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Shuttleworth Says Snappy Won't Replace .deb Linux Package Files In Ubuntu 15.10
darthcamaro writes: Mark Shuttleworth, BDFL of Ubuntu is clearing the air about how Ubuntu will make use of .deb packages even in an era where it is moving to its own Snappy ('snaps') format of rapid updates. Fundamentally it's a chicken and egg issue. From the serverwatch article: "'We build Snappy out of the built deb, so we can't build Snappy unless we first build the deb,' Shuttleworth said. Going forward, Shuttleworth said that Ubuntu users will still get access to an archive of .deb packages. That said, for users of a Snappy Ubuntu-based system, the apt-get command no longer applies. However, Shuttleworth explained that on a Snappy-based system there will be a container that contains all the deb packages. 'The nice thing about Snappy is that it's completely worry-free updates,' Shuttleworth said."
Will Launchpad build the snaps after it builds the debs?
The great thing about .deb packages was that the OFFICIAL ones underwent a lot of testing to try to catch problems BEFORE they were deployed. NOT because they were magical .deb packages.
I think they are still standing on Debian's shoulders here, and their Snap files are being automatically created from based on the .debs. The main feature of a Snap file is it combines all the libraries in a single archive. All the dependencies, everything. It installs them locally, not for the whole system, kind of like an .app file on OSX.
If that seems like it would take a lot of disk space, Ubuntu is hoping disk deduplication will take care of that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
All the dependencies, everything. It installs them locally, not for the whole system, kind of like an .app file on OSX.
So.. they install things in Linux containers (or namespaces) and then call it "snappy"? So why not just link everything statically?
Anyway, I don't get it. You can do that already. but you still need to get those apps to communicate with outside world, which means leaky containers at best.
Furthermore, in case of heartbleed, it would mean EVERY single application that uses OpenSSL would have to get rebuilt instead of just getting fixed library and rebooting.
You are right, but I don't know the answers to those questions.
I think there is definitely room in the Linux world for a self-contained App container. I don't think it's a good idea to make every package in your package management system self-contained, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As others have already pointer out, you are wrong for assuming this is like systemd, so I won't further beat that horse.
However I think it's foolish for Shuttleworth to go down this path. It's inevitable that systemd will start to require that it get's it's hooks into package management. Long story short, the way fixes are applies to systems is fundamentally broken. Whether it's because someone can't find a way to tell what needs to be restarted or can't impose a way to restart all services without down time or can't find a way to apply changes to all containers or whatever half thought out problem is the excuse, it's broken. And the only fix will be to bundle it into the logic of systemd. Amongst other things, a package format will need to be mandated because supporting multiple formats is stupid or hard or out-of-scope ... you name it.
No one has been able to oppse the systemd maintainers except the kernel developers when it comes users space interfaces. Canonical hasn't been able to stand its ground against these developers in the past. I doubt they will in the future either. Shuttleworth is creating another failure.
I'm not sure it's "the community" that's to blame as much as certain large entities in the community (*cough* Red Hat *cough*).
First, about systemd. Exactly what "problems" has it caused the users? On a normal distro, it runs in the background and should be transparent. sysvinit was ancient, and not even Solaris (the last true UNIX) uses it, it switched to SMF ages ago. All the anti-systemd hysteria I've seen has only been about vague possibilities, or whining about "the one true UNIX philosophy" (which again, apparently real UNIX doesn't even follow), etc. Whereas the systemd supporters can actually point to real, tangible benefits. Now admittedly, at home I'm a longtime user of Linux Mint which still runs on upstart for the moment, but I've been using CentOS 7 machines at work and I haven't run into any problems there (except for fucking Gnome3, more on that later). systemd seems to me to work just fine.
However, with Gnome3 and Unity, you're exactly right. The two most powerful and influential distros (Fedora/RHEL and Ubuntu) both changed to awful DEs, which certainly can't be attractive to new users who aren't looking for something that's a complete sea-change from the UIs they're used to. By all rights, KDE should be the default DE: it's reasonably fast, it's pretty bug-free at this point (compared to Gnome3, which is full of bugs in my personal experience with CentOS7), it's full-featured, it's highly configurable to do whatever you want, whether you want it to be more like Windows or like MacOS, and it's a familiar paradigm. Yes, the "semantic desktop" stuff is useless, but it's actually turned off by default on many distros now I believe, and if not, it's easy to disable and simply ignore--I do. So why Linux distros are pushing minimalistic DEs, I dunno. But I'm certainly not the only one who doesn't like them: there's a reason Mint has become so popular, and so many people have switched to Cinnamon and MATE.
Honestly, the big misstep that started most of this crap was the founding of GNOME back in the late 90s, due to the licensing issue with Qt. They should have abandoned Gnome when Qt finally was released under the GPL, then we wouldn't have these issues now.
"The nice thing about Snappy is that it's completely worry-free updates"
Any time anyone says something is "completely worry-free", that's your cue to worry. Ask me how I know.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
"KDE should be the default DE for everyone because I like it more"
No, it should be the default because it's highly configurable. Any distro can easily make a preferred configuration instead of making an all-new DE. Obviously, a lot of people hated Gnome3, which is exactly why both MATE and Cinnamon were created. I think it would have been easier if they had put that effort into re-skinning KDE.
"Software should have never been created, because having more choice in FOSS software is somehow bad for the Linux ecosystem."
Choice is fine, but there is a shortage of development resources, so it makes more sense to cooperate when possible.
Maybe you should actually read what he wrote before jumping on the hate bandwagon. He's absolutely right that for many years and applications traditional package systems fall down. That's not to say they aren't important. They are and will continue to be. But they have their limitations when it comes to fast moving software like libre office on a nice stable slow moving distro like the lts releases of Linux distros.
As a matter of fact docker is really one attempt to solve this problem. Coreos is based on this idea. Chromeos also eschews packages entirely. Now snappy.
And as experimental distros like snappy try things, new utilities will have to be created to manage the images. This is what Poettering is talking about. In the meantime you're free to not use any of this. It's just a bunch of ideas, many of which happen to be really good, and natural extensions of the traditional package model. It's exciting stuff.
Can someone explain to me why an article on a serious change in Ubuntu that has zilch to do with systemd has been hijacked by the systemdaphobes?
Unlike systemd, this change actually appears to have significant negative repercussions, not "I'm not actually an old system admin but I pretend to be on Slashdot because I hated pulseaudio and by god I'm not going to let the author of that replace a crusty, unreliable, set of shell scripts and get away with it" type "trying to find excuses to bash it" type stuff, as we see with systemd, but real concerns about cross-distro compatibility, and change-for-change's sake.
So it'd be nice to have a discussion about it.
These seems to be a theme on Slashdot lately. People want to hijack barely related threads to discuss something that makes them hot under the collar. And, perhaps not surprisingly given the mentality needed to hijack unrelated discussions, it seems that the views they express are generally trollish and slimy.
Can you let us discuss Snappy? Please? It sounds like it has serious ramifications to me. Tell you what, if you STFU, I won't troll - and encourage other Ubuntu users to troll - the next systemd article. Deal?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.