How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation?

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Baldape
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How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation?

Post by Baldape »

I just read about how with the release of Ubuntu 21.10 and beyond it will using a Snap for Firefox by default made by Mozilla. :x :cry:

Are any of you upset by this news?


I mean I won't be able to use Firejail for the Snap version of Firefox since Snaps are automatically sandboxed, and I much prefer to sandbox with Firejail.
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DanRaisch
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by DanRaisch »

Moving to MozillaZine Tech as this is not a Firefox issue.
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Snake4
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Snake4 »

no point talking bout it in here, Canonical dont look at these forums, best place is the Ubuntu ones an complain there, im sure your not the only one that wont like it,
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Grumpus
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Grumpus »

It's disappointing for Snap to be unconditionally applied as the packages needed for system or function recovery would no longer be available in a failure. Back up of package files is almost an imperative these days.
There's no real difference between Snap and Flatpak, both make system recovery an issue.
Solution for this would be for Mozilla to address the issue by making versions for Debian, Red Hat and other systems to bypass the repositories.
Unfortunately Mozilla is probably aware and complicit $$$$$$$$
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Baldape
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Baldape »

Grumpus wrote:It's disappointing for Snap to be unconditionally applied as the packages needed for system or function recovery would no longer be available in a failure. Back up of package files is almost an imperative these days.
There's no real difference between Snap and Flatpak, both make system recovery an issue.
Solution for this would be for Mozilla to address the issue by making versions for Debian, Red Hat and other systems to bypass the repositories.
Unfortunately Mozilla is probably aware and complicit $$$$$$$$
Read about it here: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/09/ubu ... ap-default
And as you can read the decision was Mozilla's. :(
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Grumpus
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Grumpus »

At the bottom of the article it confirms some of the issues with Snap packages.
With new installs I've had to remove some, delete them entirely and re-install from the repositories due to performance and function issues.
There's also the above mentioned idea of no packages for recovery.
It also seems this may be moving towards the cloud based programs instead of local machine based which was a Microsoft concept leading to licensing of the average user for cloud access.
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Grumpus
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Grumpus »

Something to consider, with out tin foil.
Recent update of netplan.io change-log indicates accommodation for snap.
While the default install of Firefox with new versions of Ubuntu OS are supposed to be using snap.
It seems there may be more move towards snap based packages than advertised.
One of the main reasons for using Linux is the concept of off-line recovery through saved packages and profiles.
Also there may be less configuration control with the snap packages.
Already there appears to be a system control of minor changes in Firefox on some Linux systems where configuration is returned to default over user alterations.
Example is the "extension-preferences.json file which changed to remove packages like duck duck or yahoo will regenerate to include the removed items.
This was previously fixed by modifying the Firefox files under Ubuntu system adjustments.
While these do appear to hold once there's an edit there now appears to be a hidden system workaround work around and when a reboot occurs the file noted goes back with the system adjustment files remaining edited.
There appears to be more and more of this loss of user configuration and control , looking at the changes over the past few years.
However recovery is the main issue and back up files and cloud services do not suit all situations and it needs to be seriously considered further.
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epp
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by epp »

The Lubuntu team provided Firefox as a .deb package in the 21.10 release. Whether it will stay as a .deb package or revert to a Snap package at some point, I do not know.
Debian unstable
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Grumpus
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Re: How many of you are upset with the Ubuntu Snap situation

Post by Grumpus »

Doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong for a toaster to walk around the house and talk to you
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