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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Ubuntu 23.10’s New Software App Will Demote DEBs (Apparently) (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A new ‘app store’ is expected to ship as part of Ubuntu 23.10 when it’s released in October — and it’ll debut with a notable change to DEB support.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Fedora software app has been promoting flatpaks over native packages, even not displaying that native packages are available even if they are, requiring the command line tool to access some native packages. So I don't see how this is fundamentally different.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The fundamental difference is that flatpak is a good system, adopted by many distributions.

Snap sucks and only Ubuntu uses it.

They'll do like their Unity UI, wait many years until they realize their mistake then drop it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hate that they also SEO'd the hell out of major search engines to show snap setup and installation instructions when anyone searches for installing a package. E.g. "arch install firefox" leads to https://snapcraft.io/install/firefox/arch which is downright dishonest marketing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On google it's the 4th result for me even in private mode which seems pretty reasonable. The first result is the firefox archwiki page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I beg to differ. I think it's very harmful.

There as absolutely no reason for anyone in Arch to use snap to install something mainstream like Firefox. Same goes for other OS's like Fedora etc. (which are all mined in similar way, just change it to /fedora for instance).
The page presents itself as if it's the only choice, and can easily scam someone who's just getting into Linux into installing snap. I think it's designed for that purpose. Arch links to the package, but not step by step guide (which is on Arch), but this can easily lure people into installing snap and being none the wiser the it's not the default package manager for their distro.
It's 4th for Firefox, but I've seen it as the top result for some other packages. Probably Google caught up, or probably for packages not mainstream as Firefox it still shows snap as number one result.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IIRC Flatpack is also FOSS whereas the Snap server software is proprietary

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Snap is foss on the client end etc iirc. but the server that serves up content is proprietary.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The big difference is that Snap is partially proprietary. For those who like Linux for its free and open-source nature and all the benefits that confers, this is an unfortunate evolution that has a negative impact on the Linux ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And snap has other issues, such as it's very badly implemented. No sane person wants to see 100s of lop devices mounted on lsblk all the time.