Explaining in detail why snap is garbage is a bit of a task, but here are some of the reasons:
Pending update. Please restart.
is a common message you’ll see when using snaps.
Somehow, snaps can’t be updated during running.
Also, if you close the application which should be updated, you have to update the application manually.firefox
snap for PWA
offline support, because the apps can’t be installed by snaps themselves./snap/
, which bump the output of tools like df
and mount -l
by a lot.Some other reasons are given in this article: Recent snap experience is absolutely disappointing
First, remove all snap packages and the remove the snapd package itself:
snap list
snap remove <package>
sudo apt remove --purge --assume-yes snapd gnome-software-plugin-snap
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/
rm -rf ~/snap/ # if everything is working fine, you can remove this
If you use Firefox, use about:profiles
to find the profile directory, which should be
in ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/
and save the profile.
You can then decide if you want to use the deb package or the flatpak
package.
Then, install flatpak like this:
sudo apt install flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak # for gnome users
sudo apt install flatpak # for non-gnome users
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
If you want to use the flatpak version of Firefox, you can install it with:
flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox
flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox
Again, use about:profiles
to find the profile directory, which should be
in ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/
and copy the profile into it.
Use the snap store to install various apps, it is very easy and fun to use. Gnome users can use the gnome software center to install flatpak apps.
A very important app is Flatseal, which allows you to configure the sandboxing of flatpak apps.
flatpak install flathub com.github.tchx84.Flatseal
flatpak run com.github.tchx84.Flatseal
This app was extremely helpful for me for using the PWA functionality of Chrome.