[kwlug-disc] linux distro for nontech windows user

[Ron]

This message isn't to take Doug to task, he's been very helpful, it's 
just to explore some of the issues people claim to have with snaps...


Doug Moen wrote on 2025-10-20 08:01:

> I don't like snap because it isn't open source

It's a SquashFS file and a YAML file with layout options. Those are open
source.

https://snapcraft.io/docs/the-snap-format



Or did you want the web app open source too?

I doubt 99% of anti-snap people would ever stand up a web site for
snaps, so I find this "not open source" a bit disingenuous. Are they 
setting up local flatpak or deb repos?

No one that I know has ever created a deb repository locally (that I'm 
aware of). Looks like a pain but not too bad:

https://linuxconfig.org/easy-way-to-create-a-debian-package-and-local-package-repository



> and Ubuntu takes away user control that you get with flatpak,

Can you elaborate on this? I haven't used flatpaks so I have no idea
what user control I'm missing when I have a couple snaps installed.


> and that lack of control was creating issues for me. I switched from 
> Ubuntu to Mint to get away from Snap.
Sounds like your distaste for *optional* snaps led you to a distro where 
things break and require a full system reinstall, when snaps likely 
could have prevented the whole mess in the first place.


I have had at least one issue with snaps - clicking a mailto link in 
Firefox didn't properly open a compose window in Thunderbird when (both? 
or just Thunderbird?) were snaps.

That was due to isolation that is *optionally* provided by snaps and 
Mozilla chose the strong isolation, which broke this feature.