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Comment by bogwog | Hacker News Reader

A better way to improve performance would be to switch to Flatpak.

I used to be indifferent to the whole flatpak vs snap situation, since IMO either one is better than the traditional method of using the system package manager for everything. But now that I've had Firefox snap forced upon me by my distro, I've strongly switched over to the Flatpak camp. Snaps do literally everything worse than Flatpaks, offer a worse user experience, and they use a closed-source server for the backend.

I've been a loyal Ubuntu user for over a decade, but this Snap thing is making me seriously consider jumping ship to another distro.

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I moved from Ubuntu to Mint mainly because of Snap. I couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't be happier.

I have Mint (you mean Ubuntu Mint?). Firefox is in a snap.

He means Linux Mint [0], a fork of Ubuntu with a fork of Gnome and snaps disabled by default. Is there even an Ubuntu Mint? You are probably confusing it with another name.

[0]: https://linuxmint.com/

There is no such thing as Ubuntu mint.

And while linux mint derived from Ubuntu, the snap service is disabled by default while iirc system utilities (like the software manager) are provided as flatpaks.

Careful saying there is no such thing, this is Linux, somebody will up and make it out of spite.

I mean, there is a Hannah Montana Linux

They're making the distinction because there are two Linux Mints, LMDE Which is based on Debian, and the Ubuntu variant, which is just called Linux Mint. It is not officially called Ubuntu Mint, I believe that was a colloquialism.

Ubuntu is so annoying nowadays I really don't understand who's it for anymore.

If you want a stable and non-bloated Ubtuntu or Debian based distro for your web server/cloud instance, there are many better choices out there than Ubuntu including vanilla Debian.

If you want a batteries-included Ubtuntu-based Windows/MacOS alternative for your PC/laptop with video codecs, proprietary firmware, drivers, and software at your finger tips, then PopOS, ElementaryOS and Mint are much better and saner alternatives for the Average Joe.

Feels like the only thing keeping Ubuntu popular is inertia, brand recognition, lock-in effect and the strong influence of Cannonical, but I just can't recommend it to anyone anymore. It seems like Cannonical is so out of touch, it lost the plot a long time ago with what made Ubuntu the linux distro for over a decade.

> I really don't understand who's it for.

It is, sadly, for everyone. Writing Github actions workflow? That's on Ubuntu (and you'll need to use Ubuntu for self-hosted runners for more success). Aiming to install a random package binary for a random project you've found? That's probably for Ubuntu. Need any enterprise/MDM stuff? That's probably Ubuntu.

We need people to start offering (or demanding) alternatives to Ubuntu before we can reasonably move off of it.

Why are those thing Ubuntu-exclueive and don't also work on Ubuntu derivatives like Pop_OS or Mint? Isn't that the whole point of Linux?

None of those things are Ubuntu exclusive. Not sure where he got that information.

Pop!_OS for the same reason. Also, I'm tired of how everyone seems to constantly re-invent the desktop.

Pop was such a breath of fresh air when I tried it. They are doing amazing things there, in so many ways.

Breath of fresh air is the phrase I'd use too. I didn't even realize that they were a hardware company, but after using the OS, I'd seriously consider buying their gear when the time comes for a refresh.

For what it's worth, even if you don't buy their hardware (I don't have any either, although I'm looking hungrily at their desktops and keyboards), it looks like System76 offers an option for directly supporting Pop!_OS through their site, like you might for other open source projects through GitHub Sponsors, Liberapay, etc.

What did you like, specifically?

Probably the single biggest thing was how their was nothing extra or (imho) weird.

It felt like Android on the Pixel compared to the heavily modified and bundled versions everyone else shipped.

Same. Snap killed Ubuntu for me. I don't normally care that much about change, I just roll with them. I got used to Unity and ended up liking it.

Snap would take my machine a minute to launch the calculator app back in 18.04 I think. And I really can't live with apps auto updating whenever the developer releases a new version. Lack of control over updates was what drove me from Windows in the first place.

I use Ubuntu and always uninstall snap. It's not needed at all. I will switch distros next time I need to reinstall though, probably to Fedora Silverblue.

Both are non-sufficient “solutions” to the problem at hand. Nix is the first program that actually solves dependency handling, sandboxing is completely orthogonal. A tool should focus on only one of those in my opinion.

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