Re:Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian...
by olyjohn on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:20PM
(#39107322)
Yeah the Snap package is still annoying. Like every day it pops up and tells me to close Firefox to update it. So I close it, and then nothing happens. Then I wait, and nothing happens. Occasionally, it notices that I closed Firefox and applies the update. But it's a frustrating annoyance.
Re:Mozilla's new Firefox Linux package for Ubuntu and Debian...
by mardifoufs on Tuesday January 23, 2024 @01:52PM
(#39107846)
I thought the decision to switch to snaps was made by Mozilla. Did that turn out to be false?
* Recently (well, in the last 2-4 years) to boost the uptake of Canonical's "snap" packaging system, Ubuntu switched to only distributing Firefox as a snap.
* There are a lot of snap haters around. Not least because canonical fucked up the update mechanism in the first year or two, had a bunch of performance problems (now mostly solved?), and made a bunch of weird broken snaps for things like docker.
* An unofficial firefox package for Ubuntu was then created, so people who didn't want to use the snap could avoid doing so.
* By some accounts, Mozilla is keen on controlling the entire release channel, so security updates don't have to wait on volunteer maintainers. (IDK if this is true or not, but I've heard second-hand claims)
* This new package lets Mozilla release to users directly, and lets snap haters avoid snap without using unofficial packages.