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Snap Trap: The Hidden Dangers Within Ubuntu's Package Suggestion System
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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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I've still never quite been able to understand the problem being solved by going back to what we were happy to leave behind with Windows: The google, download, install, hope it's not malicious, software installation model.
I should add that it's VERY common when one of these "OMG I tried Linux and I can't even install anything" posts come up, it's because they are still doing that. Google, download, install, hope it's not malicious. And they grab something that's a bad choice for their distro, or not the best way to install something etc.
Not that many years ago, you could quickly explain that in the Linux ecosystem that's really not how it works, and is not a good choice until they are experienced enough to make an informed decision. How do you tell the noobies that now without having to then get into snaps/flatpak/appimage and all their differences and caveats?
Saw just such a post in the past few days, and didn't even try to explain their problem looked to be that they'd randomly installed shit they found googling, which is normal in Windows, but a bad idea in Linux. I'm not, nor will I ever be, an expert in all those ways of packaging, especially since I've eschewed their use myself.
I see these as solutions without a problem, and that have made it harder, not easier, to help out the noobies when they come in trying to do things "Windows-style."
I'm sure there are people who love this evolutionary step, and that's fine. I'm not a hater, so please don't come at me as if I am. If these things work for you, I am happy they do so. I just feel we've put a lot of effort into trying to throw out the baby with the bathwater on this topic in recent years.
Instead of looking to refine how package managers work and packages are maintained, we now have 15 competing standards. (/xkcd)
Only appimages follow that model and the problem being solved is real and has nothing to do with any of that. The problem being solved is the huge amount of wasted work that distributions do by having to package and support every single project in existence for their various targets. Giving developers a single target like the freedesktop.org runtimes (in the case of flatpaks) and having them package and support applications is a much simpler and more efficient model.
I should maybe have explained one detail better.
It absolutely does. Because the answer for the noobs used to be:
"Just install from your distro's repo. If you need help, ask others who run your distro about how to do it properly. Do NOT go and just google for something and install it, nor compile from source until you are experienced enough to make an informed choice to do so." That advice would sidestep so many headaches for noobs and for folks trying to help noobs.
But now that last part is:
"Stay within your distros repos unless you want to use snaps. Of course, if you are going to use snaps, here are these things you should know. You could also probably find a flatpak for many things, so you can try that, but now here's some things you should know about flatpak. Appimage is also an option, and you can probably find an appimage for some software, but appimage also has some things you should know about how it works and how to integrate it with your system. You should also understand the pros and cons of each of those options with regard to security, and also how that detail compares against just using software from your distro's repos."
My eyes glazed over just typing that. That's not going to help a confused noobie.
A noob shouldn't have to think about any of this. They would install from gnome software or discover and not know the difference between flatpaks or rpms or debs.
I suppose that sounds great, but every time I see a thread where folks complain about these various packaging formats, I'm just really happy I don't use any of them on my system. All I see in these discussions are user-level problems that I don't ever have due to avoiding them entirely. One day when I can't run a distro that doesn't use them I suppose I'll have no choice, but until then... We clearly seem NOT to have settled on a single target, so I don't know why I'd voluntarily wade into all that as a user while it's still not settled.