Why Linux Purists Hate Snap!

Snap, if you did not know, is Ubuntu’s attempt at a “unified standard app store” in Linux. There you go! Enough to hate on it already! Linux users are classically renegades that want to do everything the hard way, on their own! After all, how can I get true geek cred if one just goes to an “app store” and have the whatever-I-wanted-software installed by a common system? Yeeesh!

Now, that is not to say that there isn’t some real, solid reasons NOT to like snap. When you install something “from scratch” everything is placed where it should be in Linux (at least according to the original development team for the app.) Snap puts a lot of it’s install files under a “snap” directory. What?! This means it isn’t where the original software designers said it would be installed. Bummer, man! To be clear, when you install an run a Snap version of a program it incorporates the application and its libraries into a single package. It’s then installed and mounted on a SquashFS virtual file system. So, when you run a Snap, you’re running it inside a secured container of its own. Good? Yes, in some ways…. but bad in others, like speed.

Also, there is a lot of discussion that “snap-installed” apps are slower and klugy-er than the “installed from scratch” versions of the same software. Trade off for the easy install, you say? Hummmm… I don’t know.

Then there is the concern that it is proprietary to Ubuntu. True Linux folk just don’t DO proprietary. HOWEVER, one of the arguments FOR snap is that it tries to standardize a mess of different methods of installs, satisfy dependencies automatically, and keep thing up to date. All worthy goals. But, can be at the expense of speed, can be buggy (at least right now, getting better) and again, does NOT appeal to the Linux “bit wrangler” persona.

So, do YOU hate snap? If so, you are not alone, it seems!