Re: [PLUG] Firefox on snap

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2022 at 02:40:31PM -0400, JP Vossen via plug wrote:
> On 5/28/22 14:33, JP Vossen wrote:
> > On 5/25/22 19:06, Walt Mankowski via plug wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 20, 2022, at 11:01 AM, Walt Mankowski wrote:
> > > > This is exactly what I was worried about with having Firefox on snap on
> > > > Ubuntu 22.04:
> > ...
> > 
> > More discussion: https://ubuntu.com//blog/how-are-we-improving-firefox-snap-performance-part-1
> 
> And:
> * https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/05/ubuntu-making-firefox-snap-app-faster
> * https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04

Thanks. Startup time seems an odd thing to concentrate their
development time on. I don't restart Firefox all that often for it to
be an issue. I usually start Firefox, Slack, and Discord shortly after
I reboot. Firefox starts so fast compared to the other two that I
never even noticed that it might be an issue!

> Yet:
> * https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/ubuntu-wont-support-flatpak-anytime-soon [1]
> * But you can still: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/how-to-install-flatpak-on-ubuntu
> 
> [1] Interestingly: "...while Snaps may be popular with an enormous number developers there is, to my eyes, a gulf growing between the kinds of apps available on each respective store. Commercial, proprietary and Electron-based software seems to favour Canonical’s Snap Store, but open source software developed in native toolkits seems more drawn to the experiences offered by Flatpak and Flathub. ..."

I don't have any strong opinions about snap vs flatpack. Mostly I want
to understand how they work as a user.

That said, it appears what I posted earlier in this thread about the
firefox snap was incorrect. The latest/stable channel of firefox was updated
on May 31, and was installed under my ~/snapd on June 1. Now `snap changes`
says there are no updates:

20220605-16:57:29 waltman@scruffy:/snap% snap changes   
no changes found

But `snap info firefox` says that the latest/edge channel was updated
today!

20220605-16:57:54 waltman@scruffy:/snap% snap info firefox
name:      firefox
summary:   Mozilla Firefox web browser
publisher: Mozilla✓
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/firefox
contact:   https://support.mozilla.org/kb/file-bug-report-or-feature-request-mozilla
license:   unset
description: |
  Firefox is a powerful, extensible web browser with support for modern web application
  technologies.
commands:
  - firefox
  - firefox.geckodriver
snap-id:      3wdHCAVyZEmYsCMFDE9qt92UV8rC8Wdk
tracking:     latest/stable/ubuntu-22.04
refresh-date: 4 days ago, at 10:41 EDT
channels:
  latest/stable:    101.0-2      2022-05-31 (1406) 170MB -
  latest/candidate: 101.0-2      2022-05-29 (1406) 170MB -
  latest/beta:      102.0b3-1    2022-06-03 (1422) 169MB -
  latest/edge:      103.0a1      2022-06-05 (1430) 179MB -   <=========
  esr/stable:       91.10.0esr-1 2022-05-31 (1391) 161MB -
  esr/candidate:    91.10.0esr-1 2022-05-23 (1391) 161MB -
  esr/beta:         ↑                                    
  esr/edge:         ↑                                    
installed:          101.0-2                 (1406) 170MB -
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug