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Linux reviews notes that
The popular Linux Mint operating system has decided to purge the snap package manager from its repositories and forbid installation of it. The motivation for this drastic move is that the upstream Ubuntu Linux distribution Linux Mint is based on will stealthily install snapd and use that to install Chromium from the Canonical-controlled SnapCraft instead of installing a regular Chromium package like most users expect.
The Linux Mint blog has this to say about Ubuntu's use of snap to use their chromium package to subvert apt:
You've as much empowerment with this as if you were using proprietary software, i.e. none. This is in effect similar to a commercial proprietary solution, but with two major differences: It runs as root, and it installs itself without asking you.
Is Ubuntu turning evil?
(Score: 4, Informative) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 09 2020, @06:34PM (20 children)
They use systemd, don't they?
I think that answers your question.
To avoid these issues and more, use Slackware or Gentoo.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by loonycyborg on Thursday July 09 2020, @07:52PM (4 children)
I'm using Gentoo with systemd atm :P
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday July 09 2020, @08:31PM (3 children)
You had a choice with gentoo, didn't you?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @08:38PM (2 children)
Of course: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Init_system [gentoo.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Thursday July 09 2020, @10:18PM (1 child)
That's OK. People who want systemd should be able to have it. People who don't shouldn't have it forced on them.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2020, @03:23PM
People who want systemd should be committed to an asylum for their own safety.
FTFY
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday July 09 2020, @08:02PM (6 children)
or better yet, FreeBSD
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 09 2020, @09:31PM (5 children)
Free/Net/Open
Too many choices!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Touché) by zoward on Thursday July 09 2020, @11:23PM (4 children)
You can never have too many choices.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheReaperD on Friday July 10 2020, @12:00AM (2 children)
Developers would strongly disagree! Too much variety in the code-base makes any compile environment absolute hell. It's one of the major reasons why Linux has always had a problem with wide stream adoption: Too many fucking forks!
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 10 2020, @12:59PM
Ironically, higher level languages don't care much about libc, and all three of the big BSDs OpenFreeNet all use the same BSD-libc, just like macos.
Also ironically there was SUPER heavy drama about a decade ago in Linux-Land about GNU libc and its numerous forks and competitors but that seems to have settled down over the last decade. I assume given where linux is headed, they'll soon be a mandatory systemd-libc to embrace extend and extinguish linux in general.
I would agree in theory that variety can make life exciting but for better or worse at least WRT compiled C there's not much variety right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2020, @03:01PM
> Too many fucking forks!
That also applies to the Dining Philosophers problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dining_philosophers_problem [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 10 2020, @03:16AM
But the coin only has two sides
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 09 2020, @08:38PM (3 children)
The Night of systemd! -- Coming Soon on VHS !
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @09:54PM (2 children)
So that would be a porno of Debian maintainers blowing Pottering then?
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Friday July 10 2020, @12:02AM (1 child)
With an elephant, a kazoo, and a tuning fork in Linus' office.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday July 11 2020, @02:52PM
I love the part where Poettering lets loose a gallon of wet diarrhea, with the kazoo squeaking and warbling while lodged in his asshole the whole time.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday July 09 2020, @11:57PM (3 children)
and Devuan [devuan.org] which is based on Debian sans systemd
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Friday July 10 2020, @02:34PM (2 children)
Also, MXLinux, I'm currently using that on my resurrected Laptop/Tablet that a friend gave me. It's "ancient", but it was able to fill some gaps when my wife's computer died. (Not actually ancient. I have at least one functional IBM Thinkpad A21m, now that's ancient. It's also the only device I have that has a functional 3.5" Floppy Drive.)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday July 11 2020, @01:07AM (1 child)
That's hardly ancient. I've got one of those kicking about too, though I haven't booted it in some time. It can boot from CD, has USB ports, and has built in networking. Ancient has none of those things.
I'd venture it'd probably run a current Linux distro like Slackware, though perhaps a bit sluggishly.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 13 2020, @03:49PM
'eh, over 20 years in the computer industry is ancient. At least at this point. I keep it around, because it's actually useful. I didn't keep any of the old 5 1/4" devices I had or any of my older desktops that had 3.5" floppy drives. They just weren't practical. I might even have a USB Floppy Drive somewhere, which I haven't used in over 10 years. It's infinitely better to fire up a Virtual Machine, use the all-in-one package of my old IBM Thinkpad, or use something even more powerful, like a Raspberry Pi. The VM is much more convenient and the Raspberry Pi is more practical while saving me $$ on electricity.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"