Snaps, flatpaks, docker etc… are small compressed applications that come with all the dependencies to run in a container. Their advantage is that they can run without installing all the extra dependencies on the host installation. They often suffer from random bugs such as permission errors. Along with many having questionable possibly malicious sources. The Ubuntu devs have went all in on them. Many people enable flatpak on mint to get some application that isn’t included by the package manager. What I was trying to convey is that these differences and the arguments they enable are kinda like watching two old farts at a coffee shop arguing over whether a Ford or a Chevy truck is better. In the end snaps and flatpak have some utility but are often a sore subject for some.

What matters is if you get what you want. For instance on Ubuntu you can install steam as a snap or install the actual application. Both work fairly well. You will be able to play most games by using steam and proton or by using other helper apps to install your games. The names of these are winetricks, lutris or playonlinux. Asking which one is best will often trigger arguments similar to asking what distro is the best.

I personally slowly eliminate snaps from my Ubuntu installations by compiling the applications myself. Not everyone enjoys doing that kind of thing. No matter what you choose you can usually get it working. With Ubuntu you will have quite a bit more support in the form of posted solutions and walk throughs but distros like mint are catching up a bit.

But not so angry they are going to do something french about it.

I will probably get a lot of hate from this but Ubuntu is simply more mature than mint. I’ve used mint and it works. The main gripe with Ubuntu is its use of snaps for many applications. They are not ideal but they do work. The main problems you may run into with snaps is the same problems you will run into with flatpak, appimage or docker.

Its a little more complicated to get persistence but my current main boot flash drive I carry with me daily is a 128gb thumb drive running ventoy. Ventoy is great because all you need to add a iso to the thumb drive is simply copy the iso over to it. Getting persistence is a little more complicated but the ventoy installer has a web gui that makes it easier. The ventoy installer is available for windows and linux. https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html

On my bootable flash drive I have Debian, Ubuntu, Mint , kali, tails and even a arch installation with persistence. I also have several other utility iso’s including hirens_PE. I have installers for windows as well. I mainly use the linux installations for rescue and diagnostics on windows PC’s. I have however ran machines with no hard drive at all for weeks at a time without any problems at all.

So using rufus to make a bootable thumb drive is okay for a single OS with persistence but you can use ventoy and test several distros to find what you prefer.

Don’t listen to people who mock you for asking a question. They are never the people whose advice is worth listening too. Start small. Get 8gb or bigger thumb drive. You can even use an external SSD. USB C would be the best. Follow the guide below or find a guide of your own. Start with Ubuntu. It isn’t perfect but it is the most popular distro out there. Be aware this installation is going to be laggy due to it being on a slower thumb drive. This will allow you to see that it just works. Games might be slower loading due to the thumb drive. I use steam daily and only have seen a few games I couldn’t play. Everyone was due to the ham-fisted drm the games had implemented.

https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-persistent-live-usb/

Alternatively you can install a second hard drive in a PC and use both safely without fear of problems. I’ve been running linux as my daily driver for over ten years. I still have a windows installation that I can boot into if needed. Usually for firmware updates that only can be performed in windows. Currently I haven’t needed it in over a year.

That is the problem with the impending disaster. All the people who could do something about it wont be here when it arrives. Its not like they care about their children. I’ve discovered to care about your childrens fate is a rare thing in people 60 and above. Most of them had it too easy. Being born and raised in a golden age.

Regressives only give to people selectively. The statement above reminds me of the Sikh family that moved to my hometown in the early 80’s when I was a kid. They came to take over a gas station that one of their family members had recently bought. They were the only sikh in town. All kinds of names thrown at them like towel heads, sand n*****r and so on. A unofficial but damn near complete boycott of the gas station commenced. Their kids were treated like shit at school by nearly everyone bar the Catholics who were mostly Hispanic. I was eye witness to that part. The station was not making enough money and rather than ask their family for help they finally reached out for help feeding their kids to a local food bank that was christian in everything but name but were rejected. They however stuck it out and finally after thirty years or so sold it to a regressive couple who promptly ran it into the ground after embezzling lottery money.

The only family from India who owned both motels were treated fairly well, to their face at least.

So go on tell me how giving regressives are.

Don’t forget helping the poor bad. I’m pretty sure they hate the poor more than any other category. They don’t help the poor, just like american jesus intended.

Ben the perv assuming everyone else is a perv as well.

Sycophants gonna sycophant.

Forty dollars for what cost 25 just six years ago. Same fucking meals now with added price gouging way in excess of inflation. To top it off they didn’t fill the drinks to the top and only gave us two arbys sauce and one horsey sauce. I haven’t been back in six months and wont be back. It just isn’t worth it when you can get the ingredients for way less.

It hasn’t stopped preachers from raping kids even though the ten commandments are in churches.

Regressive’s like maga claim to be all about personal freedom but in truth they don’t want others to have any freedom they don’t approve of. Tolerance is not something they possess. Never listen to what regressives say just watch what those perverts do.

Doesn’t matter whats said. I have the choice between a guy who stutters. A condition that doesn’t affect intelligence or mental faculties in any way. Or I have the choice of a convicted felon who has clearly only cares about himself the/to the point of mental instability.

I’m voting for Biden. Not because he is the best person for the job but because the alternative is a complete fascist shit show with all of his ignorant bigoted sycophant regressives willing the destroy the country. Not to return it to what it was in the past. Instead they seek to create some fantasy dictatorship that never was.

Sure, a environment guaranteed to enable the rapid spread of any transmissible disease. I bet this ban wouldn’t apply to MAGA since they are not protesters. Just concerned citizens with hateful banners and firearms.

Can you imagine being so ignorant that you seek to ban masks.

You said the bad word that hipster Linux boi’s don’t like. I rarely have trouble our of Ubuntu. I’ve slowly eliminated most of the snaps. But its not cool for it to work. It has to be hyped. This is what they can’t stand.

Most will only realize its a bad idea when it affects them. Just like they can only empathize with someone who is experiencing the exact same thing they are.

My daughter went punk then goth and then several other things I never bothered to look up. She is now a school teacher who only occasionally has bright florescent hair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat

These things were trash and the concept was even worse.

I get their CAPTCHA where I have to slide the puzzle piece over to look at one of their ads. More than half the time I will do this and it will fail saying I didn’t do it right. So yeah temu has become a trash site.