i would prefer flatpack as the free alternative to snap

Linux Mint deliberately disabled Snap by default. Though they allowed Snap to be re-enabled, one should be curious as to why.

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3906

If using the Snap platform essentially allows installing software without your knowledge (it has the root password), have we not broken the most important security feature of Linux, that without the root password, nothing can be installed that will compromise your system. The Windows world is plagued with computer viruses for this very reason, stuff constantly being installed in the background without your knowledge.

I think their concern is valid, and I will respect their opinion about the usage of Snap. Why not continue on with Flatpak?

Maintainers also shield users from developers, offering a layer of quality control. At the very least, all the software in a distribution should play friendly with any other piece of software in the repositories. Maintainers are responsible for that, as well as choosing a subset of the (subjectively) best software FOSS has to offer.

And that makes sense.

No, it doesn’t make sense at all. Snap was invented to render software packages independent from each other. And it does it very well. With Snap, every piece of software plays friendly in both a repository and a user’s system because of the package isolation it offers.

Just found out there is a snap package, but it’s from 2018. Is it legit now still though?

Thanks.

One of the core aspects of Snap is hidden in plain sight and as so often ignored in both blog posts:

It is non-free.

Nice. Installed snap, installed the Notepadqq snap, ran Notepadqq. Looked good. Then I tried to access a file from a NFS location – oh, wait since Notepadqq is running in a snap container, I can’t do that. Are you kidding me? I am able to run it directly from where snap put the binaries, but this is a lot of hassle for a text editor.

Snap is trash. Its a security risk for any and all snaps which are not updated. If a library X has a security hole in v1.0 and its devs fix it in v1.1, what would you like better? A) Distro pushes v1.1 and breaks some application or B) Distro pushes v1.1 but you application still has a bundled v1.0 exposing you to vulnerability and giving you no option to fix and even no knowledge that the vulnerable library is on your system.
If you answer B you have no business being on Linux.

Snaps are a sick product of a limited mindset that only knows how to deal with containerization. A veritable return to 1980s and ROM cartridges.

Notepadqq is now packaged for Debian and Ubuntu:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=740809#39
https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&keywords=notepadqq
https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=names&keywords=notepadqq

Cannot install snap in classic mode anymore.

data@ASUS-LAPTOP:$ snap install --classic notepadqq 
Warning: flag --classic ignored for strictly confined snap notepadqq

notepadqq 1.4.8 from Daniele Di Sarli (danieleds) installed

Nothing I did got the Snap install to recognize any printer.
Uninstall, install PPA, 10 seconds later run program, every network printer is available and ready.
I understand you have a small team, but Snap is not ready for production. By a long shot. It would be better to just say you can’t support every platform – and encourage others to become packagers – than to “recommend” something which breaks horribly for many people simply doesn’t work right.

this snap thing sucks, I have just installed it, notepad can not read 777 files, I can’t tun it as sudo. Really sucks. I delete it and install as PPA

“There are none for Debian, though. Or Ubuntu.” But there’s a package for Fedora and Arch (ಸ‿ಸ)

So I read Kyle Keen’s blog post. Unless I missed it, he totally left out the biggest issue with leaving it up to the Maintainers.. They usually only update packages for security fixes, not for feature additions (distribution policy).

This is why you get stuck with old versions of apps with distros like RedHat and Debian / Ubuntu.

Users want to run the latest version of your product. Not the 4 year old version because your distro wants to hold back some dependency.

SNAP fixes most of this. But beware, it’s a gauntlet of issues writing your YAML file. Theming and app icons come to mind.

I’d like to share my experience with snap+notepadqq.

I installed notepadqq using snap and the application was unusable. When saving a file i couldn’t browse in some directories (i saw /var but i couldn’t see /var/www, for example). Trying to open the “unaccessible” file from the command line, notepadqq opens an empty document…

Also, i experienced a problem similar to the one here: https://github.com/notepadqq/notepadqq/issues/797.

I uninstalled using: sudo snap remove notepadqq, then i installed through PPA. Everything works fine. Just saying… please keep up the great work, notepadqq is a great tool. I would reconsider suggesting snap, at least as long as the reliability is so shaky :)

Cheers to everyone

Dear developers

I used Notepadqq because I am used to Notepad++ but I won’t be using it anymore on Ubuntu as long as I can only install it with Snap on Ubuntu, without using questionable sources for the program. I have no bias in any way pro or con Snap, it simply doesn’t work as it is now because I have to wait more than 2 seconds (i5-750, 1333 MT/s DDR3, good SSD) before the program opens. That is unacceptable for a small text writer which does open fast on Arch. Snap is not mature yet, maybe that a recent CPU kind of masks the problems, my older CPU shows it immediately and obviously.

Kind Regards

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
snapd : Depends: systemd (>= 204-5ubuntu20.20) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

so no snap or notepadqq for me.

I avoid snaps like a nondescript brown paper bag on fire on my porch just after the doorbell rang.

Why? Because just like the nondescript paper bag, there may be unwanted things inside when you try to stomp it out.

Canonical has been pushing through snaps payware as if it was open-source software without any indications that it might be such. It’s a deceptive and most unwelcome practice. I have nothing against payware, but I do despise the practive of deceit.

Why not AppImage?