Not sure what others are doing to use Ubuntu (23.04) without snaps, but this is what I am doing:
- for Firefox I found a guide here
- for chromium I am actually using the Linux Mint packages (which work absolutely fine), and I have just set up a small repository I can add to apt:
deb [arch=amd64 allow-insecure=yes] http://snapless.cmeerw.net victoria upstream
- this just syncs from Linux Mint and only republishes chromium in the Packages file (with downloads redirected to a Linux Mint mirror). BTW, I am not signing these…
What are others doing?
So you’re using Mint with extra steps.
I am using a single package from Mint, the rest is Ubuntu 23.04. Mint would otherwise be based on Ubuntu 22.04?
My solution is using a distro that doesn’t try to force snaps on me.
If you want the ubuntu base, why not use mint?
Mint would be based on Ubuntu 22.04, but I’d like to have something more up-to-date. I believe all other .deb based distros have the same issue that they are not as up-to-date as Ubuntu 23.04?
None of them are like arch where you can read news about an update and find that you just have it installed already.
Given you’re on ubuntu and therefore not at the bleeding edge anyways, it won’t be a big difference. My personal choice for stuff that just needs to work is debian. I carry debian LTS with the full KDE pack on my ventoy and it’s been great. I also heard very good things about testing and Sid, but I haven’t tried them myself.
Just use debian testing or unstable.
This.
I just went from Arch to Debian 12 Bookworm. Running the stable branch, but so far most of the packages are rather recent. Kernel is 6.1 instead of 6.4, but I could switch to the Testing or Unstable branch to get the “bleeding edge” packages/kernels if I need to. But honestly so far it’s been a real pleasure to use. Everything is just working and is stable.
I switched from Arch to Debian Stable as well. I grabbed the Xanmod kernel repo for a more recent kernel, and use Flatpaks and Homebrew for some cutting edge stuff. I don’t miss anything from Arch so far.
Debian 12 was just released. Compare it to Arch even six months from now and see how current the packages are. Then compare it again in 18 months.
I am a happy Arch user but I must admit the constant kernel updates can seem a bit much. An experiment I have considered is moving to Debian 12 and using distrobox to get access to Arch repos and the AUR. I would use the Debian stuff as much as possible but for anything missing or anything that I really need to be more current, I could just fall back to the Arch repos.
It could be the best of both worlds.
FYI Arch offers linux-lts. You can install that and linux-lts-headers and switch grub/whatever your boot loader is to default to that and forget about running the bleeding edge kernel. Linux 6.4.x has been literal dog shit with several ugly amdgpu bugs and suspend is randomly borked about 1/3 of the times I try to suspend my PC for the evening (and issue I’m not experiencing alone).
So, yeah. Give the linux-lts linux-lts-headers packages a try. You get the benefits Arch’s cutting-edge packages on a stable kernel.
He mentioned wanting more up to date packages. I like debian stable, but it’s not exactly known for being the latest and greatest.
He can get single packages from a different source without sacrificing the whole system
This may be useful for you (Especially if you use KDE Plasma) : Automated script to remove all traces of Snap, including reinstalling a standalone version of Firefox.
I do nothing.
- I use the Firefox snap. It takes like 800 extra milliseconds to start up on my 10y old laptop and it moves my profile dir. It otherwise impacts my life not at all and is just fine. If it ever bothers me, there PPAs, flatpak, or a dozen other ways to install Firefox that are all perfectly simple.
- I install other stuff from flatpaks or PPAs or using docker.
The angst around snap is inscrutable to me. There are 30 million easy ways to install software and they all work on Ubuntu. There is nothing in my life that’s easier to ignore than snap.
I’m basically doing the same, but those “pending update, close the app to avoid disruptions” popups are kind of disrupting.
… those “pending update, close the app to avoid disruptions” popups are kind of disrupting.
I don’t exactly disagree that it’s slightly irritating but:
- No one declares war on an operating system the way snap haters have over a “restart to update” message. It’s an irritation, but it’s not an irritation proportional to the response snap gets out of people.
- Restarting to enable an update or complete an update is not something unique to snap. Except for a tiny number of very advanced live-patching systems like the one some kernel updaters use, every updater either nags you to shutdown to do the update, nags you to restart to finish the update, or doesn’t nag you and the update just doesn’t take effect till you restart (apt falls in this category and it’s not unambiguously better than nagging because you’re silently vulnerable when security patches are shipped until you restart). So again, this is just an extremely unremarkable thing that tons of updaters deal with similarly.
Very true and good points, and when it comes to snap I mostly agree with you. I would guess the “war on Ubuntu” going on is more due to Ubuntu’s history of making controversial decisions that go against the grain of what most other distros are doing at the time (creating and dropping Mir, creating Unity instead of using GNOME and then switching back to GNOME when they finally got Unity working well, installing an Amazon app out of the box in one version), many of which angered a lot of Linux community members before who are still angry despite Ubuntu rolling back most of those decisions, and they’ve found snap a great current scapegoat issue to use to vent their long-standing frustrations with Ubuntu at.
EDIT: I also notice to a lesser degree a weird fanboy-ism around Flatpak which I think also contributes to it. Pretty much when Flatpak came out the attitude was, “this is the standard for containerized binaries, no alternatives or exceptions will be tolerated”, and immediately they went on the warpath to destroy both snap and appimage (though to be fair appimage really isn’t great).
Tell me more about why I care that snap is setting up loop devices and not that docker is setting up virtual ethernet devices and nftables chains. System tools do system things, news at 11.
I say again, this impacts my life not at all and there is nothing easier to ignore than snap.
