So I was wondering how and if snappy packages will affect the Ubuntu family members… Are snappy packages going to affect Ubuntu-Mate in anyway. Will we be adopting them, or forced to adopt them. Not that they are bad. Just don’t know what the implications are. … well feed me some info folks!
This is the first time I have heard about this. So, if I understand correctly, from what I have been researching in the last five minutes (though I fully accept I may have this completely wrong!), is that Snappy takes out all the dependancy-locating-and-installing that goes on when an application is currently installed, since all of the dependencies come bundled with the application.
If the above is correct, then that sounds fine for a light or new user if all they are wanting is the version of the app that is ostensibly available. Where it is not so fine. I suspect, is for users who want to play around with their system by installing unusual versions of applications and/or wish to set up some kind of unusual, tailored version of Ubuntu. In other words, it sounds like the installation (and removal) process becomes more of a Cannonical-driven, “black-box” affair using something like Snappy as opposed to apt-get. Especially so, given that the Snappy applications’ code will come as “read-only”.
Snappy, then, sounds like part of the more general trend with Canonical (as with Unity) towards greater simplicity of usage at the cost of personal customizability and control. Personally speaking, if I am correct in my understanding, I do not welcome such a development since it represents a further move by Cannonical away from the open (and yes, messy) source ethos where everything is available to everyone to bend (and yes, break) to a particular set of needs. I say this despite my many nights of pulling my hair out trying to fix broken dependancies on things as diverse as printer drivers to jack applications to LTSP.
Like I said, though, all of the above musings are based on five minutes of research and so my understanding could be way off!
I joined the Snappy related sessions during UOS 15.05. I understand what Snappy is and how Ubuntu MATE might benefit from Snappy in the future.
However, after talking with the devs I was advised to wait for Ubuntu 15.10 which will feature a Snappy alternative image before considering Snappy for derivatives. The reason for this is some of the tooling for Snappy is incomplete and the advice was to learn the technology and use Ubuntu 15.10 as a reference.
I don’t know how long the traditional Debian build system will remain available, perhaps forever, but certainly until 16.04. At some point I’d like to offer a Snappy alternative for Ubuntu MATE but I think that is some time away yet.
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Are my initial tentative concerns more or less unfounded Martin?
I’d definitely be interested in running USC.
Transactional updates would be a great improvement, but I don’t want to be locked out of fiddling with my own system.
Other pieces of the future Ubuntu puzzle are Click packages and Mir.
My understanding is the software center is moving towards automatic review of apps, which will make it much easier (and much faster) to get software into the Store, but it requires app containment provided in part by Mir. (With X apps can quite easily snoop on other apps.) Right now a lot of these changes seem the polar opposite of Ubuntu Mate, but if they are successful, and we want to be able to use software from the Store, we may need to support them, at least optionally.