Thunderbird goes from DEB to snap in Ubuntu 24.04

Fortunately Linux Mint will continue to package it as a deb.

they even purposely disable snaps by default.

April Fools?

If only. It’d be a real April fool’s if Canonical announced they were abandoning snap and throwing their supory behind flatpak.
- Haven't you heard the news?
- Apt. Its fucking apt. Always has been. Always will be.
One could only wish

This thread is full of wonderful workarounds. It reads just like windows forums.

Just stop using canonicals crap.

sudo snap remove thunderbird --purge

sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd && sudo apt-mark hold snapd
- sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
  You’re better off with any other distro
Oh snap
apt install thunderbird

If you really want everything to go on flatpak why not just use Debian + GNOME? No bullshit and you'll be able to have flathub inside the GNOME software "store".
Boy am I glad I put my dad on Mint.
If you want flatpak only look at vanilla os
- Literally the opposite of what they wanted.

Install Flatpak and the gnome plugin and be done with Snap.

the ppa for 24.04 is live and you can still deb version of the app on it. by type: cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref
To prevent repository packages from triggering the installation of Snap,
this file forbids snapd from being installed by APT.
For more information: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html
Package: snapd Pin: release a=* Pin-Priority: -10 EOF Change the /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla Package: * Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org Pin-Priority: 1000
Package: Thunderbird* Pin: release o=Ubuntu Pin-Priority: -1
you can grab the ppa and no more snap

Then I'll be on the last deb until it no longer works. I'm not going down the proprietary snap route.

Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE all offer excellent alternatives depending on your reasons for staying.
- I am on Debian and Pop. However, if they're dropping the deb distribution, what does that mean for the non Ubuntu folk? Maybe I've misunderstood it all?

Who cares?

Ubuntu is a shell of what it once was. They're not going to make Snap optional, they need to justify its existence by releasing everything as snaps with no alternative so you have to use it.

Or, just use Debian if you like Debian-style distros?

Or, wait for it - this is gonna sound a bit radical but hear me out - give Fedora a try? Flatpak instead and unlike Debian Stable has packages from this century

Inb4 btw I use Arch

like Debian Stable has packages from this century
You can set up Debian 12 to use Flatpak. I use it and it works well.
- Yes, you can sideload apps from this century into Debian and run them in an isolated environment with dependencies also from this century :)
  Tbh I'm surprised that the Debian kernel is new enough to support cgroups /s

Everything is going to snap in Ubuntu. It's why I don't use it 🤷
It even recently made my life very difficult because something I did recently only worked on chromium non-snap, but ubuntu provides no easy way to use the non-snap version. Most frustrating experience on that distro ever. Unfortunately, it can't be replaced as it's on a relative's computer...

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I run Ubuntu on my home servers, simply because I always used it, resources and help are plentiful and it's well documented. I thought.
Took me a while to realize that after moving to a new machine and upgrading to 22.04 docker was installed as a fucking snap and a bunch of my apps didn't work because of that. I got it all running now, but every VM and LXC I'll install going forward will be running Debian instead. Fuck this annoying shit.
Edit: Or I might try out Mint Mate, since it's what I know best (aka Ubuntu) without snaps. What would you guys recommend for a basic homelab?
- You could go for the best of both worlds and use Mint LMDE (Debian Edition). But if only using it as a server, plain Debian should be all you need.
you can still use chromium no snap https://askubuntu.com/questions/1386738/how-to-install-chromium-from-the-linux-mint-repositories-in-ubuntu
- Yeah, I was sitting next to the laptop's owner who was in a hurry and already huffing and puffing. Didn't want to mess up their system by pinning stuff and installing certs or running into issues with "repository not found" issues. In the end, switching to another computer was much faster.
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Ugh had a similar experience at work related to the chromium package. In our case it had to do with the arm64 build of chromium in an environment that can't run snaps (docker), so we were pretty much entirely without a solution.

It can then go from a snap to a superior flatpak real quick.

Thunderbird on Flathub is already an official package.
You mean apt?

Serious question, genuinely curious; Beyond more recent package versions, why do people choose Ubuntu over plain Debian? Debian has been exceptionally stable for me, pushes no proprietary BS, and is as easy to intall and setup as any other distro I've used. Plus, for the average computer user, all the packages are recent enough that things should work as expected.

Because it looks nicer and has more polish for desktop. Silent grub, for example.
- I think looking nicer is very subjectve. I personally prefer default Gnome over Ubuntu's tweaks. However silent grub makes complete sense. Word vomit every boot does look very hack-ish if you arent used to it.
because I googled what distro to use and ubuntu was the one I picked randomly and I can't be fucked to change it
I assume I am a prototypical user in that regard.
I tried Debian recently (with Cinnamon, since I don't like Gnome), but I found it was lacking some polish and niceties that I get from Linux Mint. I do use LMDE instead of the Ubuntu base though.
- Totally understandable, QOL and creature comforts are important. To be fair, I'm personally the type of user who prefers a spartan system that I can then tailor to my needs, rather than lots of features OOTB. To each their own I suppose.
Because it installs proprietary goodies that make the laptop more functional
- My response to that is
  Not Anymore
  In the sense that woth Debian 12, proprietary drivers are included OOTB, so at this point, even that is no longer an argument against Debian.
The same reason people buy the cereal their grocer places at eye-level, and buy their cars from the stealer: marketing

HA HA, THIS FUCKING SUCKS 😭

Mint 22 is set to include the Thunderbird DEB package...

Any app that can be sandboxed, should. Especially apps that are parsing random data from the internet.
- I stand corrected. All programs should have access to anything, anywhere, and be linked to liblzma just in case if some arbitrary file is compressed. Thank you for setting me straight.

Surprised no one.

They got paid by canonical or something?

Just use Betterbird?

Betterbird is the solution. It just works and the system tray icon is a welcome addition. No more needing to use Birdtray for that.

Initially I followed this route to avoid Snap version provided by Ubuntu.

Later I just downloaded Tar package from Mozilla, and update it manually.

In short, I just abandoned deb/snap/flatpak altogether.

To prevent repository packages from triggering the installation of Snap,

this file forbids snapd from being installed by APT.

For more information: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html