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Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

The main reason why I use Linux for some of my work is reproducibility. A docker image with the same apt packages installed in it will work the same every time.

Snap breaks this. A snap package can update itself whenever it wants and then you the user are just screwed when things don't work together anymore. So in effect, snap breaks the main benefit of Linux for deployment and the reason why I use Linux in the first place.

Every since they started with ads and affiliate links, I've been sceptical of Ubuntu. But Ubuntu 18 is still used as the base image for many docker deployments. I predict that this will change with Ubuntu 20, exactly because the snaps have made Ubuntu 20 unusable for reliable docker deployments.

I'm glad that mint is stepping in to provide a viable alternative.

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Honestly for everything but desktop non dev usage linux containers (e.g. docker) do all the thinks you need and potentially better.

Dev Ides and similar are done just fine by normal package managers as they tend to find enough voluntary work and dev tend to not like thinks like auto updates and similar for them as long as they do get updated.

Only for 3rd party non developer tools does it make sense like office tooling, music apps and similar. Ironically not necessarily for many games.

But for this we have alternatives, like flatpack which seems to be less prone to business bias due to being fully open source with a clear statement against any form of vendor lock-in. Its endorsed by Read Hat, adopted by Clear Linux and the last time I looked at it I remember that I preferred the way they did it over snaps. Also it's not a "Ubuntu thing" but a "for all distributions Linux thing" and seems to be slowly become the standard for "packed/distro decoupled" apps...

Also just to become clear I could imagine that at some point Flathub will have some commercialization, but even if it does so and fails it wouldn't kill flatpack (while the Ubuntu app store not being much trustable kinda partially killed snap for desktop users).

I agree in principle, but it's worth pointing out that Snap is designed for end-user applications, so it's unlikely to be used on a server or in a Docker image built for deployment.

I agree in general, but my work involves website automaton, meaning the now empty chromium package.

Plus I want my workstation to be as similar as possible to the deployment container to make debugging easier. So if I feel uncomfortable using Ubuntu 20 for my workstation, I should probably switch my deployment docker base image, too.

Makes sense, I personally don't mind snaps for proprietary applications (mostly Slack and Spotify) which are otherwise hard to discover and keep up to date on Linux, but I don't understand why Canonical would force this for Chromium which is already packaged and open source.

Have a look at LXD. It creates system containers that are based on runtimes of most Linux distributions. You can stick to specific versions and are certain that those do not change.

Ironically, LXD is a snap package in Ubuntu[0]

[0] https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/lxd

> but it's worth pointing out that Snap is designed for end-user applications

They started building it for IoT, whereas Flatpaks were designed for the desktop from beginning.

There are keys to control when these snap updates will happen, https://snapcraft.io/docs/keeping-snaps-up-to-date

It is immutable systems that help you with reproducibility.

There is no actual change between the snapd setup in Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04. Where do you get info on unreliable docker deployments?

It looks to me that the dislike is emotional in nature.

I use chromium and firefox inside the docker with selenium to automate website tests. So them replacing the chrome apt with snap was exactly what broke my deployment.

Selenium has standalone images with the browser so that you can use them with Docker.

It is too fragile to install yourself all the pieces.

I'm actually quite happy with my Ubuntu 18 based homemade docker image. And lucky for me, 18 still has some years of support ahead of it.

It's just that I know that I cannot update it to Ubuntu 20 without snap breaking things for me.

If you ever want to switch, the image is `selenium/standalone-chrome`.

Thanks for the hint :)

Can I stop one snap from updating (for example indefinitely), while letting the rest update?

What I miss most is the ability to pin a version. For example, not every Firefox plugin is compatible with every Firefox update. Especially not if you have custom-developed plug-ins using private APIs.

I could not find a key for that, that is, per-package keys.

A dirty workaround would be to get the `.snap` package from the store, then install directly from the local file.

       $ snap download hello-world
       Fetching snap "hello-world"
       Fetching assertions for "hello-world"
       Install the snap with:
          snap ack hello-world_29.assert
          snap install hello-world_29.snap
       $ snap install hello-world_29.snap --dangerous
       hello-world 6.4 installed
       $ hello-world
       Hello World!
       $

No updates.

From the linked documentation:

> There are four system-wide options that manage how updates are handed:

> - refresh.timer: defines the refresh frequency and schedule

> - refresh.hold: delays the next refresh until the defined time and date

> - refresh.metered: pauses refresh updates when network connection is metered

> - refresh.retain: sets how many revisions of a snap are stored on the system"

I think people would be much happier with snap if there was a `refresh.off` option.

If that's too over-the-line for Canonical, a `refresh.prompt` with a dismissible nag-message would be better.

>There are keys to control when these snap updates will happen

There is no option to permanently disable auto-updates which is the problem being discussed.

If I install a docker image with version A and it auto-updates tomorrow to version B then the docker container is no longer reproducible.

> It looks to me that the dislike is emotional in nature.

But people seem to like flatpaks, so I don't think it's emotional. More a poor implementation.

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