Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

Posted Jul 10, 2020 4:15 UTC (Fri) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222)
In reply to: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages by NYKevin
Parent article: Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

Snap packages are compressed, so I'm confused about how deduplication will help.

Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

Posted Jul 10, 2020 17:13 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (1 responses)

That depends on how the compression works (and whether the Snap people want it to be compatible with block deduplication).

- If you compress each library (or other major component) separately, and then concatenate them, the overall size is (probably) larger, but you can deduplicate effectively.
- If you compress the whole combination, then the overall size is smaller, but block deduplication is probably *less* effective. However, since most compression works by identifying repeated patterns of bytes, it is at least somewhat plausible that you can still do some deduplication anyway.
- If you compress at the block level, after deduplication, then you can have your cake and eat it too. But Snap (probably) doesn't do that.

Again: Theoretically solved doesn't mean practically solved.

Linux Mint drops Ubuntu Snap packages

Posted Jul 10, 2020 21:47 UTC (Fri) by simosx (guest, #24338) [Link]

Ubuntu is moving to using ZFS as the system filesystem.
At the moment you can install Ubuntu on ZFS as an experimental option, on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
The immediate benefit is the ability to add restore points.
In LXD, you can run containers and VMs from within the ZFS dataset, without the need to manage partitions.
There is a list of blog posts that explain how ZFS will be used in Ubuntu at https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/zfs-focus-on-ubuntu-20-04-...
I suppose that there will be some benefits in how snaps are being used.