I don’t think these two statements work well together as of the state of the art. Looking for a Windows alternative, as a non-primarily software developer, you probably need Gimp, LibreOffice and stuff such like that. Now, look at the screens currently on sale for decent hardware: 1920x1080 or “retina” hidpi screens. LibreOffice shows fuzzy icons and other artifacts in hidpi. Gimp is still based on Gtk 2 so it will literally be a mess in hidpi until they end the migration to Gtk 3. These are just two examples; when you have a hidpi monitor installing a new app is truly a gamble; and it’s difficult to avoid that within the current hardware offer. Other thing I’m unable to do: have a dual monitor setting with different dpi screens. I’m at the office right now, I can see 70% developers (about 20 people) using Mac, everyone of them comfortably using dual screens without even knowing about dpi stuff; the other 30% alternate between very old hardware, new Thinkpads with absurdly small fonts, using just one external screen and keeping their laptops’ lids half closed or not using an external screen or, even worse, like me, having learnt a lot of nerdy stuff I actually don’t care about except for surviving in Linux desktop. It’s just sad. I don’t believe that any massive migration from Windows to Linux is about to happen; on the contrary, if Linux desktop is not stabilized and modernized I expect a net flow from Linux to Mac/Windows. Gnome/Wayland/Flatpak-Snap are IMHO going the right way. Anyway, for desktop the idea of staying in a functional completely static LTS for some years is not working these days. I came from Arch, I updated my system every day during many years, I was wanting to update my old hardware, move to the next Ubuntu LTS and leave rolling behind. Guess what: because of an “innocent” hardware update unstability, unpredictability and anxiety increased to the point I wanted to move to Mac (for the first time in 20 years of Linux usage). I’m now in Ubuntu but I do recognize that some orderly way of keeping up-to-date apps (and probably desktops) will be necessary in these transitional times. Snap and flatpak seem good solutions to me and they’re being quickly developed and improved.
It is on the case that were this is counter balanced for other advantages, and this is the case, however I do agree that it should be perfected to use even less space.
Snaps work for a reliable time, more even if the upgrade breaks the app, it can be reverted and with debs that is way harder.
This is a longtime well-known issue, see, e.g., https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snaps-are-still-slow-to-launch-on-first-time-launch/6888/
Some attempted fixes have been made, but clearly it’s not completely fixed yet!
Inexperienced users use Ubuntu Software to install new applications and often choose to install the snap instead of the .deb out of ignorance. The problem does not happen to more experienced users installing via apt or synaptic or who watch carefully, in Ubuntu Software the package source (snap or deb) is shown at the bottom of the page and should be easy to add the same indication on top of the page to avoid mistakes.
Inexperienced users aren’t going to be able to understand the difference between those formats (and most are probably not going/wanting to care) so it’s good that one is picked by default for them no?
You are of the opinion than the deb alternative should be preferred but reading the discussion here each systems has its advantages, some users probably prefer automatically getting new versions when those are available…
Why not inform the user then? Like a graphic indicator at the top clearly identifying that its a snap and possibly a link to a tool tip that explains what a snap is. I also think the Software app should clearly show the full package name and architecture at all times.
That feature will be available as part of the newer 3.32 version as we update, it doesn’t change the fact that most users will not know the difference between snap/deb nor care and are likely to just click the ‘install’ button
Snap updates should be housed in the Update section of Ubuntu Software. I don’t why that’s there when there is also Update Manager that does all the updates. Confusing for average users like my father, who uses Ubuntu on his desktop PC.
I’m confused, are you suggesting that snap updates should be under Ubuntu Software Updates, or the Update Manager?
Under Ubuntu Software.
Snap packages (just like flatpak) should not replace deb packages! It should just remain an alternative and nothing else !
I ask developers to reset chromium to deb by default
For example, even the leader of the “Linux Mint” project, Clément Lefèbvre, agrees that snap should not replace debs.
If Clément/Linux Mint are wanting to dedicate some resources to help maintaining the Deb in Ubuntu that would be welcome, the currently stated problem is that the Ubuntu Desktop team doesn’t have the resources to deal with the workload created by the deb but having downstreams stepping up to help could help to revisit the decision. Do you know how much effort Clément is wanting to invest in helping there?
No, your argument is not good.
There are a lot of linux distributions that have much less means than you and that offer the software without going through snap or flatpak packages.
For example under Archlinux, you can install Chromium directly from the official packages (sudo pacman -S chromium) => https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/chromium/
While there are only volunteer users, they are not paid!
Under Debian you can also install the deb package of the official repositories (sudo apt install chromium) => https://packages.debian.org/buster/chromium
The same with Fedora or Manjaro etc…
So it’s all nonsense your resource problem story, there are tons of linux distribution that works without snap/flatpak with much less means than you do!
Ubuntu is the only distribution that wants to force universal packages and it’s the one with the most money (after red hat)
Thanks, that’s indeed the perfect example where the package is at version 73 where the current one is 75, knowing each update include security bug fixes.
There is no much point comparing anyway since each distribution are different targets/model/support (arch doesn’t have a LTS serie for example right?) and decide where they best invest efforts.
Under Ubuntu too there was a slippage between the output and the release with the deb package.
And under Archlinux, you will have the latest version.
It is enough to provide the official chromium packaged in deb without any particular modification, there is no reason that it does not work under Ubuntu.
If Chromium is working properly on other distributions, there’s no reason it does not work on Ubuntu.
If it requires no difficulty to maintain then are you willing to step up and maintain it in Ubuntu? Or is it not as easy as you’re making it out to be?
It can’t be both. Either it does actually take time to make, and Ubuntu is justified in finding ways to reduce developer time, or it doesn’t take any time or expertise and you can do it yourself.
Actually, debs come from Debian. Ubuntu only changes it in a way, so they can’t be run on Debian, or at least that’s the general knowledge on that matter. The debs won’t go away, until Debian would do so. There’s at least another distro/operating system that runs the debs, if Ubuntu would go the snaps way. I personally don’t believe Ubuntu can do that, go completely snap. Well, lack of resources to keep even the desktop going.
I think that Ubuntu could, in theory, go completely snap on the desktop, but it probably requires some work which Canonical is not going to invest in right now and the community doesn’t seem keen enough on the idea to do it themselves! @popey (Canonical snap advocate) said that he can’t see Ubuntu going completely snap, he thinks that Ubuntu will use Debs for a very long time to come. Ubuntu Core is completely snap, but is not distributed in a form easily installable to a desktop, from what I can tell.
There’s no heart for that. I think Cannonical lost interest in the desktop around 17.04, or just before that.