated in the snap repository. Somebody put a version in there a looooooong time ago, and it was never updated. Lo and behold: the version has some unpatched, critical vulnerabilities. I simply refuse to use the snap version.

    I also read the announcement. It's a complete lie. Later on the lie is made worse by a dev who claims they can't support flatpak. Huh? Flatpak is open source, its repository [github.com] is publicly available, and people from canonical can contribute to it, if they so desire. If they want to get involved with flathub, they would probably be welcomed with open arms. But nooooo, they want to do their power grab. Is the snap package manager or runtime open source? No. Can the community contribute to them? No. It's all about power grab, nothing less.

    • Re:It's a power grab (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Saturday February 25, 2023 @04:23PM (#63323062) Homepage Journal

      Ubuntu's entire history is taking Debian and then forcing some proprietary shit on top of it.

      Unity, upstart, ufw - so many half-working things that were abandoned.

      I am neither surprised, offended nor affected.

      • None of Ubuntu's client-side software is proprietary. Their One client, Upstart, Unity, UFW, etc are all open source.

        • >"None of Ubuntu's client-side software is proprietary. Their One client, Upstart, Unity, UFW, etc are all open source."

          Riiiiiight.

          Just like Chromium is "open source."
          Except nobody can really contribute to it except at Google's determination and utter control. Make no mistake, anything based on Chromium (AKA any browser that is not Firefox) is locked into Google's control.

          So is just open source and then there is really open source- open source open to and driven by the community while also adhering to o

          • So is just open source and then there is really open source- open source open to and driven by the community while also adhering to open standards as well. We should much prefer the latter.

            pssst Free Software pssst

            All "open source" means is that you can see the sources, period. It means literally nothing else. "Open" in computing means documented and interoperable, it also means literally nothing else. This is why we need Free Software, it comes with guarantees that you can actually use it.

            • >"pssst Free Software pssst"

              Yeah, but I am not a fan of that term either. The vast majority of people just think it means without monetary price.

              I kinda wish there were a new term that covered only things that are Free, Open Source, Open Standards, and Open Development. Like "Liberty Source" or "Liberty Software" or whatnot.

            • All "open source" means is that you can see the sources, period.

              No, that's not what "Open Source" means. [opensource.org]

              What markdavis is complaining about is contributor gatekeeping, and neither "Open Source" nor "Free Software" forbid that (they don't let every rando commit to the Linux kernel, either)

      • Re:It's a power grab (Score:4, Informative)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @07:54PM (#63323404)

        Unity, upstart, ufw - so many half-working things that were abandoned.

        Actually you're showing examples of things where Ubuntu didn't *want* to go down the proprietary path, but had a problem that needed to solve, and then proceeded to abandon their proprietary way as soon as some open source / universal way presented itself.

        Unity was born out of a universal hatred in the Linux world for Gnome 3 and was fully functional.
        Upstart was just one of 15 different attempts by various distros and programmers to replace SysVinit, and work was abandoned only when something "better" became standardised: systemd. It did it's job well enough but never reached maturity when systemd became widely available.
        Ufw likewise. Managing Linux firewalls was more difficult than university level calculus for many, and Ufw wasn't abandoned as much as Ubuntu is migrating away from iptables, kind of makes sense not to continue to develop an iptables front end if you won't be using it going forward.

        If you think Debian is perfect and can't be improved in any way then it's a great distro for you. The reason multiple distros exist is because people don't think that, and each one imposes a different unique changes. The only thing that sets Ubuntu apart from some other distros is it's owned by a for profit company.

    • 1. If you're using KDE neon then you probably are not affected at all. KDE neon isn't an Ubuntu community edition. 2. Even if KDE neon doesn't ship with Flatpak enabled by default it takes three clicks to add Flatpak support. This will take maybe 30 seconds out of your day to add Flatpak to any community edition of Ubuntu.
    • Distrobox is your friend, https://distrobox.privatedns.o... [privatedns.org] Allows your to run another distrobo in terminal and export apps from that distro to the host OS. So for instance you can use the Arch user repository which has the latest version on zoom.

    • I need Zoom for something

      Great news! IME the audio doesn't work right in the flatpak version of Zoom on Ubuntu. It works less than half the time, so you don't want to run it anyway. Next time I need zoom I'm just going to run the windows version in a VM, the Linux version is a bad joke.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Well, it may be, but it's Ubuntu. They are official flavors of Ubuntu with support for branding and development and other things. So if the head of the mainline Ubuntu says no to flatpak, all those flavors if they wish to remain official Ubuntu flavors will follow.

      Not really a power grab - they are official Ubuntu releases - you have the base, plus all these variants that are all supported as Ubuntu in the end.

      Flatpak remains supported in the Ubuntu repository if you want to install it, it's just not being

  • From a user experience, compatibility and performance point of view both flatpack and snaps suck.
    Yes I understand that it frees packagers from local dependencies however the "cure" is many times worse. For example if I secure a system using something like fapolicyd stuff like this stops working.
    If you want to be nice source packages are peachy but the whole flatpacksnap experience is like being touched up by a priest. ie an absolute betrayal of trust, but on further examination the motives are pretty clear.

  • I'm not intrinsically against corporate involvement with Linux - when you look at stuff like the kernel's changelog, it's quite obvious their paid developers are doing a whole lot of the work in moving Linux forward and keeping it secure. But it's also true that the corporate mindset leads to user-hostile decisions, both on a smaller scale (e.g. this move) and larger (e.g. the gutting of CentOS).

  • Flatpak is a huge data storage hog. May be fine if you have gigabytes and gigabytes to burn, but otherwise avoid it.

    • I want HandBrake 1.6, which introduces hardware encoding and is several hundred percent faster. The repos I'm using only have 1.5 and 1.6 is only available as a Flatpak.

      Spent about two hours in hell to get it running. The free space on / went from 2GB to around 600MB! It had to download 300MB of Gnome dependencies to run a 60MB application.

      Anyways, after I got it installed it couldn't scan all the titles on a DVD.

      So I'm back on 1.5. What a shitshow.

  • AppImage (Score:2)

    by gbr ( 31010 )

    AppImage is the way to go, anyway.

  • Devuan has done the work of figuring out how to function gracefully without systemd. The installer lacks niceties which Ubuntu has, like root on encrypted ZFS (I worked it out in a couple hours from some other howtos, starting with not knowing anything useful about ZFS as Ubuntu had handled it for me) but it's a mostly enjoyable experience using it these days. I'm using pipewire for audio, too, it replaces both pulseaudio and JACK and I've tested both. I have the latest nvidia manually installed, in order t

    • Hallelujah brothers and sisters! for Devuan. Have been using it on servers and desktops for a couple years now. Its the sweet spot between access to software, usability, and efficient use of hardware. No big brother trying to mine your data. Enjoy a Unix like experience where you can put both hands on the steering when and go where you want and fix things when they break without big brother peering into your business or getting between you and your own system.

      Also enjoy noticeable battery lifespan improveme

  • Too bad Snap doesn't get past X Windows security.

    I have to do an "xhost +" to get any X Windows Snap app to actually start.

    WTF, Canonical?

    • WTF, Canonical?

      What's X Windows? Canonical's customers would like to know. Sounds like some outdated thing that Canonical supported before making Wayland default.

      That's WTF.

  • Snap sucked for me, but appimage worked (Score:3)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @07:27PM (#63323356)

    I tried installing an app as a snap (I think it was kdenlive), and instead of using my home directory, it insisted on saving my project files in some strange looking folders that looked like some kind of chroot jail. I have since installed the appimage, and it works just fine. I also installed the appimage of Audacity with no problems. I haven't tried a flatpak yet but it looks like I'm going to have to since KiCad doesn't have an appimage version.

    So my scorecard is:
    Appimage: 2
    Snap: -1
    Flatpak: no score yet

  • Remove snap ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Saturday February 25, 2023 @08:09PM (#63323426) Homepage

    Ever since Canonical opted to make Firefox available only through snap, I have been uninstalling snapd altogether after I upgrade.

    $ sudo apt purge snapd

    Then I add the Mozilla Team PPA to my repos, and install Firefox that way.

    I am still on Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, and the above definitely works: no more snap crap.
    Also tried it on 22.04 LTS server, and snapd can be removed too without issues.

  • I apt still the default engine for ubuntu?

    I've been a debian user since forever, but UB has its charms.

  • It's better.

  • You invent your own unique packaging method, with all the features you never learned to use in the more popular, already available packaging and deployment systems. We just saw this with flatpacks, and Red Hat just tried it with "modularity" for RPMs, both of which have been discarded.

  • Lockin is the name of game (Score:3)

    by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Sunday February 26, 2023 @09:38AM (#63324242)
    Wake up everyone. The PURPOSE of software is to monopolize you. To OWN you.

    Here's an example you may recall. Everyone went gaga over cell phones, then music publishers said I want to get to those people, then Apple said we'll get your music to market, then... PRESTO... Apple OWNED both the customers and publishers. Everyone's been crying foul ever since, Except for all the chumps listening to their 99cent tunes on their cell phones. Do you get it now?

    Let me be blunter: Snap, Flatpak, etc, they are just OWNING you... it's hilarious in a way, they can shove updates on your machine and you can't stop it? Hmmm... gathering delicious surveillance data? Yummy.

    You're using the wrong software.

    You're welcome, and you owe me a beer now.

  • Uninteresting news for an uninteresting OS. Ubuntu has always sucked.

  • I hate snaps (Score:3)

    by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Sunday February 26, 2023 @05:46PM (#63325166) Homepage

    I don't mind Ubuntu -- I use it on a couple laptops -- but damn, I really hate snaps.
    I hate that I can see every snap I have installed when I run a mount command. I hate that I can't do rootless installs.I hate that the distro is forcing some poorly engineered software on me. I have enough of that with Internet Explorer and Edge.

    Again, I like Ubuntu but it's a reason I would find another non-Ubuntu distribution.

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