[blitz_skull]

As someone who is quite new to Ubuntu, and recently just ran an install. I've seen this "snap" word thrown around and for better or worse I consider the opinion of random HN users to be better than the average opinion elsewhere on the internet.

What do you dislike so much about snap? Also any tips on how one goes about purging it from their machine if they too also decide they don't like it?

[joecot]

Snaps are self contained packages of software. They are mounted as a separate isolated file system when they start.

The good: Snap packages run on almost any Linux distribution, so they're an easier target. Distribution specific packaging can be tedious, and often involves a distro having to maintain packages themselves by repackaging the "upstream" package or software. With software that updates frequently, snaps theoretically mean a lot less work for distro package maintainers, because one package works on every distro. Snap packages are also sandboxed and have less access to the host system.

The bad: In practice, they don't work very well. Snap programs are slow to start up. Because of their sandboxing and universal nature, their integration into the distribution can be lacking.

For example, when I upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, I was automatically moved to Firefox snap. It is painfully slow to start. Instead of the normal Ubuntu file browser when I went to upload or save a file, it uses a jarringly different file browser. I switched back to using the firefox PPA, and now this new package directly from firefox.

I also moved to the Slack snap, which also works terribly. I apparently can't upload and download files from it reliably, so I have to open it in my browser to do so. There appears to still be an official deb package, but they've hidden it on their site because they want you to use the snap.

Snap started as a method of packaging applications for servers, and that's still where they're most useful. Slow startup time and issues with desktop integration are not concerns for server side snap packages. For desktop graphical applications, Flatpak will likely be a much more useful universal package system.

[ric2b]

Regarding the startup time, it has been massively improved since the initial Firefox snap release. It'll always have non-zero overhead for the reasons you mentioned, but it's already fast enough that it no longer bothers me.

[mixmastamyk]

The concept is fine, but implementation is quite obnoxious.

You'll have crap in your mounts list, process list, home folder, etc. As a reward for putting up with all that you'll have slower to start applications!

PPA, flatpack, and even "make install" are much more polite when you need a newer version of something, with good performance.

I recommend Mint these days. Easier than decluttering Ubuntu after every install.