What use to be the PPA that allowed Ubuntu users to use native .deb packages for Firefox has recently changed to the same meta package that forces installation of Snap and the Firefox snap package.
I am having to remove the meta package, then re-uninstall the snap firefox, then re-uninstall Snap, then install pin the latest build I could get (firefox_116.0.3+build2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1~mt1_arm64.deb) to keep the native firefox build.
I’m so done with Ubuntu.
Imagine having to fight your OS to do what you want. True Windows experience.
Yes exactly. This is the main problem. It’s one thing to offer Snaps as an alternative, but to force them on users is not the Libre/FOSS way at all.
I switched away to Mint and I’m very glad I did. I’m in control and it works perfectly. Fantastic distro. No Snaps BS and it uses less RAM and is faster than Ubuntu.
I would encourage all Ubuntu users to switch to Mint. You won’t regret it.
Yeah they’re all in on snaps. Vote with your distro choice.
I’m afraid they’ll break off Debian one day. Supporting snap is one thing, sabotaging well established user cases (apt installing deb, not being a snap prozy) is another.
On my corporate laptop, because they require ubuntu to… well spy on us, I wrote a interface in front of snap to works like flatpak… as snap forcing through on everything I work on…
At least I tried to disable it. and failed, so I wrote a piece of junk code to accomodate my flatpak muscle memory
What I don’t get is why. What with the recent Red Hat debacle one would think Canonical would make a stronger case as opposed to force feeding the issue.
Because it’s canonical’s thing they’re marketing to server markets
haha… ubuntu on enterprise doesn’t even touch 5% of the market, where 90% of it is RHEL and 5% another is Windows Server and some OSX… so… I don’t think canonical is dumb enough
*please read, enterprise market, not hobbyist. Hobbyist doesn’t make money for ubuntu. Well if the hobbyist is a decision maker in enterprise, they probably will have effect, but the problem is, most of them opt in RHEL/Clones
You got any data to back that up?
You can look into fortune 500 report on Server stack, and self published red hat report. Red Hat claims is higher, but I will say, it should be at max 90%, not 95% as Red Hat Claims.
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/company
Seems they revise it. hem… the fly-er I got for Red Hat academy promotion written is 95% in 2019… strange…
But anyway, you can see anywhere, on any business medium high, mostly use Linux.
Azure, 100% backed by Red Hat in their Infra, even Microsoft doesn’t deny or agree with it. AWS 100% EL based (old times RHEL, nowdays Fedora), Linode, Scaleway, Contabo, Hetzner, BiznetGio, Aliyun (even their Aliyun/Alibaba Linux is RHEL), OVH, etc. so I will say it’s high enough… that almost entire infrastructure rely on Red Hat Engineering. At least if Red Hat gone, CentOS Stream code still there, Fedora Code still there. The community can continue to develop it.
Ubuntu only popular and first class only on Digital Ocean. No other cloud providers make ubuntu first class other than DO. Sure enough Ubuntu/Debian is there, you can install it, but, it’s not entirely first class as RHEL/Clones
Hate it or love it. Red Hat still the king of mission critical system except in Europe, where SUSE is leading, but SUSE itself is well… have same or near identical to Red Hat… so… welp… kind like in same EL boat.
Some will say data like this https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/linux-statistics.html#The_Most_Popular_Linux_Distribution is more re presentable for general mass, but I don’t think it’s for enterprises…
Are forks of Ubuntu like Mint and Pop_OS still good choices, or do they suffer from a Chromium-style lack of freedom?
Mint is great. Definitely one of the best distros around. PopOS I’d wait for their new DE. Though with Ubuntu going balls deep on snaps, all those ubuntu based distros hang in the balance. At least Mint got a Debian edition already and they are working on a new version right now. Or just use straight up Debian with flatpaks, which is what I do.
Mint also does not force either
dpkg/apt-get/aptnorflatpak.
Even its GUI installer is a GUI wrapper arounddpkgandflatpak, every application available on both shows a drop-down allowing you to choose between the two.
You can also change its config to allow other sources, in case you want to add something else like snap.
The Pop_Shop gives you the option via a little drop down of flatpak/Deb. I’m not sure if the option is flagged by application developers or system76.
I recently went to Nobara, not a Deb/Ubuntu fork, but its literally been the easiest, smoothest Linux install/usage experience of my life.
I warned you guys. “It’s so easy, just do these three steps if you don’t like snaps” but then later they tighten the vise
Yeah. I switched away from Ubuntu for all this crap.
I moved to Fedora for my laptop & desktop, and Debian for my home server. I’m considering switching everything to Debian eventually, but there’s a couple dedicated repos that make using Fedora on my laptop much easier for now.
I’m considering switching everything to Debian eventually, but there’s a couple dedicated repos that make using Fedora on my laptop much easier for now.
I’d recommend against that. Debian is fantastic for a server, but I think it leaves a lot to be desired as a workstation OS as compared to Fedora.
You can get it there/make it that way, but Fedora is just better from a user experience/convenience perspective out of the box.
I don’t know. I like Debian. My home server also doubles as a desktop sometimes and it does a good job.
I’m mostly not super interested in cutting edge versions. I run a newer kernel and mesa than default Debian, but the rest is just fine. I’m fine with Firefox ESR, and lagging a little bit behind the state of the art.
There’s a simple reason why Mozilla/canonical does this and that is security fixes. Due to the difference in support cycles of Firefox and Ubuntu LTS versions fixes would have to be manually backported to the system Firefox version and newer versions won’t run due to library dependencies. Snap solves all of that.
Don’t get me wrong though, snap is still terrible, but other than flatpak or doing the work of backporting it’s the only option to get security fixes to Ubuntu
Previous to the switch to snaps, Ubuntu was providing the latest version of Firefox built for each supported Ubuntu release. I’m sure this was more work, but the older system library version issue was not a blocker.
Edit: in fact, Mozilla still provides an apt repo with Firefox deb packages built for each supported Ubuntu release.
But around the same time mozilla shortened the support cycles for their lts releases
and newer versions won’t run due to library dependencies.
Mozilla seem to be able to limit library dependencies in their builds: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/system-requirements/
But are they actually doing this? I am not seeing any changes: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa still has the .deb packages
You know what, enough is enough. Snaps run like shit in my system (IDK/DC why), I hate companies forcing their shit down my throat, and I was planning a clean reinstall anyway from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04. Might as well use the opportunity to go back to Debian. Or Mint. Or Mint Debian Edition. Who knows.
Next on the news, Ubuntu (“humanity”) gets renamed to Amasimba (“shit”). /s
Feeling bold? Try MenuetOS, it even claims to have an http client.
TempleOS and give it a try. The prophet Terry will be smilling from the Heaven TempleOS
I toyed with the idea of gentoo. Not because I want a rolling distro, but because of that 4chan meme.
Gentoo is very good actually, specially if you have a modern CPU.
I tried it on my desktop, and I never want anything else.
Redistribution, reverse engineering, disassembly or decompilation prohibited without permission from the copyright holders.
no
After using it since Lucid Lynx 10.04, I switched from Ubuntu to Mint last weekend. I’m lazy about distros these days, and I really didn’t want to switch, but Firefox instability was driving me nuts. The web browser must be reliable, IMO. It’s a fundamental requirement for a desktop OS, and this problem didn’t exist before snaps.
Why not slackware /s
If you don’t embrace snaps just don’t use Ubuntu.
Hence me now moving off of it.
I’m curious, what are you considering moving into?
EndeavourOS. It’s available for Arm64. Has firefox, has chromium, has vivaldi, and even has a widevine plugin builder in their AUR repo for the first two.
For UTM hypervisor, select the Arch for ARM from their gallery and install it. Then follow the instructions for Parallels to EndeavourOS it. Oh, expand the disk and filesystem first, though.
It’s quite a step back in time for an installation process, though. Even after getting it installed and setup for KDE Plasma, still need to install a lot of things:
- NetworkManager
- git base-devel
- man-pages man-db
- dnsutils
- LibreOffice Plus all the things one installs for customization on any Linux… preferred shell(s), if not bash, shell customizations and completions, various cli’s you’ll want or need, your favorite IDE, browsers, browser extensions, programming languages, ansible, terraform, helm, kubectl, podman and or docker, etc etc.
deleted by creator
LibreWolf is a Firefox fork with features removed which we don’t want (Telemetry, Pocket, …) and a few (privacy) features enabled (which can be deactivated if they’re too annoying). I didn’t had any issues with Firefox extensions as well.
I’m currently using it on Debian and it runs smoothly. Recent Ubuntu versions are also supported and you can install them via your package manager, see here.
I’ve recently distro hopped and the new distro came with Firefox preinstalled (had arch before but with xfs and wanted btrf snapshots).
Do you think its telemetry is so bad? I want to help Mozilla to some extent to keep them working on Firefox as I think Librewolf isn’t showing much usage or support for Firefox itself.
@hornedfiend @Seltsamsel That’s a good question and got me curious. I had a look at Telemetry collection and deletion from Mozilla. You can enter
about:telemetryin the address bar to see what Firefox is collecting (even if it is not being sent).You shouldbea able to turn off from settings. More options are present in the config. You can find github guides doing more hardening for sedurity and privacy.
Not sure about librewolf specifically but most of these firefox forks do these initial setups for you and maybeave a couple of addons preinstalled. You would still be using firefox. Beyond crash reports and some reduced usage metrics turning them off should hinder firefox much.
Time to switch to Mint ( or Debian ). I have not like Ubuntu for a while but this forced match to snaps seems too much.
I use Arch myself. I have been considering trying Debian Stable with Distrobox / Arch. The stability of Debian with a totally current and massive package inventory ( thank you AUR ) sounds like perhaps the best of all worlds.
This is on an arm64 (m1) platform, in a VM.
I’m a bit confused to see that the hate falls entirely on ubuntu. Isn’t the change in the ppa of mozillateam,
owned by mozilla?Edit: It seems that mozillateam is actually ubuntu.
Was there even a change to the Firefox PPA? I am not seeing a change.
I use the binary provided by Mozilla at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
I even wrote an installation script that takes care of it all. (For amd64, not arm64. I’m not sure if they provide a stand-alone arm build.)
TIL about desktop-file-edit.
I’ve been doing desktop files by hand for years.
My favorite thing about the Mozilla binary is that it auto updates just like Windows, as long as you have write permissions.
I tend to do the same. Can you link it ?
Their script has a really good example of using the “proper” tools to create, validate, and install the desktop file automagically. The tools themselves are likely already installed.
Ubuntu was my first-ever training-wheels gateway to Linux. I started from 8.04 Hardy Heron, and it felt like such a counter-culture move back then and I wanted to be part of the ‘cool’ edgy goth kids that DGAF about the mainstream normies.
15 years later, I still daily-drive windows, but I have many linux boxes for various specialist use-cases, mainly for scripting or self-hosting services, and still have 22.04 server versions running here and there. But this will be my last version of Ubuntu, and the only reason its still there is because migrating them is going to be no fun.
The Ubuntu today feels like a completely different animal than when I started. My breaking point was the ‘upgrade to pro’ message on every
aptrun. I DON’T WANT TO SIGN UP FOR YET ANOTHER METERED ACCOUNT. I use Linux to escape all the mainstream commercialism and monetization once in a while when I’m up for it. Next thing I know, it starts popping up in Linux OS’s and even terminals asking me to login with an account so that I can be monetized.Don’t get me wrong, I know people need to eat and companies need revenue streams to pay their staff. Linux was my occasional escape back to my engineering and tinkering roots, but corporatism is creeping in like what happens to all good things (eventually).
Windows as daily driver?!? :(
Yes indeed, it just works when I need it to. Just 10 minutes ago I regretted installing Arch as I had some trouble trying to get my WH1000XM4 to connect. I was able to figure it out eventually as I was missing a bunch of missing packages for bluetooth and bluetooth audio that for some reason archinstall decided wasn’t part of the core packages. There was zero prompts from KDE as to why the pairing was failing and I had to figure out with some trial and error which ones were missing and which ones I needed. And after doing all that I still couldn’t get LDAC to work.
Seriously reflecting on my life choices right now, should have stuck to a distro with some sensible defaults when I just need shit to work. Of all the problems people have with M$, windows always just worked for me. Perhaps Linux and I just aren’t fated to be together. I always come back a couple of times a year to try out the state of Linux and while it has gotten a whole lot better, its always these little gotchas that result in me telling myself “maybe next year will be the year of linux”, which has been happening for the past ~15 years for me now.
I hope one day those gotchas disappear for you. You said yourself you want to get away from corporatism. Let’s hope that one day, Linux can provide that for you.
They are mostly Mozilla members, not Ubuntu members, who are responsible for the PPA. Are you sure, that your complaints and grievances are directed to the right address? See here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Contacts
Hello, member of Mozilla release engineering here. We have no association with that PPA and the contacts are not mozilla.com email addresses.
Seems like Canonical wants to push snaps now really hard. I hope that Flathub soon implements its payment structure, before companies flock to the Canonical store.
Payment? What for?
For buying or donating (maybe even subscriptions). Both open source and proprietary software. They’re working on it.
Funding non native packaging to absolve distros of their job is not something I would donate to.
I think you’re misunderstanding what the claim here is. The payments are not necessary for Flathub and flatpak (though they take a cut), it’s revenue for developers. Revenue they would have never seen if their app is packaged in distro repos like normal. Implementing payment systems in the native package format is basically impossible which is why no one ever did it. Flathub is giving app developers (whose job is oftentimes thankless) a chance to receive easier funding or even a livelihood. All around a good thing.
Yeah… For years I already suggested anything good but Ubuntu to those interested in trying Linux, but now I’m going to directly tell them not to touch it. Sure, you’ve got lots of online discussions from the past 20-ish years of people teaching each other how to install PPAs for up-to-date versions of programs or drivers and that’s sweet. But how about a distro where that stuff is just available out of the box and one that doesn’t force you to use snaps as if they didn’t cause issues left and right?
