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Canonical's Steam Snap is Causing Headaches for Valve
(www.omgubuntu.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Ubuntu used to get a lot of undeserved hate but lately the hate feels deserved. Ubuntu has been the face of the usable desktop Linux for a long time and they just keep tripping over themselves every time they try to move forward.
Their intentions are usually good. A lot of things they propose usually end up being adopted by the community at large (just not their implementation). They seem to just yank everyone's chain a little too hard in the direction we're eventually going to go and we all resent them for that.
Off the top of my head, there was Upstart (init system), there was unity (desktop), and now snaps (containerized packaging). All of these were good ideas but implemented poorly and with a general lack of support from the community. In almost each case in the past what's happened is that once they run out of developers who champion the tech, they eventually get onboard with whatever Debian and Rhel are doing once they were caught up and settled.
Valve's lack of interest in maintaining the snap makes sense. The development on the Ubuntu platform is very opinionated in a way where the developers of the software (valve) really want nothing to do with Canonicals snaps.
On another note: my favorite thing about the Ubuntu server was LXD + ZFS integration. Both have been snapified. It was incredibly useful and stable. Stephane Graber has forked the project now into INCUS. It looks very promising.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I really don't get this trend of wanting to containerized just about everything, it feels like a FOTM rather than doing something that makes sense.
I mean, containers are fantastic tools and can help solve compatibility problems and make things more secure, especially on servers, but putting everything into containers on the desktop doesn't make any sense to me.
One of the big advantages Linux always had over Windows is shared components, so packages are much smaller and updating the whole system is way faster, if every single application comes with its own stuff (like it does on Windows) you lose that advantage.
Ubuntu's obsession with snaps is one of the reasons I stopped using it years ago, I don't want containers forced upon me, I want to be free to decide if/when to use them (I prefer flatpack and appimage).
Debian derivatives that don't "reinvent the wheel" is the way to go for me, I've been using Linux MX on my gaming desktop and LMDE on laptop for years and I couldn't be happier, no problem whatsoever with Steam either.
I agree with a lot of your points but I do think containers a great solution.
I've been a really big fan of Universal Blue lately. It presents a strong argument for containerizing everything. Your core is immutable and atomic which makes upgrades seamless. User land lives in a container and just gets layered back on top afterwards.