Canonical questionably messing around with apt installations on Ubuntu

[Steltek]

Very interesting video. Makes me glad I don't directly use Ubuntu. And, though I use Linux Mint (based upon Ubuntu), Mint has apparently stripped out this "functionality".

Apparently, Canonical has replaced several packages with transitional stubs that load snaps instead of actually installing the software you intended to install. There are also "Ubuntu Pro" upsell advertisements now appearing in apt terminal window output and in automated logs, as well as advertisements in their "Message of the Day".

Definitely not cool, and makes me think Linux Mint's decision to maintain the LMDE distro in case Ubuntu ever goes away was a wise precaution.

 

[lxskllr]

I left the *buntus before a lot of this happened because I saw the writing on the wall. I'm not interested in picking a new "better" master. The best master is no master. Also, early ubuntu was debian setup the way I like without me having to set it up. As they got further away from that, it made less sense to tweak their stuff when I can just tweak debian, who is closer to me philosophically than ubuntu is.

Finally, I'm not interested in packaged formats of any kind, and especially not snap. I want everything curated by the distro, and installed through apt. I don't have any packaged formats installed, and only would consider them if the other choice was compiling myself.

 

[WelshBloke]

I was kinda planning on installing ubuntu 26.04 when it arrives and stripping out the snaps but this puts me off.
Going to have to look at the state of Debian trixie I guess, I really wanted Gnome 50 though!

 

[Steltek]

I was kinda planning on installing ubuntu 26.04 when it arrives and stripping out the snaps but this puts me off.
Going to have to look at the state of Debian trixie I guess, I really wanted Gnome 50 though!

The worst part is, there really is no need for pulling this garbage. Canonical is absolutely flush with cash, and even has gross margins of almost 90%.

It is my suspicion that Canonical is finally going to do the long rumored IPO and become a publicly traded company, which would explain why they need the extra money (i.e. they want to keep both earnings and gross margins as high as possible to maximize the IPO).

Once this happens, within a few years they will screw over their user base just like most of the other similar companies that have gone public have. Or, they'll be bought out and become a subsidiary like Red Hat.

 

[lxskllr]

I was kinda planning on installing ubuntu 26.04 when it arrives and stripping out the snaps but this puts me off.
Going to have to look at the state of Debian trixie I guess, I really wanted Gnome 50 though!

If you want to stay with a debian base, there's lots of distros that use it. I haven't been paying attention cause I'm happy where I am, but I'd be surprised if there isn't one you can get the latest gnome on.

 

[manly]

(I'll watch the video later.)
I'm currently running Ubuntu 24.04

I'm not a communist, and I'm fine with corps making profits to employ people.
Ubuntu Linux LTS is "free beer" with a generous 5 year support window, so I don't bother with the interim releases. "Ubuntu Pro" pushes that support up to 10 years. Consumers can even get a free license for up to 5 PCs.

However, I'm seeing something annoying in the available software updates. Instead of pushing updates through the standard repos, the "Software Updater" is steering me to Ubuntu Pro? Here are a few of the many packages only under "Ubuntu Pro security updates," and it's been like this for days already.

7zip
Emacs
(other Emacs packages)
Ffmpeg
Imagemagick

All of the updates are tagged ESM, so I guess they are "emergency" or out-of-band. OTOH I get to run unpatched indefinitely?? And funny enough, all of them show this in the UI:

The changelog does not contain any relevant changes.

I'm not a business, so I have no intention of signing up for Ubuntu Pro unless I ever arrive at a specific use case that requires it.

To be clear (without a screenshot), these specific updates are grayed out because I am NOT signed up for Ubuntu Pro. I have nothing against emergency updates, but shouldn't security updates hit the normal repos in a timely manner??

 

[Steltek]

(I'll watch the video later.)
I'm currently running Ubuntu 24.04

I'm not a communist, and I'm fine with corps making profits to employ people.
Ubuntu Linux LTS is "free beer" with a generous 5 year support window, so I don't bother with the interim releases. "Ubuntu Pro" pushes that support up to 10 years. Consumers can even get a free license for up to 5 PCs.

However, I'm seeing something annoying in the available software updates. Instead of pushing updates through the standard repos, the "Software Updater" is steering me to Ubuntu Pro? Here are a few of the many packages only under "Ubuntu Pro security updates," and it's been like this for days already.

7zip
Emacs
(other Emacs packages)
Ffmpeg
Imagemagick

All of the updates are tagged ESM, so I guess they are "emergency" or out-of-band. OTOH I get to run unpatched indefinitely?? And funny enough, all of them show this in the UI:


I'm not a business, so I have no intention of signing up for Ubuntu Pro unless I ever arrive at a specific use case that requires it.

To be clear (without a screenshot), these specific updates are grayed out because I am NOT signed up for Ubuntu Pro. I have nothing against emergency updates, but shouldn't security updates hit the normal repos in a timely manner??

You'll probably be most interested in the security section of that video. It appears there have been some significant security issues with Canonical's use of snaps, made worse by the fact that the server-side backend of their snap store is closed source with slow security response time. Further, Version 26.04 of Ubuntu is going to push snaps deeper into the OS core.

 

[WelshBloke]

If you want to stay with a debian base, there's lots of distros that use it. I haven't been paying attention cause I'm happy where I am, but I'd be surprised if there isn't one you can get the latest gnome on.

I'd rather stick with one of the "big" distros. I do like a Debian base but I might give Fedora a go!

 

[Zepp]

I was kinda planning on installing ubuntu 26.04 when it arrives and stripping out the snaps but this puts me off.
Going to have to look at the state of Debian trixie I guess, I really wanted Gnome 50 though!

are there features in particular in Gnome 50 you are looking forward to? the only things i've heard about 50 so far is a headline about them completely removing x11.
I'm still on and loving Gnome 43 😎

I'd rather stick with one of the "big" distros. I do like a Debian base but I might give Fedora a go!

the most cutting edge debian based distro is PikaOS, which I have tried in live usb and in VMs and it impressed me with it's polish and features. If I was to ever go rolling, it would be that distro. https://wiki.pika-os.com/en/home
I dont know if they have gnome 50 yet, but it will undoubtedly be the first debian to get it.

 

[WelshBloke]

Finally, I'm not interested in packaged formats of any kind, and especially not snap. I want everything curated by the distro, and installed through apt. I don't have any packaged formats installed, and only would consider them if the other choice was compiling myself.

I don't mind a flatpak for some things. I don't have to worry about how it's been packaged, there's one "store" that'll work across all distros. Its open source so it sticks with the general Linux philosophy.
They aren't perfect and sometimes they need extra access but it's nice not to be stuck because you need a .deb and there's only a .rpm available.

 

[WelshBloke]

are there features in particular in Gnome 50 you are looking forward to? the only things i've heard about 50 so far is a headline about them completely removing x11.
I'm still on and loving Gnome 43 😎

VRR and HDR not having experimental tags would be nice!

the most cutting edge debian based distro is PikaOS, which I have tried in live usb and in VMs and it impressed me with it's polish and features. If I was to ever go rolling, it would be that distro. https://wiki.pika-os.com/en/home
I dont know if they have gnome 50 yet, but it will undoubtedly be the first debian to get it.

I tend to stick with a distro when I find a comfortable one so I kinda want one of the big ones that will be around for awhile.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't mind a flatpak for some things. I don't have to worry about how it's been packaged, there's one "store" that'll work across all distros. Its open source so it sticks with the general Linux philosophy.
They aren't perfect and sometimes they need extra access but it's nice not to be stuck because you need a .deb and there's only a .rpm available.

That's where I see it as useful. Not in the repos, and only rpm, eh? Do I really need this specific program? No alternatives? I guess I do. Not sure I feel like compiling. I guess I'll tryout the flatpack and see how it goes.

 

[WelshBloke]

Why did Canonical push snaps when if they really wanted containers they could have supported the flathub?

 

[lxskllr]

Canonical has a long history of being sufferers of NIH syndrome. I don't know if it's as simple as them wanting to be their own special snowflake, or if it's a business decision, where they try to make the 'killer app' and create lock-in. The former is just dumb. The latter raises alarm bells for me. I wouldn't do a company wide deployment of software that's only available from a single vendor if I couldn't help it. That negates a lot of the benefit of libre software. Canonical may very well be a better master than MS, but that's in no way guaranteed, and may be too late(expensive) before you realize they aren't. Besides, having a master sucks. It makes everything worse.

 

[Steltek]

Canonical has a long history of being sufferers of NIH syndrome. I don't know if it's as simple as them wanting to be their own special snowflake, or if it's a business decision, where they try to make the 'killer app' and create lock-in. The former is just dumb. The latter raises alarm bells for me. I wouldn't do a company wide deployment of software that's only available from a single vendor if I couldn't help it. That negates a lot of the benefit of libre software. Canonical may very well be a better master than MS, but that's in no way guaranteed, and may be too late(expensive) before you realize they aren't. Besides, having a master sucks. It makes everything worse.

I agree.

And, while Canonical's snapd application that pulls the snaps is open source, the snap repositories that it pulls from on the backend are closed source proprietary software infrastructure.

As far as I am concerned, when an open source company makes the decision to start integrating closed-source backend infrastructure in their products, that doesn't bode well for the future of their user base. It says to me that someone is planning to make a lot of money from it, probably sooner rather than later. And, once the corporate bean counters are in charge, we all know what will happen.

 

[WelshBloke]

They do seem to be turning into the Microsoft lite version of Linux.

Admittedly no where near as bad but they seem to be facing at least in the same direction even if they haven't gone all the way down that road.

 

[mikeymikec]

(I'll watch the video later.)
I'm currently running Ubuntu 24.04

I'm not a communist, and I'm fine with corps making profits to employ people.
Ubuntu Linux LTS is "free beer" with a generous 5 year support window, so I don't bother with the interim releases. "Ubuntu Pro" pushes that support up to 10 years. Consumers can even get a free license for up to 5 PCs.

However, I'm seeing something annoying in the available software updates. Instead of pushing updates through the standard repos, the "Software Updater" is steering me to Ubuntu Pro? Here are a few of the many packages only under "Ubuntu Pro security updates," and it's been like this for days already.

7zip
Emacs
(other Emacs packages)
Ffmpeg
Imagemagick

All of the updates are tagged ESM, so I guess they are "emergency" or out-of-band. OTOH I get to run unpatched indefinitely?? And funny enough, all of them show this in the UI:


I'm not a business, so I have no intention of signing up for Ubuntu Pro unless I ever arrive at a specific use case that requires it.

To be clear (without a screenshot), these specific updates are grayed out because I am NOT signed up for Ubuntu Pro. I have nothing against emergency updates, but shouldn't security updates hit the normal repos in a timely manner??

I'm running Ubuntu Server on my server and saw ESM mentioned. I tried to read up about it and gave up, thinking: