On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 6:18 PM CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Ubuntu I guess one alternative is to find non-snap installs. I don't have a lot of obscure software installed, so concerns for conflicts of packae levels are probably minimal.
Because the browser is so much a part of my use of the system -- not just to websites but also cloud apps and even localhost stuff -- that I think it's important to have a default browser that's a system package (.deb), closer to the iron and quicker to start. There are a number of places with instructions on how to: 1) add the firefox ubuntu PPA repository. 2) ensure that the .deb Firefox has priority over the snap one 3) (optional) delete the snap Firefox and instruct snapd to not try to reinstall Other apps I have less of a problem with, though I do prefer flatpaks over snaps partially beyond the size issue that you raise and the systemd dependency that is important to Steve. Primary to me is the massive single-point-of-failure in play given Canonical having tight control over the repository.
I know ubuntu is evil,
Not evil, just misguided. 🙂 but i fear trying to learn something new.
Been there. Tried Mint KDE and then Neon and Tuxedo and even Bazzite, now back to Kubuntu. It's not just fear of the unknown, it's also that the based-on-Ubuntu distros will by definition always be slower to deploy. Even if they fix things Ubuntu breaks they are always in reactive mode. Plus developers that have limited resources and can only officially support a few distros will always have Ubuntu in their lists.
Is there any possibility snaps will de-duplicate in the future, or does the basis for how they work make that impossible?
IMO the obstacle to Ubuntu just using flatpak like everyone else is business and politics rather than technical. Canonical has its reasons for reinventing this wheel -- somewhere -- and nothing will change until those reasons go away. - Evan