It looks like Kubuntu 22.04 won't support the deb version of Firefox.

[Bings]

Is there any reason why not to download firefox from their website and run it out of a folder?

[claydoh]

Is there any reason why not to download firefox from their website and run it out of a folder?

Firefox as a Snap is that not that much more than doing exactly this. Manually downloading from Mozilla has the the fairly minor inconvenience of setting it up - menu icons, default browser settings, etc. As well as updating it, I imagine.

But since Mint will be doing their own builds, I wonder if they will also be usable on Ubuntu, like their Chromium build is.

[jglen490]

O.K., obey the supreme leader

Questioning decisions is no longer acceptable

"Build from source, blah, blah, blah..."

I am not a dev. Kubuntu has fewer devs as Canonical has released some, and Kubuntu is one of the best Linux distros - not the most popular, just among the best and most stable. Yeah, it pains me to see it going this way.

[chimak111]

Re. Firefox and Linux Mint: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4244

The impression I get is that Mint will be supplying Firefox very much as Mozilla does. Little to no "Mint" customization. Even the search engine will be whatever Mozilla sets.

[claydoh]

Re. Firefox and Linux Mint: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4244

The impression I get is that Mint will be supplying Firefox very much as Mozilla does. Little to no "Mint" customization. Even the search engine will be whatever Mozilla sets.

Yes, Mozilla doesn't like browser customization so much (as Mint had been doing), at least not without proper permission, and agreement$.

[GreyGeek]

OK. But why? ;·) Just what is it that you dislike about snaps?

Speaking for myself ... snapd runs 100% of the time as a process in the background while you are using your system. Why? Snap is a package store that uses Discover to access the repository and also a special repository for app$ you must pay for. Muon, too, communicates with the repository, but only when I execute it, which I do only when I need it. I don't let muon run all the time in the background. That would be a waste of my resources. It would also be foolish. So, why does snapd have to run all the time in the background? "Telemetry"? I have Userfeedback disabled in Settings (which only applies to the plasma desktop). If I execute Discover isn't that enough? Why must it watch every key that I type, every command that I issue, explore my file system and see what apps I have installed and track which ones I use. How do I know that it is doing that? I don't, but before you call me paranoid can you prove it isn't spying?
It is like DOT ECHO, or SIri, or Bixby, eaves dropping in on every conversation it hears, and sending a recording back to the mothership, all without a warrant.

[Beerislife]

Thanks for that, I just turned off Telemetry in Settings! X-Plane wants as many resources as it can gobble up when I'm running it. I also don't want Snapd sniffing in the background.

I was also thinking of swapping out KDE for something lighter, like a WM so X-Plane can have everything it wants!

[Don B. Cilly]

But we have lots of daemons running in the background all the time. Why should snapd be "spying" and the others not?
It's open source too, I guess someone would have spotted it if it did...
System resources, of the 40 or so processes listed by top, it's not even there. And certainly not among among those using any %CPU or %MEM.

[chimak111]

On my Kubuntu 20.04:

> ~ $ apt list --installed | grep -i snap

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

libsnapd-glib1/focal-updates,now 1.58-0ubuntu0.20.04.0 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libsnapd-qt1/focal-updates,now 1.58-0ubuntu0.20.04.0 amd64 [installed,automatic]
libsnappy1v5/focal,now 1.1.8-1build1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
plasma-discover-backend-snap/focal-updates,now 5.18.5-0ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
plasma-discover-snap-backend/focal-updates,now 5.18.5-0ubuntu0.1 all [installed,automatic]
snapd/focal-updates,now 2.51.1+20.04ubuntu2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
> ~ $ pgrep snapd
> ~ $

It appears that there's no snapd process running whenever I check with pgrep snapd

(I don't have any snaps installed.)

I guess it runs occasionally to check whether installed snaps have updates available?

[claydoh]

If you have installed an application packaged as a snap, it and its dependencies will be 'mounted' in a squashfs jail/container thingy. That part can take a bit of resource usage, and mostly adds to the login time, even if these are not opened.

The case against Snaps is mainly on principle/politics, as well as anti-change and anti-fragmentation, on top of simply being anti-Ubuntu/Canonical.
You can only get snaps from one place, the service itself is closed. This is one of the main complaints, and is enough for many by itself.

[Don B. Cilly]

You can only get snaps from one place

But then I only get, say, security updates from one place, security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu, don't I?

[claydoh]

But then I only get, say, security updates from one place, security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu, don't I?

Nope, snaps have zero to do with normal Ubuntu-specific apt-based (and open-source) repos, and their mirrors. Snaps work on any distro, and have their own separate infrastructure. You can't set up your own mirror for snaps, as can be done for apt repos. Think of it like Steam, or Apple and Google app stores.

security.ubuntu.com, much like archive.ubuntu.com, or es.archive.ubuntu.com, actually sends one to a more local or quicker mirror. At least I think the security repo does,could be wrong on this

Snaps are also updated by their owners/creators, not by Ubuntu or Canonical.

[Don B. Cilly]

Snaps are also updated by their owners/creators, not by Ubuntu or Canonical.

Fair enough - I guess :·)
But then...
Hit:4 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:8 https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com stable InRelease
Hit:9 https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:10 https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable stable InRelease
Hit:11 https://swupdate.openvpn.net/community/openvpn3/repos focal InRelease
Hit:12 https://repo.protonvpn.com/debian stable InRelease

So are all these... I mean, if snaps are bad for me, I'd like to know. I'll just get rid of them. I only have anbox as snap, I can do without it.
But if the problems are
- They make for slower boot times (stopwatch experimenting indicates they don't, and anyway who cares).
- They mess up disk reporting (workarounds are plenty and easy).
- You can only get them in one place, they're not Holy Roman Catholic Church Canonical approved/updated (fair enough IMHO, I'm not Canonicatholic)
- They spy on you worse than Alexa's echo chambers (yeah well)
I really don't see any reason not to use them, if needed.

[Snowhog]

It really comes down to what an individual user wants and doesn't want. Period. No one is required to convince another as to why they choose to do something. Can we please just leave it at that? This thread is/has become less than informational and has devolved into something else, IMO.

[claydoh]

Fair enough - I guess :·)
But then...
Hit:4 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:8 https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com stable InRelease
Hit:9 https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:10 https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable stable InRelease
Hit:11 https://swupdate.openvpn.net/community/openvpn3/repos focal InRelease
Hit:12 https://repo.protonvpn.com/debian stable InRelease

Again, your apt repos, your sources.list and those in sources.list.d, have nothing to do with snap packages whatsoever. Snap is a completely separate entity and infrastructure, not tied to any distro type at all.

So are all these... I mean, if snaps are bad for me, I'd like to know. I'll just get rid of them. I only have anbox as snap, I can do without it.
But if the problems are
- They make for slower boot times (stopwatch experimenting indicates they don't, and anyway who cares).
- They mess up disk reporting (workarounds are plenty and easy).
- You can only get them in one place, they're not Holy Roman Catholic Church Canonical approved/updated (fair enough IMHO, I'm not Canonicatholic)
- They spy on you worse than Alexa's echo chambers (yeah well)
I really don't see any reason not to use them, if needed.

Snaps are only bad for you, if you don't like them, for whatever reason.
The system IS a Canonical-controlled entity, to be sure. Many dislike it simply for that alone.
The only things that might spy on you are the things that would spy on you no matter how you installed it

I personally don't use Snaps as there is nothing there that I need or want from that store.
I run OBS from a flatpak as I haven't been able to get the native deb version of the current betas to play with pipewire/Wayland on KDE Neon. This was the quickest way I was able to get screen recording working under Wayland
There is no Snap for the beta.