Why use distrowatch to get a list of what’s found on a Lubuntu ISO?
Personally I’d go to the download site & look at what we include on our ISO, ie. https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/22.04/release/lubuntu-22.04-desktop-amd64.manifest
Yes you’ll see the six snap packages we include
|snap:core20|stable|1405|
|snap:snapd|stable|15177|
|snap:firefox|stable/ubuntu-22.04|1232|
|snap:gnome-3-38-2004|stable/ubuntu-22.04|99|
|snap:bare|stable|5|
|snap:gtk-common-themes|stable/ubuntu-22.04|1534|
The package firefox has connections it requires; ie. (pasted from the snap connections firefox command is the following)
content[gnome-3-38-2004] firefox:gnome-3-38-2004 gnome-3-38-2004:gnome-3-38-2004 -
content[gtk-3-themes] firefox:gtk-3-themes gtk-common-themes:gtk-3-themes -
content[icon-themes] firefox:icon-themes gtk-common-themes:icon-themes -
content[sound-themes] firefox:sound-themes gtk-common-themes:sound-themes -
ie. the gnome-3-38-2004 & gtk-common-themes are required by firefox. They could be fully enclosed within the firefox snap, but sort of like how deb packages use depends rules for dependencies, snap packages can use connections to other common snap packages reducing the disk space you’re using them on your system (ie. less duplication), with gnome-3-38-2004 & gtk-common-themes being its requirements/connections.
We’ve had a post before (on this discourse where I used a different command to this thread to view connections, ie. grep default-provider /snap/firefox/current/meta/snap.yaml) that asked about removing firefox snap & even avoiding snaps; I commented about a test where I disabled snaps in testing, and had no issues with it, for the short time I lived with it (ie. merely days).
I did mention it left what I called a minefield, that I feared could hit come release-upgrade time (if not before, depending on what the user did), as there are a number of Ubuntu tools where snap packages are assumed for normal operation, and release-upgrade is one such example, however none of us really know the future, and coming upgrades could re-enable snapd & at worst, and you’ll find you need to disable/mask it again.
I’ve disabled snaps before on my systems (esp. those that lacked resources; ie. 2GB of RAM or less), but I never found I lived with that long, as I found reason to re-enable them again, usually within 1-2 months. Most of my usage/testing (in the months anyway) was on releases prior to jammy or 22.04 though, with my jammy testing being mere days.
I’m using a 2009 dell desktop, so my box is hardly loaded with spare resources, but I still find it useful on this box to have snap packages enabled. I’m also a Debian user (on a 2008 dell desktop), a system that comes without snapd or snap packages, yet I’ve added them there too, as they are a convenient solution to some problems, and the more choice I have the better I am.
As for snaps downloading & control; have you read Alan Pope’s articles on snapd, especially the ones written after he left Canonical. He provided a wealth of knowledge on such subjects. None of it really was new as had been documented before, but in a number of posts he combined information that only only been dripped out before to those who lived with limited/metered bandwidth etc. (example here)