Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the
beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was
vertical on the left side. I found out the panel could be moved to the
bottom using MX Tweak.


Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
/var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/03/2022 14:41, Ray Hughes wrote:

Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

When 20.04 came out snapd was automaticalli installed.
It first came to my attention when my backup started overflowing the DVD I used.
Solution: get rid of snap. This was more than a year ago, and I have been running (and updating) snap-free since with no
noticeable ill effects. Apt / apt-get still work.

I recommend having a look at: https://cialu.net/how-to-disable-and-remove-completely-snaps-in-ubuntu-linux/ though I'm sure you could find equivalent advice elsewhere.

Or move to a snap-free distro (too much like work for me as it took ma a couple of months to get to where I like to be...)

Note: for 20.04 the only installation that requires snap, so far, is Chromium. There is a workaround using Debian
repositries (Google is your friend)

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Henry Crun <mike@rechtman.com> writes:

On 06/03/2022 14:41, Ray Hughes wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped some>>

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

When 20.04 came out snapd was automaticalli installed.
It first came to my attention when my backup started overflowing the DVD I used.
Solution: get rid of snap. This was more than a year ago, and I have
been running (and updating) snap-free since with no noticeable ill
effects. Apt / apt-get still work.

I recommend having a look at: https://cialu.net/how-to-disable-and-remove-completely-snaps-in-ubuntu-linux/ though I'm sure you could find equivalent advice elsewhere.

Or move to a snap-free distro (too much like work for me as it took ma
a couple of months to get to where I like to be...)

Note: for 20.04 the only installation that requires snap, so far, is Chromium. There is a workaround using Debian repositries (Google is
your friend)

Thanks Mike that cialu.net is a great place to start.
I got worried once the software centre became the snap-store, and even
my old fav synaptic has got snaps. ANyway I need to read more on the
snap subject.

RayH

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> writes:

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped>>

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was vertical on the left side. I found out the panel could be moved to the bottom using MX Tweak.

Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
/var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

Thanks Johnny thats an interesting read. I got to read a lot more before
I take any action.

RayH

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Ray Hughes wrote:

I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

Personally I don't like snaps either. I was very pleased that my
Ubuntu-based distro Mint is 'anti-snap' and doesn't follow Ub's lead on
that issue.

However, Mint likes the Cinnamon DE as its primary fork from the Gnome
shell. If you are a gnome fan, you won't find a gnome DE in any Mint.

Probably the best way to stay w/ what you like about Ub and Gnome is to
simply get rid of Snaps and use the 'snapless' Synaptic as your package manager.

Or, if you haven't checked out Cinnamon lately, you might just give the
default Mint a spin. Or, its Mate DE which is somewhat like Gnome 2 if
you liked that one, which I did. It was the Gnome3 shell which left me.

--
Mike Easter

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/6/2022 10:38 AM, Ray Hughes wrote:

Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> writes:

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped>>

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was
vertical on the left side. I found out the panel could be moved to the
bottom using MX Tweak.


Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
/var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

Thanks Johnny thats an interesting read. I got to read a lot more before
I take any action.

RayH

One thing that concerns me about Canonical, is seeing this.

Judging by the looks of it, once they started seeing web articles
with the words "snap... purge", they used the ole "bomb squad" approach
to the problem. It looks to me like they have wired the entire desktop environment (DE) to the snapd system. That's how I interpret the
"snap list" I'm seeing.

It implies if you purge snap, you just might end up with a text terminal
and that's it. No problem, just have another DE lined up to take its
place, I guess.

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ snap list

Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
bare 1.0 5 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core18 20211215 2284 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core20 20220215 1361 latest/stable canonical✓ base
gnome-3-34-1804 0+git.3556cb3 77 latest/stable/… canonical✓ - <=== !!!
gnome-3-38-2004 0+git.1f9014a 99 latest/stable canonical✓ - <=== !!!
gnome-calculator 41.1-4-g5c9869a58c 920 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-characters 41.0+git1.8877a99 741 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-logs 3.36.0 106 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-system-monitor 41.0-5-g91e67f7982 174 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gtk-common-themes 0.1-59-g7bca6ae 1519 latest/stable/… canonical✓ - <=== !!!
snap-store 3.38.0-66-gbd5b8f7 558 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.54.3 14978 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"

*******

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Mike Easter wrote:

Ray Hughes wrote:

I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

Personally I don't like snaps either.  I was very pleased that my Ubuntu-based distro Mint is 'anti-snap' and doesn't follow Ub's lead on
that issue.

Another Ub-based snapless distro is Pop OS. Its approach to the DE is
to 'heavily modify' Gnome 40 (now, previously gnome 38). Some people
are very pleased w/ what Pop is doing w/ gnome. Whatever they do w/
gnome is OK w/ me as I am not a gnome fan.

They are calling their DE Cosmic and the plan is to break further from
Gnome Shell.

--
Mike Easter

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/03/2022 12:41, Ray Hughes wrote:

Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I have used a few snaps in Linux Mint ; no problems encountered.

Frank in County Wicklow -Ireland

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/6/22 04:41, Ray Hughes wrote:

Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

Well a good way out is PCLinuxOS 64. It uses synaptic and rpms.
It is a rolling release so you need to run synaptic more often. It has
a free Registration at the Forum at
<https://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php> and you can get a copy i you
follow the links atL:<http://www.pclinuxos.com/>
It has KDE in two versions, Mate, and XFCE in the official releases and in the Community Releases Trinity, and OpenBox and other
Desktop Evironments. If you love Gnome 40 you will be out of luck though.

bliss - brought to you by the power and ease of PCLinuxOS
and a minor case of hypergraphia

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 06/03/2022 18:18, Paul wrote:

On 3/6/2022 10:38 AM, Ray Hughes wrote:

Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> writes:

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped>>

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on >>>> other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was
vertical on the left side.  I found out the panel could be moved to the >>> bottom using MX Tweak.


Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

     snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
     snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
     /var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

Thanks Johnny thats an interesting read. I got to read a lot more before
I take any action.

RayH

One thing that concerns me about Canonical, is seeing this.

Judging by the looks of it, once they started seeing web articles
with the words "snap... purge", they used the ole "bomb squad" approach
to the problem. It looks to me like they have wired the entire desktop environment (DE) to the snapd system. That's how I interpret the
"snap list" I'm seeing.

It implies if you purge snap, you just might end up with a text terminal
and that's it. No problem, just have another DE lined up to take its
place, I guess.

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ snap list

Name                  Version             Rev    Tracking         Publisher   Notes
bare                  1.0                 5      latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core18                20211215            2284   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core20                20220215            1361   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
gnome-3-34-1804       0+git.3556cb3       77     latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-3-38-2004       0+git.1f9014a       99     latest/stable    canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-calculator      41.1-4-g5c9869a58c  920    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-characters      41.0+git1.8877a99   741    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-logs            3.36.0              106    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-system-monitor  41.0-5-g91e67f7982  174    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gtk-common-themes     0.1-59-g7bca6ae     1519   latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
snap-store            3.38.0-66-gbd5b8f7  558    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
snapd                 2.54.3              14978  latest/stable    canonical✓  snapd

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"

*******

   Paul

Running 20.04.4 snapless, everyting on your list is available using apt, or preferably, synaptic.
(I don't recall actually having to install any of the gnome-* stuff, but it is in there somehow)

mike@alpha:~$ snap list

Command 'snap' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install snapd


mike@alpha:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"
mike@alpha:~$

mike@alpha:~$ sudo apt list gnome
[sudo] password for mike:
Listing... Done
gnome/focal 1:3.30+2 amd64


--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/6/2022 11:03 PM, Henry Crun wrote:

On 06/03/2022 18:18, Paul wrote:

On 3/6/2022 10:38 AM, Ray Hughes wrote:

Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> writes:

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped>>

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but >>>>> without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on >>>>> other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your >>>>> thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was
vertical on the left side.  I found out the panel could be moved to the >>>> bottom using MX Tweak.


Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

     snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
     snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
     /var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

Thanks Johnny thats an interesting read. I got to read a lot more before >>> I take any action.

RayH

One thing that concerns me about Canonical, is seeing this.

Judging by the looks of it, once they started seeing web articles
with the words "snap... purge", they used the ole "bomb squad" approach
to the problem. It looks to me like they have wired the entire desktop
environment (DE) to the snapd system. That's how I interpret the
"snap list" I'm seeing.

It implies if you purge snap, you just might end up with a text terminal
and that's it. No problem, just have another DE lined up to take its
place, I guess.

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ snap list

Name                  Version             Rev    Tracking         Publisher   Notes
bare                  1.0                 5      latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core18                20211215            2284   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core20                20220215            1361   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
gnome-3-34-1804       0+git.3556cb3       77     latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-3-38-2004       0+git.1f9014a       99     latest/stable    canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-calculator      41.1-4-g5c9869a58c  920    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-characters      41.0+git1.8877a99   741    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-logs            3.36.0              106    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-system-monitor  41.0-5-g91e67f7982  174    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gtk-common-themes     0.1-59-g7bca6ae     1519   latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
snap-store            3.38.0-66-gbd5b8f7  558    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
snapd                 2.54.3              14978  latest/stable    canonical✓  snapd

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"

*******

    Paul

Running 20.04.4 snapless, everyting on your list is available using apt, or preferably, synaptic.
(I don't recall actually having to install any of the gnome-* stuff, but it is in there somehow)

mike@alpha:~$ snap list

Command 'snap' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install snapd

mike@alpha:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"
mike@alpha:~$

mike@alpha:~$ sudo apt list gnome
[sudo] password for mike:
Listing... Done
gnome/focal 1:3.30+2 amd64

OK, I agree, I seem to have both.

apt list gnome

gnome/focal 1:3.30+2 amd64 <=== but Synaptic shows it is not installed

and then

snap list

Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
gnome-3-34-1804 0+git.3556cb3 77 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-3-38-2004 0+git.1f9014a 99 latest/stable canonical✓ -

If I were to purge Snapd, how does the system know to install gnome metapackage (.deb) ?

My historical experience is, the user fixes whatever they break, and so
I'd be expected to do a

sudo apt install gnome

at my earliest convenience.

Back when the notion of purging stuff was invented, there wasn't
a gnome wedged into the snap list.

Paul

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On 07/03/2022 9:15, Paul wrote:

On 3/6/2022 11:03 PM, Henry Crun wrote:

On 06/03/2022 18:18, Paul wrote:

On 3/6/2022 10:38 AM, Ray Hughes wrote:

Johnny <johnny@invalid.net> writes:

On Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:41:29 +0000
Ray Hughes
<rhughes@rays-dell.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>
wrote:

Hi all

<<snipped>>

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being
snapped up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but >>>>>> without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on >>>>>> other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging >>>>>> apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your >>>>>> thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I used Linux Mint for years, but have switched to MX Linux, and I'm
very happy with it.

The only thing I didn't like with the default setup was the panel was >>>>> vertical on the left side.  I found out the panel could be moved to the >>>>> bottom using MX Tweak.


Snap packages and MX Linux

Running snap packages (snaps) is problematic on our default MX setup because of a couple of factors.

     snapd (the snaps backend) requires systemd and we use sysVinit by default
     snapd confinement doesn’t like the symlink we use to link /tmp to
     /var/tmp.

Continued:
https://mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/snap-packages-and-mx-linux/

Thanks Johnny thats an interesting read. I got to read a lot more before >>>> I take any action.

RayH

One thing that concerns me about Canonical, is seeing this.

Judging by the looks of it, once they started seeing web articles
with the words "snap... purge", they used the ole "bomb squad" approach
to the problem. It looks to me like they have wired the entire desktop
environment (DE) to the snapd system. That's how I interpret the
"snap list" I'm seeing.

It implies if you purge snap, you just might end up with a text terminal >>> and that's it. No problem, just have another DE lined up to take its
place, I guess.

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ snap list

Name                  Version             Rev    Tracking         Publisher   Notes
bare                  1.0                 5      latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core18                20211215            2284   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
core20                20220215            1361   latest/stable    canonical✓  base
gnome-3-34-1804       0+git.3556cb3       77     latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-3-38-2004       0+git.1f9014a       99     latest/stable    canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
gnome-calculator      41.1-4-g5c9869a58c  920    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-characters      41.0+git1.8877a99   741    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-logs            3.36.0              106    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gnome-system-monitor  41.0-5-g91e67f7982  174    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
gtk-common-themes     0.1-59-g7bca6ae     1519   latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -       <=== !!!
snap-store            3.38.0-66-gbd5b8f7  558    latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
snapd                 2.54.3              14978  latest/stable    canonical✓  snapd

bullwinkle@TUNAFISH:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"

*******

    Paul

Running 20.04.4 snapless, everyting on your list is available using apt, or preferably, synaptic.
(I don't recall actually having to install any of the gnome-* stuff, but it is in there somehow)

mike@alpha:~$ snap list

Command 'snap' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install snapd


mike@alpha:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=focal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS"
mike@alpha:~$

mike@alpha:~$ sudo apt list gnome
[sudo] password for mike:
Listing... Done
gnome/focal 1:3.30+2 amd64

OK, I agree, I seem to have both.

   apt list gnome

   gnome/focal 1:3.30+2 amd64     <=== but Synaptic shows it is not installed

and then

   snap list

   Name                  Version             Rev    Tracking         Publisher   Notes
   gnome-3-34-1804       0+git.3556cb3       77     latest/stable/…  canonical✓  -
   gnome-3-38-2004       0+git.1f9014a       99     latest/stable    canonical✓  -

If I were to purge Snapd, how does the system know to install gnome metapackage (.deb) ?

My historical experience is, the user fixes whatever they break, and so
I'd be expected to do a

   sudo apt install gnome

at my earliest convenience.

Back when the notion of purging stuff was invented, there wasn't
a gnome wedged into the snap list.

   Paul

I believe in looking things up (he says, ending a sentence with a preposition) start with https://askubuntu.com/questions/67764/how-to-remove-and-reinstall-gnome-3
... and I'm sure there is plenty more
--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

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On 3/7/2022 6:28 AM, Henry Crun wrote:

I believe in looking things up (he says, ending a sentence with a preposition)
start with https://askubuntu.com/questions/67764/how-to-remove-and-reinstall-gnome-3
... and I'm sure there is plenty more

Well, as Admiral Ackbar would say "It's a trap".
It has that smell about it, of "purge my stuff, suffer the consequences".
Sure, you can clean up anything, given enough time, donuts and coffee.

At least with Synaptic, if you make a "bad life choice", the tool
lists what packages it plans to remove as revenge. So at least you
get a chance to say "whoa, I didn't mean to do that". I don't know
if any plan to purge Snapd would warn you in quite the same way.

Paul

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Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> writes:

On 3/7/2022 6:28 AM, Henry Crun wrote:

I believe in looking things up (he says, ending a sentence with a preposition)
start with
https://askubuntu.com/questions/67764/how-to-remove-and-reinstall-gnome-3
... and I'm sure there is plenty more

Well, as Admiral Ackbar would say "It's a trap".
It has that smell about it, of "purge my stuff, suffer the consequences". Sure, you can clean up anything, given enough time, donuts and coffee.

At least with Synaptic, if you make a "bad life choice", the tool
lists what packages it plans to remove as revenge. So at least you
get a chance to say "whoa, I didn't mean to do that". I don't know
if any plan to purge Snapd would warn you in quite the same way.

Paul

What mainly worries me is that the Ubuntu software centre
is now called the snap-store.

Also you need to watch synaptic (my fav install tool) it contains
snaps and will give you the snap version by default.

I have also occasionally got a snap from sudo apt install XXXX.

I hope there will be a fork soon a straight ubuntu 20.04.4
totally snapless would suit me fine.

I have been through the KDE wars and the Gnome2 Unity wars
and the Unity to Gnome3 war. I am NOT going through the
Snap war. I would rather go back to debian for stability and loose
some mondernity.

Regards RayH

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On 07/03/2022 14:39, Paul wrote:

On 3/7/2022 6:28 AM, Henry Crun wrote:

I believe in looking things up (he says, ending a sentence with a preposition)
start with
https://askubuntu.com/questions/67764/how-to-remove-and-reinstall-gnome-3
... and I'm sure there is plenty more

Well, as Admiral Ackbar would say "It's a trap".
It has that smell about it, of "purge my stuff, suffer the consequences". Sure, you can clean up anything, given enough time, donuts and coffee.

At least with Synaptic, if you make a "bad life choice", the tool
lists what packages it plans to remove as revenge. So at least you
get a chance to say "whoa, I didn't mean to do that". I don't know
if any plan to purge Snapd would warn you in quite the same way.

   Paul

so "try it out on the dog"
Do you have a spare disk? Clone your boot/system disk (skip the partitions with games, pictures, whatever)
Boot from it and remove snap. If anything bad or even suspicious happens, you've lost nothing except some time, and
gained a useful caution.

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Thanks Mike I shall def. have a look at Pop.

DE's and their changes are just wearisome as I spend most of my
time in Emacs anyway. :)

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Raymond Hughes wrote:

Thanks Mike I shall def. have a look at Pop.

DE's and their changes are just wearisome as I spend most of my
time in Emacs anyway. :)

Is this the part where we fan the flames of the vim / emacs holy war
again? :)


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|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: DDAB 23FB 19FA 7D85 1CC1 E067 6D65 70E5 4CE7 2860

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:) Dan

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On 03/06/2022 11:15 PM, Paul wrote:

snap list

Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
gnome-3-34-1804 0+git.3556cb3 77 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-3-38-2004 0+git.1f9014a 99 latest/stable canonical✓ -

If I were to purge Snapd, how does the system know to install gnome metapackage (.deb) ?

Just an FYI. I just got a nice little used PC (to use as a media server,
music and video) and installed 20.04 (desktop). I allowed all the
defaults, no tinkering.

On first login, I purged all the snap stuff including the snap gnome
stuff, then deleted snapd as well. Seems to be fine. Desktop and all
core apps seem fine. I haven't noticed anything that's borked.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 11/03/2022 19:36, dillinger wrote:

On 3/7/22 13:39, Paul wrote:

On 3/7/2022 6:28 AM, Henry Crun wrote:

I believe in looking things up (he says, ending a sentence with a preposition)
start with
https://askubuntu.com/questions/67764/how-to-remove-and-reinstall-gnome-3 >>> ... and I'm sure there is plenty more

Well, as Admiral Ackbar would say "It's a trap".
It has that smell about it, of "purge my stuff, suffer the consequences".
Sure, you can clean up anything, given enough time, donuts and coffee.

At least with Synaptic, if you make a "bad life choice", the tool
lists what packages it plans to remove as revenge. So at least you
get a chance to say "whoa, I didn't mean to do that". I don't know
if any plan to purge Snapd would warn you in quite the same way.

    Paul

I have removed snap (and flatpak) from KDE neon (which runs on Ubuntu 20.04) some time ago, I haven't encountered any
problems.

From my .bash_history, a bit redacted from 2 computers:

snap list
sudo snap remove gtk-common-themes
sudo snap remove gtk2-common-themes
sudo snap remove gnome-3-28-1804
sudo snap remove gnome-3-34-1804
sudo snap remove gnome-3-38-2004
sudo snap remove bare
sudo snap remove core18
sudo snap remove snap-store
sudo snap remove core18
sudo snap remove core20
sudo snap remove core
snap list
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd
sudo apt purge snapd
sudo apt autoremove
rm-rf ~/snap

Your versions will differ now, IIRC some snaps can not be deleted unless others are deleted first, due to dependencies,
I suppose.

Trying to (re-)install the Gnome meta package in Synaptic should work, it also selects snap as a dependency.

Try creating a file: /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref
like this (without <text> </text> lables):
<text>
# To prevent repository packages from triggering the installation of Snap,
# this file forbids snapd from being installed by APT.
# For more information: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html
Package: snapd
Pin: release a=*
Pin-Priority: -10# To prevent repository packages from triggering the installation of Snap,
#
</text>
--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

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On 06.03.22 13:41, Ray Hughes wrote:

Hi all

I have tried most distros over the years been a Linux user since the beginning. Before Linus started I was using Mark Williams Coherent in
the late 80s. I think int came on 13 or 14 floppies.

Later I was tempted to the dark side and bought a copy of Red Hat 6
pack which included a full set of printed manual. I bought lots of
magazines Lo' DVD cover disks. I was then a serious distro hopper
but Hardy Heron on Ubuntu stopped all that.

Apart from the occasional check on the "Opposition" I have been with
Ubuntu since. Through all the pains of Unity and wayland and KDE woes
I made it to 20.04.4 LTS

Now its SNAPs arggggggggggggg I hat them.

Slow
Nasty
Achingly slow
Packages

Slowly over the l ast couple of years every program/app is being snapped
up!

The software centre has become the snap-store.

OK to the point I want a system as similar as possible to Ubuntu but
without snaps.

Yes, I understand why developers like them, they can get there apps on
other OS's and CPU architecture pretty rapidly.

I know some other distros are also using snaps or similar packaging
apps.

Surely one of Linux strengths was the shared library concept.

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

RayH (The other one)

I tried flatpak, but I suggest first reading this:

The current solutions involve packaging entire alternate runtimes in containerized environments. Flatpak, Snap, AppImage, Docker, and Steam:
these all provide an app packaging mechanism that replaces most or all
of the system’s runtime libraries, and they now all use containerization
to accomplish this.

Flatpak calls itself “the future of application distribution”. I am not
a fan. I’m going to outline here some of the technical, security and usability problems with Flatpak and others. I’ll try to avoid addressing “fixable” problems (like theming) and instead focus on fundamental
problems inherent in their design. I aim to convince you that these are
not the future of desktop Linux apps.
Size

Suppose you want to make a simple calculator app. How big should the
download be?

At the time of this writing, the latest KCalc AppImage (if you can even
figure out how to download it) is 152 MB. For a calculator.

https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future

Flatpak creates at Ubuntu a frankenstein OS that is actually installing
a lot of Redhat on top of Ubuntu. But it is very fast though, but
probably because everything is just kept in memory.

Flatpak actually should be called FATpak because it is really obese
after installing.

(No insult to obese people meant, my apologies)

Of snaps I can only say, it is exceptional slow even on high end
systems, and it gets slower and slower over time. It does not follow
Window Decoration, it requires to pull files towards your home folder to
access them e.g.

But snap, it keeps coming back. Some say snaps are slow because of the compression files that are mounted on the fly. And Canonical is nowadays experimenting with no compression options.

But Flatpak while very fast and having actual access to everything has
other side effects. It installs many core libraries on top of Ubuntu e.g.

Side effects is for example Flatpak has its own Network stack.

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vaem wrote:

The current solutions involve packaging entire alternate runtimes in
containerized environments. Flatpak, Snap, AppImage, Docker, and
Steam: these all provide an app packaging mechanism that replaces
most or all of the system’s runtime libraries, and they now all use containerization to accomplish this.

Many of us prefer conventional packaging customized for our particular
version of a particular distro. Naturally 'we' (tinw) understand what a
burden this preference puts on all of those app dev/s who don't want to
be the ones who have to provide all of those myriad packages of their
app/s. That is 'understandable' -- but that doesn't mean we like the
features of the 'solutions'.

For those who want to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of
those various, now becoming 'numerous' alternate schemes, EasyOS has
another.

The container mechanism is named Easy Containers, and is designed
from scratch (Docker, LXC, etc are not used). Easy Containers are
extremely efficient, with almost no overhead -- the base size of each container is only several KB.

--
Mike Easter

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Am Sonntag, 06. März 2022, um 12:41:29 Uhr schrieb Ray Hughes:

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

I still use Ubuntu 21.10, but I don't use snap. I don't use Firefox or Chromium. I use Pale Moon and Claws Mail. PM needs its own apt repo.
I will stop using Ubuntu when they force users to use snap. I also run
Debian 11 on my Pentium M and Athlon XP machines. I may switch the
other machines to Debian if necessary.

Why I don't like snap: I takes much more space that normal deb packages. squashfs filesystems are being mounted during the boot process and
increase the boot time (I use IDE disks on some computers). I don't
like that.

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On 05/04/2022 8:58, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Sonntag, 06. März 2022, um 12:41:29 Uhr schrieb Ray Hughes:

I know there is much expertise in this group I am interested in your
thoughts. I dont want to stay with Snappy buntu.

I still use Ubuntu 21.10, but I don't use snap. I don't use Firefox or Chromium. I use Pale Moon and Claws Mail. PM needs its own apt repo.
I will stop using Ubuntu when they force users to use snap. I also run
Debian 11 on my Pentium M and Athlon XP machines. I may switch the
other machines to Debian if necessary.

Why I don't like snap: I takes much more space that normal deb packages. squashfs filesystems are being mounted during the boot process and
increase the boot time (I use IDE disks on some computers). I don't
like that.

+1

And adds complication to backup, disk space usage, fs tree and probably others, as yet unknown...

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

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Am Dienstag, 05. April 2022, um 11:21:27 Uhr schrieb Henry Crun:

And adds complication to backup, disk space usage, fs tree and
probably others, as yet unknown...

The additional file systems add some complexity, but that is not really
a problem for me. I just don't care about them if they are not mounted
during the boot.
I don't see how they make backup more difficult. I don't create backups
of applications I can download from the internet.

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On 05/04/2022 12:39, Marco Moock wrote:

Am Dienstag, 05. April 2022, um 11:21:27 Uhr schrieb Henry Crun:

And adds complication to backup, disk space usage, fs tree and
probably others, as yet unknown...

The additional file systems add some complexity, but that is not really
a problem for me. I just don't care about them if they are not mounted
during the boot.
I don't see how they make backup more difficult. I don't create backups
of applications I can download from the internet.

Well, the way I do backups is to make a CD-loadable image, which is limited to 4GB.
This may not be the best way, but its' what I'm used to and has saved me in the past.
Using snap my /home exploded way beyond 4GB, with no noticeable advantages.
So I removed snap, snapd etc. soon after 20.04 was released. There have been no ill effects in two years.

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

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Henry Crun wrote:

I removed snap, snapd etc. soon after 20.04 was released.

Why shouldn't there be an easy way to convert a snap, flatpak, appimage,
etc to a conventional .deb for the particular distro v?

When I say 'easy', I'm thinking of less resource intensive (and
'hazardous' in terms of stumbling blocks) than compiling from source.

--
Mike Easter

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On 05/04/2022 18:24, Mike Easter wrote:

Henry Crun wrote:

I removed snap, snapd etc. soon after 20.04 was released.

Why shouldn't there be an easy way to convert a snap, flatpak, appimage, etc to a conventional .deb for the particular
distro v?

When I say 'easy', I'm thinking of less resource intensive (and 'hazardous' in terms of stumbling blocks) than compiling
from source.

If wishing would help...

Possibly by keeping a spare PC, installing snaps to it and then creating a deb? Beyond my capabilities, I'm afraid

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

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