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Comment by CSDude | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I'd not be too bothered by that specific ad. Hoever, I gave up using Ubuntu long ago with the push for snap applications and all the mayhem it caused.

* Oh, you want to install a package, here are two very distant versions in snap and apt. Select one!

* Oh you selected snap, sorry now all program starts are slow now because we need to mount compressed disk for sandboxing.

* Oh, this snap does not support sandboxing, here install with --classic flag.

I use macOS daily, but when I need Linux, I use Arch btw (meme) but seriously it's much more clear.

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Not to mention they snapified stuff like the calculator app: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1039411/how-can-i-replace-sn...

Need to multiply two numbers, it's faster to do on paper than to wait the app to launch.

Thankfully they walked back on that one.

Early in Win10 days the calculator 'app' was slower to open than it used to be on a Pentium 75 running Windows 95. It was one of the reasons I migrated away from Windows - only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit. WTFSMH.

Well maybe not slower than anything from the 9x era, but it is definitely slower than it was on Vista for example.

Also e.g. the "Whiteboard" program which replaced the older "Sketchpad" program in Windows 10 tablets. The Sketchpad opened even before I released the button on the pen, while the Whiteboard crap just takes forever to open, then takes forever to "login to Microsoft account", then takes forever to load anything...

only to find Ubuntu decided they wanted to follow suit.

The tech industry is absurdly dedicated to chasing trends. As an example, most people have forgotten the reason you probably don't have a headphone jack on your phone is because Apple wanted to shill wireless headphones and the entire industry turned on its heel in response.

And this is why I use computers that still run XP

Say, VirtualBox is usually such a computer for me.

I believe the calculator app as snap was only launched for testing. But yeah, I've left Ubuntu and the Linux desktop altogether over too many crap: the entire point of a Linux distro is to provide a coherent set of dependencies; browsers delivered as snaps are ok for web site testing, but a declaration of bankruptcy of a distro for a component as important as the primary browser; can't even save pages! Add shenanigans such as gnome 3+ and wayland which are for apps after all, but without any new end-user apps developed for over a decade now just serve to make life difficult for the extant desktop app developers on Linux. I'm treating the Linux desktop now as a canned development system with kindof qa'd productivity apps such as Teams needed for customer projects, much like I used Windows VMs many years ago.

Or use bc:

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/bc-command-linux-examples/amp/

BC is actually super useful when in the shell (less fuss than firing up python shell or similar). I use(d) it a lot, though didn't dig deep into what it can do, beyond setting `scale=2` (set output to two decimal places) when dealing with currencies etc.

If I'm elsewhere in GUI tho, Meta+C (shortcut I have for the calculator app) is faster than firing off terminal, starting bc, then closing it up after oneline calculation.

.. at least, it should be faster ;-)

Maybe you can change Meta+C to start the terminal with bc already running? ;-)

Disclaimer: bc implementer. I'm biased. I use bc for all of my calculation. And Mac doesn't have my bc.

Celebrity alert! Also, your blog is fascinating.

Thank you very much! It's so nice to hear people enjoy it. :)

The snap situation seems like a travesty. For example, the Firefox that's installed by default on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS can't save pages or images. I had to google for how to install the non-snap version, and that fixed it.

if anyone's curious, the command to get rid of snap is

  apt-get purge snapd --yes

That's problematic unfortunately, because one may need a program that is distributed via snaps.

Interestingly, snap has a service that self-heals, so that if one tried to hack it, it will overwrite the changes. That's... quite malwarish, I'd say, and very unusual in the Unix world.

Regarding hacking it: it's necessary because once snapd is installed, the ubuntu upgrader will sync on every update, so snap is not a service that can be just disabled.

You can just turn off the service and uninstall snapd. It is annoying to have to do it, but it is pretty straightforward. But yes, you will need to then add PPAs for thing that were only in snap, or use appimage or flathub.

My understanding is you can prevent the install using apt preference.

https://linux.die.net/man/5/apt_preferences

Yes it can, I've saved tons of pictures... why do you think it can't?

By default, Firefox doesn't have the permissions necessary sometimes. I had that issue. Not hard to work around, but quite annoying to have to look up.

Personally, I've switched to a plain old .tar.gz extracted in a folder to fix Canonical's snap obsession because Snap'd Firefox doesn't play nice with some debuggers I was using. Same with Chromium; quite a pain.

Clicking "Save Image As..." did nothing, no file dialog appeared.

Had similar problems before, so I guessed it was some snap bullshit. This page seemed to confirm it https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1290489

Followed the instructions here https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d... , and then it worked as normal.

> I had to google for how to install the non-snap version

Out of curiosity, how did you do it? I ended up downloading the firefox tar from their website and setting that the default browser. Could not find any trustworthy deb packages.

Not GP but the officially published flatpak is one option

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w...

I highly recommend installing the .deb:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d...

This method will:

- Install from the Mozilla PPA.

- Automatically update Firefox.

- Let you install third party integrations (I needed keepassxc).

Side bonus: I'm also not getting the annoying "You need to update Firefox popups" that are super cryptic and don't explain that you apparently need to close Firefox then, I don't know, wait a few minutes, I guess, for stuff to update in the background.

> Out of curiosity, how did you do it?

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-d...

https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.firefox

what do you mean?

I installed jetbrains clion via snap, not realising the implications. I spent a long long time trying to work out why it couldn’t find dev libraries installed via apt. It wasn’t until I attacked the process with truss/strace that I realised the package manager had installed a snap version, and it was horrifically sandboxed.

I nuked Ubuntu and installed Arch.

Very good demonstration [for me] of current state Linux-Is-Ready-For-Desktop thing - even those with technical background, who _have_ idea on dev libraries (which I think really are headers with somelib-dev packages), strace/truss (is not truss a BSD thing?), not plain mere mortal person have issues on realizing how it works under the hood and how to make it work in desirable way.

Microsoft and Windows are totally safe for now+15 years.

> the Firefox that's installed by default on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS can't save pages or images

Saving files and images both work for me.

Moved to debian after using Ubuntu for a decade and I am not looking back. But I think Ubuntu was necessary for me to see beauty of Debian.

Do you use Debian as a desktop?

Would it be possible to switch from Ubuntu to Debian without having to reinstall the whole system?

I hope something like updating sources to debian unstable and doing apt-get upgrade should just work, but am afraid to try it on the running system.

It can be done, but don't attempt this unless you're ready to fix a ton of tiny problems all over the place. Backup your data and move it over to a fresh installation instead.

No, absolutely not. Although people colloquially refer to Ubuntu as Debian with a little stuff sprinkled on top, parts of the underlying architecture are fundamentally different. Here's a video of someone giving it a go. (Doesn't even boot)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4dD_cbV5aw

That would not be advisable. If you do end up moving to Debain but start missing features, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) may be a better fit.

Looking at the way Canonical is operating, as a Linux Mint Cinnamon user, I sure am glad they're building for a "if Ubuntu was ever to disappear" world.

"Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint can continue to deliver the same user experience if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. It allows us to assess how much we depend on Ubuntu and how much work would be involved in such an event. LMDE is also one of our development targets, as such it guarantees the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu."

https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

Would be wiser to switch to Fedora, Red Hat has way more funding than Canonical or Debian will ever have

Like others recommendations here, I also switched with fresh installation of Debian. If you don't do this you would end up with broken system and also you would not see what all debian has to offer.

What you should be able to do but I have never tried in practice is to keep your home directory. Most "novice" computer users like me, would only need one user anyway although this should work for multiple users as well?

I think in theory at least if your username is anthropodie, you should be able to copy /home/anthropodie to an external hard disk just for backup, install your new distro, set up your new user and copy your user home directory back. Anyone tried this?

The approach I've followed for many years is to have /home mount on a separate partition from anything else. Then when you do any kind of fresh install or upgrade, you only have to make sure that partition doesn't get touched (and usually that's the default) and all is well with the world.

It would be slightly more work involving parted (or whatever partition manager you prefer) to create a new partition, resize existing partitions, etc., but quite doable (if tedious and time consuming).

By clean setup I mean, reinstalling /

/home is kept intact. After installation of apps on new setup I don't even have to configure them most of times because they can find their config directories in /home/myuser/

but debian iirc has only one partition by default, no?

That is not true. I have configured /home on Debian.

I used to keep my home dir on a separate partition, but I was always worried I'd wipe it out during the OS install.

Instead I backup my home dir with borg backup to drives/cloud.

I have a script to borg mount my most recent borg backup, so when I set up a new OS install, I just run the script and copy my files over from my backup to my computer's SSD.

I love this method because I can easily install a different SSD, switch to a new computer, or just do a clean OS installation very easily.

I did exactly that about a year ago (except it was testing instead of unstable). You need to pass some extra flag to APT because Ubuntu and Debian use different version schemes, so you wouldn't get updates anymore -- might have been '--reinstall', but don't quote me on that.

It worked quite well for me, although there were a few issues (for instance, I didn't get kernel updates anymore, and when I fixed that, the Wifi driver was missing). There are probably still a few issues that went undetected and might cause problems later.

It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to spend quite some time on it. And don't count on it working at all. (And backup your data. I didn't, and got lucky, but in retrospect, that was irresponsible.)

Possible? Yes.

A good idea? No. If you need to ask, you will have regrets.

A fresh install would be faster, easier, safer, and more secure.

Ubuntu 18 LTS (pre-snap) until next April then on to debian for me.

Add to it:

* Your Firefox can't read the HTML attachment you opened from Thunderbird because we messed up the sandboxing.

* Popup: Close your Firefox to update it. Oh, also, unless you manually run the update, it will just tell you to close it as soon as you reopen it. Some variants of the update command will also tell you no updates are available unless Firefox is closed.

I'm on Ubuntu. I've got my home on a separate partition. Is replacing Ubuntu with Arch as easy as wiping the root partition, installing Arch and mounting home as home? Wiping and re-installing Ubuntu (which I do every couple of years instead of a dist-upgrade) has always been remarkably smooth, as in it took like 10 minutes and I was back on a working desktop with Firefox restoring my tabs from the previous install.

Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Install_Arch_Linux_from_exi...

It should be that easy, I myself went from Debian to Arch in the past an it just worked. The Arch install process will probably take more like 20 minutes if you do it for the first time though.

> Arch actually has a guide to do it from within the other Linux, which seems crazy and fun.

It's not as crazy as it sounds, after all installing a Linux system is a matter of populating the rootfs, and passing kernel+initrd images to the bootloader. Just regular file system operations, apart from actually installing the bootloader to the MBR.

You can install Debian-based distros the same way using the "debootstrap" script.

> installing the bootloader to the MBR

You mean copying bootx64.efi onto the ESP, right?

It's 2022... MBR is beyond ancient at this point!

If you want a quick way to install Arch, Endeavour OS works really well. Got me up and running with what is basically an Arch install in about 10 minutes.

It's basically the only way to install Arch. The USB stick just dumps you to a root console of a Linux system and you have to do the rest.

I've been using Arch since 2003 and am still salty about the loss of the text guided installer.

Arch has a new guided installer ‘archinstall’ - present in isos after 2021.04.01

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall

The installation will be the easy part. Getting to really understand the different parts of your system, configuring it to your liking, forgetting where you put that config file and why this package is installed and getting lost on your own machine will take years, perhaps a decade. Giving up and installing an all-in-one Arch-based distribution with sensible defaults, like Manjaro, will then take 10 minutes, and everything will be smooth again.

Arch is easy to install (if you are comfortable with Linux, terminal and fucking up your partitions)

0. If you have Windows, a bit tiny work to correctly setup secure boot and UEFI

1. Create partitions manually, carefully. For best results I use seperate disks but windows installer still fucks up.

2. Mount and chroot

3. Install packages

4. Install a network manager

5. Reboot

6. Install a favorite login and desktop manager and if have any nvidia drivers

7. Reboot to ensure nvidia drivers load (F** you secureboot)

8. Install a nice font (sorry, yes)

9. Audio mostly works out of the box but if not install pulseaudio or something else.

10. Install yay or any AUR helper to install non-official packages in AUR.

11. Occasionally run pacman -Syu to update system to be not left behind a lot. There are no fixed releases like Ubuntu 22.04 or sth.

It looks complex, I know, but it's fun and there are literally every package with almost latest versions in Arch and if not, in AUR which helps a lot.

I've used Ubuntu as my main desktop OS for 9 years and recent changes make me want to leave. So many things just... broke. Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass; all the old tools don't work. When I try to open a file from a program (Firefox, whatever - with "File -> Open" I get a notification that "X(1) is ready" and have to alt-tab to it instead of having it be brought to front and getting focus. And for... what?

> Doing a screen recording with mic audio is a huge pain in the ass

I didn't have any problem with this. But your case may be what they're solving by moving from Pulseaudio to Pipewire (see Ubuntu Kinetic 22.10).

Thanks! It works if I start an xorg session, at least.

Don't forget that the Snap server is proprietary software, and that Ubuntu's snap server URL is hardcoded into the official snapd code, together with automatic updates, which you cannot disable (except for recompiling the whole thing with auto-updates removed from code).

Ubuntu is moving closer and closer to Microsoft with each passing year.

You can turn off snap and install regular versions of stuff. Canonical chose snap because it makes their life easier and not the users. I think snap is awful, but I'm familiar with Ubuntu so I continue to use it and variants, I use flatpak/appimage wherever I can. I also run a couple of servers with Endeavour OS to kind of also have a bleeding edge machine or two for dev if I need it. I love every minute of having the choice to do both. I feel a lot of us look a gift horse in the mouth and expect free things for no price.

This is petty, but I'm also constantly annoyed by the presence of the `snap` directory in my home folder, which (to my knowledge) is hard-coded and not configurable. Now, if I want to back up my home directory, I have to configure my backup tools to exclude `snap`.

I don't know why the default location couldn't have been in `/usr` or `/opt` or something, or ideally simply been configurable.

Snap did it for me tbh

I agree. I have wrote a small post[1] one year ago, because Ubuntu20 was hard to configure in safe manner. I started switching to Debian all my servers from that day, and for the meantime it pays my bills.

But I miss a bit Ubuntu...

[1] https://gioorgi.com/2021/ubuntu-20-failed-me/

and the forced software behavior - install something and it comes back, including tracking.

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