Snaps & flatpacks

[Tom H]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 5:21 PM Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Sep 2020 13:31:22 +0200, Tom H wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 7:40 AM Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
>> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>> On Sun, 6 Sep 2020 22:14:00 +0200, Tom H wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 7:35 AM Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
>>>> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 19:18:02 -0500, Jim wrote:


>>>>>> So would this be a limitation of flatpacks or how this one was
>>>>>> implemented and if it was a limitation of flatpacks could a snap
>>>>>> have the same problem?
>>>>>
>>>>> just install and test it ;).
>>>>>
>>>>> If you subscribe to a lot of mailing lists you will notice that
>>>>> there is quasi zero acceptance for snaps and just a little bit of
>>>>> acceptance for flatpacks. Both are immature and especially the
>>>>> immature sandbox approach does cause the issues you described.
>>>>> However, snaps do not just suffer from the sandbox issue.
>>>>>
>>>>> A Claws developer:
>>>>> https://lists.claws-mail.org/pipermail/users/2020-July/026474.html
>>>>>
>>>>> I've seen similar comments on most Linux related mailing lists I
>>>>> join. Compared to that bad critic Flatpaks get way better, but
>>>>> still bad critics, too. There are a few good critics for both, but
>>>>> the vast majority of critics is everything else but pro.
>>>>
>>>> No one ever likes change. There's no technical reason to claim that
>>>> snap-installed apps are worse than apt/dnf/emerge/pacman-installed
>>>> apps.
>>>
>>> See
>>>
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2020-September/018782.html
>>
>> Do you think that the snap maintainer would've released that snap if
>> it had crashed for him? Bugs happen, with dpkg and snap, whether
>> related to the packaging or not. There wouldn't be any bug trackers
>> for dpkg-based packages if they were all perfect.
>
> You are missing the debugging point. You are missing all the users
> complaining on upstream mailing lists.

Is there any data that suggests that people who use snap packages use
"upstream" mailing lists more than people who use deb packages?!


>>>>> On https://snapcraft.io/ there's a list of Linux distributions
>>>>> creating the impression that those distributions support snaps. At
>>>>> least "Arch Linux" does not, never did and most unlikely ever will.
>>>>> That it's possible to use it, doesn't mean that it's supported.
>>>>
>>>> Are you saying that snaps can't be installed on Arch or other cited
>>>> distributions? I doubt that snapcraft.io would lie about this.
>>>
>>> You can install Snaps on Arch Linux, but Snaps are not supported by
>>> the Arch Linux distribution.
>>
>> That's the usual "we didn't package so we don't support it."
>
> A lot of reasons, such as security issues.

The usual excuse... As if, if a snap package introduced a security
problem, the distribution wouldn't immediately point the finger at
that package and say "not my prob."