After creating a fresh installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I installed DEB Firefox from APT by following Mozilla’s instructions from here. But I noticed that it was secretly replaced with Snap Firefox. I was able to verify this by checking the About Firefox page. This is the third time I noticed this.
Yeah they’ve been doing that for a while
I battled that for about a year and then ditched Debian based diatros altogether.
OpenSUSE ftw
You could have gone pure Debian. There are no snap shenanigans over there :)
OpenSuse is also a great pick tho!
I suggest Mint or straight Debian. I prefer Mint for anything graphical, Debian for headless
What benifit does Mint have over Debian for anything graphical?
I’ve just found it’s more polished right out of the box. Definitely more new-user-friendly, like Ubuntu, but with Snap gutted out.
I have been using the regular Mint (based on Ubuntu), but I’m probably going to use the Debian edition next time I install a new system
Welcome to 2020, where Debian is once again your trusted distro.
I’ve had it happen too. In fact it is what prompted me to move away from Kubuntu.
Not a secret, but annoying as hell. I usually replace it with a Flatpak and uninstall Snap.
Agreed, not a secret, and not wanted. I uninstall Firefox and install Google Chrome from a .deb - disadvantage: you have to update it manually. Advantage: it doesn’t update itself automatically.
Why would you use an inferior product? Firefox via Snap is shit but it’s still better than any version of Chrome
Disadvantage: you’re now using a browser from the biggest
spyad-ware company and killed web heterogeneity.Too late, they own my soul already. I have successfully resisted Meta, X, Microsoft, and any number of lesser daemons, but the one true G has shown me their light and I am unable to look away.
Try sunglasses? But maybe other souls can still be saved from evil…
They delivered their promise: they were at least not evil, at first.
Yup. They also did this with Docker, and it broke my setup (and was a bitch to debug).
This was a couple of years ago, and I haven’t used Ubuntu unless absolutely necessary (and then usually in a container).
Docker in a snap is too meta for me.
Just wait for snap 2.0 which actually runs everything inside docker containers /s
Is KDE Neon still broken? For awhile it was the only Ubuntu based distro I’d recommend. Yes, I know about Mint but no HDR or Wayland.
I’m reasonably happy with XFCE/Xubuntu - it’s not as slick of a desktop as KDE or Gnome, and in some ways that’s a great thing.
My work cannot manage permissions well so I cannot remove snap Firefox cos its in use by another user.
Meanwhile current snap version of Firefox is crashing on my profile
This is why i switched to Debian. It’s 99% of Ubuntu, without the crap.
I must have hit that 1% last time. I assembled a new PC, wanted to install debian and could not get a login screen after installation. At that point I wanted something that just works. I installed Xubuntu and had the machine ready right away.
Thats… odd. The installer packages aren’t really that different. When was this?
I… I… I don’t know why I haven’t done that myself. (Am now on NixOS btw) but for work maybe I ask for Debian cloud box.
For work, you could also try Fedora Workstation or Linux Mint Debian Edition. Debian is pretty barebones, but if that isnt a bother then do whatever.
It’s not barebones. I use it as my main desktop and barely notice any difference from Ubuntu, it has every package I’ve ever needed. I think that mentality of Debian being “bare” is outdated.
@[email protected] this is for you, too.
I like gnome, but i guess i could look at fedora.
I would like to stay with apt as package manager so the package names stay the same to what I know, or is yum/dnf/etc gonna use the same for most?
Mostly the same, and if not all it has taken for me to figure it out was searching “fedora $pkgname”
Yeah, there’s an entire page bitching about it on Linux Mint’s website.
Yeah it’s not really a secret
I got a notification about it when I upgraded from 20.04 LTS that they will only serve it as a snap package.
Definitely not you, they absolutely do this with snaps and have for a while. This was the main reason I stopped using Ubuntu.
You could compile it from source yourself, and you won’t even have to worry about packaging and package managers.
From a security standpoint? Not even close. From a software-release validation requirement, not even in the same galaxy. If they look the same, it’s only due to Clarke’s law.
It’s a joke based of the fact that when you type apt install firefox on ubuntu, it will install the snap instead of the deb package, which is what you would expect when you use apt to install something.
You are missing the attribution. The person you are replying to is making a joke that Canonical says they are the same, not that they are actually the same.
Clearly they’re cosplaying as a Canonical engineer whose internal explanation and pleas for them to not take this approach fell upon deaf ears /j
In Ubuntu they are the same.
firefoxversion1:1snap1-0ubuntu5is a deb that literally runs the commandsnap install firefoxin the preinst script. Check line 77 infirefox-1snap1/debian/firefox.preinstin the source tarball: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/1:1snap1-0ubuntu5There’s no magic there.
That is not the same thing as “snap and apt Firefox are the same”. They just hijacked apt to force snap in.
You are missing the attribution. The person you are replying to is making a joke that Canonical says they are the same, not that they are actually the same.
Well, yes, except Canonical have made them actually do the same thing in the case of Firefox. I’m not aware of any other packages that have the deb install just run the snap install.
Yep, I am agreeing with you. The statement was never snap and deb are identical, its that canonical is making them do identical things.
Chromium too iirc
So both commands do the same thing… right? I’m not saying snap and apt are the same.
Yeah for sure, I read your comment as excusing canonical screwing with user intent but I see that’s not what you meant.
