The devs of snap are totally nuts. They don't even allow you to disable updates and just update your snaps manually, that's Microsoft way of doing things and people who uses Linux is because they don't want their system to work like Windows. Are you listening to us, snap devs? will you put a damn switch to disable updates ONCE AND FOR ALL? do not come with more and more excuses that you want to educate the users and bla bla, LET THE USER CHOOSE.

It totally malicious way of deb packaging https://robbinespu.gitlab.i... , like the author said eww!

What perversity of human nature leads to the corruption of the pristine Unix environment handed down from the Elders (Bell, ATT) by transforming Linux into a kudzu writhing pile of unwanted automatic software like Microsoft "operating systems?" Is it the same streak that makes a tourist deface the Colosseum, the need of a fool to declare "I exist (pointless though that is)?" I tried to boot a new Dell Precision 3551 with Ubuntu 20 the other day and had to hold down the power button (thank God that still functions rationally) to force it to turn off 5 minutes later, thanks to the crapware pre-boot snap garbage. I see articles now popping up online (2023 Sept) on how to remove or disable snap on Ubuntu, so maybe there is some dim light ahead. If you want updates, notify the user concisely on occasion and give him the option of when and if to do that.

Even Microsoft lets you disable automatic updates for windows store apps, and manually update them as you wish. Windows update can be permanantly disabled by running the command "sc config wuauserv start=disabled" and rebooting. Canonical is worse than Microsoft at this point.

Errr no?

Windows Update isn't the only one service you need to disable, or it will activate itself after some time. You also need to disable waasmedicsvc, which is the one in charge of reactivating Windows Update in case you disable it.

But that was not the point, the point is that you can't choose to download the updates MANUALLY. I don't want to put them to sleep by disabling Windows Update, I just want to select what I want to download. And Snaps are not working like that, or you disable the updates by forcefully blocking them or you allow them to update whenever they please, exactly as Microsoft does with Windows 10. Remember, the key word is "manually".

If you want to prevent snap "sneaking" back to the system you can do the following: sudo apt-mark hold snapd

source: https://askubuntu.com/a/111...

gnome-3-34-1804
isn't it gnome ? is it safe to remove the "desktop environment" ?

I've removed all snaps including those, uninstalled snapd, restarted, and I still have my desktop environment. :)

Curious about this too. Anybody know what happens when you snap remove those?

I could be wrong but I believe this is the desktop styling support for the given desktop which snap apps use to look native. This isn't uninstalling the desktop. Just the desktop style support. Ambiguous naming isn't particularly helpful. Again that's my limited understanding of it.

You'll see similar behavior from flatpaks. Install almost any app and you'll end up with a desktop support package that the app author has called for. Flatpak Telegram always calls for KDE stylings and a subsequent install of the KDE package. There are commands in both snap and flatpak you can use to change which stylings and style properties a given app uses.

Thanks for the Article!

Ubuntu is more and more like Windows: you have to take out trash even on a fresh install. "Features" are forced upon you..

Totally agree, which is why I generally BSD over linux. Focus on your job, not whatever hoops distro-of-the-week stuffs in your face.
Ubuntu is filling a specific need for me right now, and I will put up with this, but it would be much nicer to skip out entirely on snap (and systemd).

Kudus, of course, to Kevin C for the article on disabling.

The easiest way is just not choose Ubuntu at the first place, but f.ex. Linux Mint (like Ubuntu but without this snapd crap).

Just did this again on a laptop that has been upgraded several times from IIRC 18.04 through to 20.04. There were a few more snap packages (older versions of gnome stuff mostly) but one called "core" (not "core18") that I could not remove because "the model depends on it".

Anyway, I ignored that eventually and followed the rest of the instructions... and all seems well.

Also,
I realize that I forgot to say a great big THANK YOU to Kevin for the
article and the well-thought-out and gentle commentary.

Just followed this recipe on Ubuntu 21.04 and it seems to work well.

I did not see any snap mount like /snap nor /var/snap, but there was this line showed by mount:

tmpfs on /run/snapd/ns type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=3288596k,mode=755,inode64)

The mount itself went away after apt purge, but the directory remains behind, containing only a lock file. I may delete it going forward.

Thanks this looks very useful. I have not been through this process myself but plan to when 21.04 is released as I find snap a real pain (slow startup, sandboxed apps being overly restricted with permissions etc). One thing that occurs to me is that snapd could be installed automatically as a dependency by apt whilst installing a new package. Possible solution appears to be to blacklist snapd with apt-mark: sudo apt-mark hold snapd. Again, haven't tried this myself but seems promising...

in U20.04 and this too :

sudo umount /run/snap/ns

sudo systemctl disable snapd.service
sudo systemctl disable snapd.socket
sudo systemctl disable snapd.seeded.service
sudo systemctl disable snapd.autoimport.service
sudo systemctl disable snapd.apparmor.service

sudo rm -rf /etc/apparmor.d/usr.lib.snapd.snap-confine.real

sudo systemctl start apparmor.service

Just wanted to thank you good sir, you are a rockstar :)

I know it's (too) late. What about the Livepatch? It seems it can exist only along with snap. Is uninstalling livepatch recommended? There may be few other client apps too, I guess - like telegram-desktop, for instance; but, they may be trivial compared to livepatch.

flatpak? ewww, no snap no flatpk, really flatpak just as insecure and shady as snapd

Many thanks to Kevin for this article. IMHO the entire idea of snaps is bogus. Users could always add PPAs, etc, to get the things they want directly from the developer, and on their schedule/terms. The misbegotten belief that dumbing down updates to the equivalent of Windoze is just plain bad! I just spent 2 hours trying to figure out why an Eclipse/Pydev setup that worked fine last week was completely broken this. The answer: snaps. Somehow the eclipse snap pushed aside the installation I was controlling, and this week it all just broke. So wrong I can't count the ways. Snaps shouldn't be part of the default Ubuntu installation, as they still (as in my case) pull in outdated distributions that aren't of any benefit, and worse. Any attempt to install snapd, et al, should come with a hefty warning that it can/will conflict with a classically managed setup using synaptic, etc. Totally agree with nobitakun - and I up the ante to disable snaps altogether.

`sudo apt install plasma-discover plasma-discover-backend-flatpak plasma-discover-backend-fwupd breeze-icon-theme`
-- An unsnaped alternative to gnome-software 3.36.1-0ubuntu0.20.04.0

You may need to clear the `.config/flatpak` cache if you uninstall gnome-software/ubuntu-software

How to stop auto update of snap applications?

Thanks for this article. The Snap business is a disaster for me but I have too much work riding on my current machine to fool with system stuff in midstream. Yet another disimprovement by hackers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Snaps have two other huge problems that I haven't seen mentioned in a few online rants:

1) snap updates the running application, then it SIGTRAPs (chromium at least). Apparently a known problem since 2016 (?)

2) In Ubuntu 20.04, the chromium-browser apt package installs some files AND the snap, then says it's "safe to remove" the package. But doing so removes the files... confusing, unwanted, complexity.

Here are some more purge recommendations, versions are not updated (search out the relevant ones for your modern system): rmpkg mlocate
## no need for printer support, its buggy and a security vulnerability.
rmpkg cups
## Or, if something needs mlocate, it stop it from updating its database everyday.
## sudo chmod -x /etc/cron.daily/mlocate
rmpkg whoopsie
rmpkg whoopsie-preferences
rmpkg libwhoopsie0:amd64
rmpkg libwhoopsie-preferences0
## and make sure there is no more whoopsie
dpkg -l | grep whoop
rmpkg rhythmbox
rmpkg rhythmbox-plugins
rmpkg rhythmbox-plugin-zeitgeist
rmpkg librhythmbox-core9:amd64
rmpkg rhythmbox-data
rmpkg zeitgeist-datahub
rmpkg python-zeitgeist
rmpkg zeitgeist-core
rmpkg libzeitgeist-1.0-1:amd64
rmpkg libzeitgeist-2.0-0:amd64

what is happening to distros ?
ubuntu with snappy, cent no longer LTE.

had to reinstall home server, and after some consideration gone from ubuntu to debian

in all seriousness, freebsd.

it does not get in your way. the interfaces stay the same while the backend improves. it lets you focus on your application and/or services. if you do not want to jump thru hoops and instead want to focus on your task, this is the way.

same switched to debian due to same reason

or Ubuntu with unity?... or Ubuntu with upstart?... They just are trying to solve problems that no one has, and introducing new ones in the process.

I read the article. If I was forced to use Ubuntu at work I would have done this for sure. `snap list` takes 50 seconds real. Back to MX Linux with me.

Thank you. After removing the snap which was causing significant system slowdowns, my system performance and disk performance have returned to normal levels.

My 20.04 system was an upgrade from 18.04 and therefore I did not need to perform the steps called out by Quato below.

Thank you - had just migrated from MPD proper to Mopidy, and Mopidy-MPD. All was good... then unresponsiveness. The snapd process was eating up CPU, and no snaps installed other than what snapd itself "needs". All good now, thanks to your well-documented steps!

Yes, thanks for this, especially the tip on the chromium package! I agree totally with John Snow in the comments. My own personal customization list for new Ubuntu desktops and servers changes with every release, but never fails to grow longer. I realize some of that is just the Unix greybeard in me, but the points Kevin makes above about the current issues with snap vs flatpak are, so far, spot on. Back in the day there was a book (later a web site) entitled _Windows Annoyances_ . Maybe it's time for someone to set up an _Ubuntu Annoyances_ .