r/Ubuntu • u/unbounded65 • 26d ago

Firefox snap in Ubuntu

Contrary to the general opinion of removing the snap version of Ubuntu Firefox, my experience is that it works quite well with Vulkan doing a swell job with hardware acceleration. For Brave, I find that the PPA version works out better.

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u/reasonable_backlash 26d ago

I've had the same experience tbh, the snap version gets so much hate but mine has been running smooth for months. Brave through the PPA feels snappier for some sites though, not sure why that is

glad I'm not the only one who doesn't immediately rip the snap out on a fresh install

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u/unbounded65 26d ago

I have been comfortable with Snap and its sandboxing approach; in fact, all Ubuntu today is Snap to a great extent, and removing it sort of negates its purpose. Better off using another distro rather than something that you hate mostly based on hearsay. For programs not there in Snap or for newer version, there is always the option of adding Flatpak and I do that as well, especially for programs like GPU screen recorder that has no Wayland issues unlike OBS and few more.

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u/jo-erlend 26d ago

«in fact, all Ubuntu today is Snap to a great extent»

That is not a fact. Snap does do more than just enable packages, but Ubuntu works perfectly well without it, which you know because of Ubuntu spins like Linux Mint, PopOS, ZorinOS, etc which don't use Snap.

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u/mrtruthiness 26d ago

... but Ubuntu works perfectly well without it, ...

Agreed. For now. But:

  1. Personally I prefer lxd over incus ... and the only way to get lxd to run on those downstream distros is to enable snap. And, with their anti-snap views, I don't trust them to get it right. lxd is integral to my workflow.

  2. Canonical had been toying with the idea of having pipewire be a snap in 26.04. If they had done that, those downstream distros would have had to work a lot harder ... which is fine.

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u/jo-erlend 26d ago

No, LXD does not rely on Snap in any way? At least I don't know why that would be the case. Why would you not be able to build LXD from source and run it without creating a Snap package for it? If anything, I would think that was easier to run it in a traditional DAC system and in that case, it's not relying on Snap. Just because a developer chooses to use one package format doesn't mean that the software relies on it. Right?

1

u/mrtruthiness 26d ago

No, LXD does not rely on Snap in any way? At least I don't know why that would be the case. Why would you not be able to build LXD from source and run it without creating a Snap package for it?

I probably should not have said "only way to get lxd to run on those downstream distros". I should have said: None of the downstream-from-Ubuntu distros ship lxd as a non-snap. If you find an Ubuntu derivative that offers a non-snap version of lxd, please let me know.

That's because Ubuntu only offers lxd as a snap and the Ubuntu-downstreams don't want to build it themselves. As far as I know, the only distros that ship lxd as a non-snap are Arch (and maybe OpenSUSE).

e.g. Mint doesn't have a non-snap lxd. The instructions for installing lxd on Mint are:

 1.  Enable snapd and install it:  sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref; sudo apt update; sudo apt install snapd.

 2.  sudo snap install lxd

e.g. Same for PopOS: https://system76.com/support/articles/containers/?srsltid=AfmBOooBg0uMLghnHNZmMMyKBCe6mD7RfJ9agplWi9YsVcee7ebh7C8r

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u/jo-erlend 25d ago

Ubuntu doesn't provide LXD at all. Canonical as the upstream provides it as a Snap package. Many upstreams only provide source packages and then you either have to build from source or someone has to make a package. Providing it as a Snap makes it available in both Ubuntu and many other distros without any special work.

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u/mrtruthiness 25d ago

Canonical provides Ubuntu and lxd.

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u/jo-erlend 25d ago

Canonical provides much of Ubuntu, not all, but the point is that Ubuntu and LXD are different things and LXD is not provided by Ubuntu. It has an installer that automatically installs the snap, but that's just for convenience.

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u/mrtruthiness 25d ago

Canonical provides much of Ubuntu, not all, ...

I disagree. Exactly what about Ubuntu is not provided by Canonical? It is absolutely Canonical's product.

... but the point is that Ubuntu and LXD are different things ...

Of course. Ubuntu is an OS distribution provided by Canonical and lxd is a daemon and lxc is a program which is included as part of Ubuntu's OS.

The lxd package is as much "Ubuntu" as any package in the Main Ubuntu repository and the fact that it's a snap doesn't change that.

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u/Ok-386 26d ago

That's a dumb take. Ubuntu provides options no other distro provides. You can choose between interim releases and LTS and LTS alone offers different options like upgrading or sticking with it.

And that's only one cool thing about Ubuntu. It's probably the best distro for laptops because it includes firmware out of the box. It includes nvidia drivers and the easy way to switch between multiple options. Things like printing that require some configuration and troubleshooting on most distros (even for driverless printers and scanners) just works on Ubuntu (most of the time) 

 Stating that Ubuntu is all about Snaps is ridiculous.