Re: Shocking speed difference, Ubuntu vs. Linux Mint, Snap vs. Flatpak

On 2025-03-18, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-03-18 12:58, rbowman wrote:

On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:33:50 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:
 

Having discovered that Ubuntu intends to replace the GNU utilities with
Rust equivalents which may or may not work as well in the coming months,
I switched over to Linux Mint 22.1 from Ubuntu 24.04 on this old Macbook
Air 2017. Not only does it bundle the necessary, proprietary wireless
drivers allowing for a smooth install unlike Ubuntu, but Linux Mint runs
a _lot_ faster under Cinnamon than Ubuntu's implementation of GNOME. I
imagine that most of it is due to the use of Snap. For example,
LibreOffice went from taking about ten seconds to load (on a cold start)
to one or two.

 
I don't have a Macbook or a Cinnamon installation but LibreOffice Writer
comes up in less than 2 seconds on my Ubuntu box. Also, it is not a snap.

>
The fact that it isn't a Snap is probably the reason. My experience with
Snap has always been that it takes time to load the first time around,
but that it is fast every other time. However, I've never run Ubuntu on
as slow a laptop as this one is. On this machine, using Snap is
masochism. Ubuntu itself is also not as fast as you would expect a Linux
distribution which also caters to older machines would be.

I'm guessing there's a good chance that it has something to do with the Snap
overhead, and maybe Wayland.

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien