Ask HN: Is snapd still controvertial on Ubuntu?

2 points·mariocesar··7 comments

I've been on Debian and sometimes Arch for years and wanted to try Ubuntu Desktop again. What surprised me is how often Snap shows up as the "Recommended" install way in their docs and others software "Install in Ubuntu" is mostly with Snap.

If you're using Ubuntu for Desktop today: how is Snap in practice? Any real pain points or is it basically fine now?

It's worthy?

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Snaps were the final straw that pushed me from Ubuntu to Debian.

From a ~/snap directory that can't be hidden by design (and the developers are rather vocal about that) to the snap experience of every application seeing their own version of the file system, no thank you. It's not for me. Debian is a delight after Ubuntu.

(Ubuntu @job, clean Debian @home, just my exp, YMMV)

- Sometimes its still slow compared to just apt installing something.

- Sometimes it still does not honor configs from the base system, like theming and fonts.

- I REALLY do not appreciate how it craps all over my lsblk.

I've never been a Linux tinkerer and it seems just fine to me. Not everything is available that way, but apt seems to fill the gaps.

I can’t say I’ve installed a huge number of snaps but when I have they worked

> I can’t say I’ve installed a huge number of snaps but when I have they worked

Thanks. Any apps you avoided installing as snaps?

No, but my use of GUI apps on Linux is limited.

I despise snap. Primarily because it mounts a new volume for every package.

I tore it out a couple times. I’m switching to another distro entirely. In part because the last time I tried to remove it I either didn’t remember how or the old way doesn’t work anymore.

I would recommend choosing a distro that doesn’t use it.

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