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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Is it me or Ubuntu secretly replaces DEB Firefox with Snap Firefox? (lemm.ee)

submitted 9 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After creating a fresh installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I installed DEB Firefox from APT by following Mozilla's instructions from here. But I noticed that it was secretly replaced with Snap Firefox. I was able to verify this by checking the About Firefox page. This is the third time I noticed this.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Not secretly, no.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

But it's not obvious either. When I say 'apt install firefox', specially after adding their repository to sources.list, I'd expect to get a .deb from mozilla. Silently overriding my commands rubs me in a very wrong way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

It takes a little more than just adding a different repository to your package manager, you have to tell apt which to prefer:

echo '
Package: *
Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org
Pin-Priority: 1000

Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=Ubuntu
Pin-Priority: -1' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Since when this became a known thing? I'm aware that the snap version is installed when the user is trying to install the deb version of Firefox by running,

sudo apt install firefox

But I never heard that the installed DEB version of Firefox is replaced by Snap version of Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The deb version is a pointer to the snap in their repos. Nothings being replaced, it no longer exists. The deb version of Firefox in Ubuntu repos is a wrapper that installs snap and has no binaries in it. Has been for 3 years or so.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

It's more than that. Ubuntu copies the Debian repos and then applies their own changes on top. Debian has a native (DEB) Firefox package, so Ubuntu specifically has to remove it for every new version.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

At least a few years. I switched to Linux a year ago and that was a huge consideration for me when choosing Debian over Ubuntu.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Well then you haven't been following it closely. As someone else said, the reason is simple: the Snap version is more recent (like it or not) and in Ubuntu apt is configured to take into account Snap packages.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Canonical added an epoch prefix to the firefox version number. Because that epoch (1) is higher than the implicit default (0), the official ubuntu dummy package is always considered to be a higher version than the official Mozilla package. apt doesn't look at snap packages, it installs the deb, but the ubuntu deb just runs snap install firefox and basically nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago

Exactly. Enough with the inane conspiracism.