raymac46 Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) Linux Mint 20 has snap packages disabled by default. Since Ubuntu is now installing Chromium as a snap (no apt) LM has decided not to offer Chromium in its repos. They provided some workarounds but as far as I can see they are not satisfactory. Of course you can always use Firefox, or install the Chrome .deb package. Or you can try Opera, which I am checking out now. If Chromium is a necessity, it's possible to just stick with LM 19 - which will be supported for the next 3 years. https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_ulyana_cinnamon.php Edited June 27, 2020 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) These are the types of things that irk me to the Nth degree in linux. So much for freedom of choice, eh? You can use any browser of your choice, except Chromium or Chrome; unless you can stand on one foot, hold the other perpendicular, pat your head, and rub your tummy in a counter-clockwise fashion, simultaneously, for 10 uninterrupted seconds. Edited June 27, 2020 by Hedon James 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 27, 2020 Author Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) Well you can use Chrome no problem. The issue is that Chromium cannot be installed from the Ubuntu repos via apt anymore. If you try then Ubuntu installs snapd and you have to do it that way. Mint has issues with snap packages so has disabled snap by default. You do have the choice of re-enabling snap in Mint and then you can snap install Chromium. This seems to me like a p!ss!ng contest between Mint and Ubuntu. The workarounds aren't satisfactory. If you try the PPA method you can't sync Chromium and get your bookmarks. If you try to apt pin and download from the Debian repos you end up in dependency h3ll. I guess all the more reason to stick with Debian. Edited June 27, 2020 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 27, 2020 Author Share Posted June 27, 2020 BTW I am still running LM 19 on my main desktop. I did NOT have Chromium installed there so I installed snapd and the Chromium snap package. It works like a charm. So you do have the choice if you are not repelled by the concept of snap packages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 27, 2020 Author Share Posted June 27, 2020 (edited) I watched a Youtube video where the presenter did get an APT pinned install of Chromium from Debian to work. I think I ended up with dependency problems because I was trying to install on LM 19 instead of LM 20. No matter. The snap pckage works just fine. Edited June 27, 2020 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'd try the apt-pinning approach first if it was me. Well, running Kubuntu 20.04, I did disable/purge all the snaps stuff, and I stopped using Chromium some years back. I haven't decided about continuing to run Kubuntu or anything Ubuntu-based in the future, but for me that decision can wait a few years. Maybe I'll warm up to snaps by then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 My reasons for installing Chromium: It's in the repos and convenient to install in most distros. This is handy if you are running a distro in a virtual machine. It works better than Chrome if you want to install Gnome Shell Extensions via a browser. It is FOSS and I find it cool to keep up with Chromium's development. That said, I don't find it any more unusual to use a snap than to use proprietary blobs or firmware. You gotta do what you gotta do. Do I think Canonical is being arrogant? Yes. Can I live with it? Yes. I use Chrome all the time and the grandkids need Chrome on their system to do their schoolwork. I am not crazy about Linux Mint's attitude either - but I think right now that is the best option for the kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Yeah, I liked Chromium. I didn't really want to use Chrome so I stuck with Chromium instead, for quite some time, then finally went back to Firefox. I don't understand why Chromium has to be snaps-only (for Ubuntu). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 Quote Clement Lefebvre (Linux Mint founder and project leader) has written that Snap is biased and has a conflict of interest. The reasons he cited include it being governed by Canonical and locked to their store, and also that Snap works better on Ubuntu than on other distributions...... LeFebvre, in the May 2020 edition of the Linux Mint Blog, announced that in Linux Mint 20, the next version of Mint, the APT software package management software would forbid installation of snapd.The decision resulted from Canonical's decision in 2019 to change the method for installing the Chromium web browser from APT to Snap. Instead, the Mint developers will instruct users how download and install Chromium themselves, without using Snap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)#Criticism Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wamukota Posted July 12, 2020 Share Posted July 12, 2020 I've been using Linux Mint since release 13 or so I think, but I jumped ship when Clem added de no Snaps directive. Not only do you not have Google as (default) search engine, now he bans Google browsers because Snaps do not seem to conform to his open-source religion. I know that by removing the pref-file /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref you can subsequently install snapd, but this is not how it should work in open-source. So after purging Linux Mint fromm y Linux boxes, I now run Leap 15.2 KDE on my desktop, and NeptuneOS on my main laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted July 13, 2020 Author Share Posted July 13, 2020 I continue to run Linux Mint on my Linux only desktop. The grandkids find it easy to use and it is a good opton for anyone coming from Windows. I had it on an older laptop as well, but personally I prefer the look, feel and performance of MX Linux on that machine so I changed over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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