Ask HN: With Ubuntu pushing snaps, are you considering moving to another OS?
Snaps are really not an open solution and Canonical is rightly getting push back from the community.
I use Arch on my desktop because it brings in the latest of upstream libraries and packages I use, and has been very stable for my use.
I would think any of the major up-to-date distributions should make a nice desktop. Fedora, Arch, PopOS(I believe they still use Ubuntu as base but remove snap as default, and also give you a better GNOME).
May be if enough people move away, Canonical will get the message.
PopOS Sounds interesting, I will be playing around with it for sure.
Isn't it great that we can move to another linux :-)
If Ubuntu forbid me to use apt or the service command (which I have been using for a very long time) I may move. I don't see this happening though.
I have observed down through the years bright people like to change things unnecessarily. I imagine this is what has happened with snap.
I am very grateful for Ubuntu. Over 20 years I have moved from Redhat to Ubuntu. I still have a CentOS running in production which really needs migrated.
> If Ubuntu forbid me to use apt The issue is that if you try to install something via apt, the system will install a snap instead
I am switching my server from Ubuntu to Debian, but not because of snaps, lately I have found Ubuntu server getting buggier, in 20.04 server there's are glitches in the installer where it was craching on partitioning and had to resort to legacy and also in openssl where TLS is somewhat broken. Seems like every ubuntu LTS I have to document exceptions for one or two packages it has.
As far as snaps I still have to install it on Debian because certbot distributes their stuff with it.
Not to another OS but just to another GNU/Linux distribution. I am trying rolling OpenSUSE Tumbleweed at the moment and really liking it. Quite well up-to-date versions of software and so far no problems after upgrading. And there are automatic BTRFS snapshots before the upgrade so if something would go wrong I can easily switch back to a working snapshot.
Just to clarify, I am asking this question as I recently found out that on the next LTS version of Ubuntu, firefox will only be available as a snap. I myself am considering moving to vanilla debian but am interested in what others may be doing.
Install such apps from other sources.
I'd rather install an OS that works the way I want it to rather than work around it.
When did installing user application become an OS thing? Especially something security conscious like a browser I always install from the upstream source anyway. Which on Debian or Ubuntu is as easy as editing your apt sources.
Yes. But which? Debian? Alpine? Fedora? It should be a "just works" distribution for recent hardware, as I nowadays like to work with it and don't have the time for much tinkering.
Mint or Pop! OS perhaps.
Yes. Back to straight Debian likely. I just use Ubuntu because it makes IT folks seem happier that it’s a real company we can hold accountable somehow.
How do you hold them accountable?