Ubuntu’s snap apps now work on practically every Linux distribution

By admin On Jun 15, 2016

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Canonical has announced that the ability to install snap packages has been ported to other Linux distributions. To be precise, snapd has been or is being ported to Arch, Fedora, Debian, RHEL, CentOS and Gentoo, among others.

This should theoretically make it easier to offer applications for different distributions, because all dependencies or dependencies are packed in the snap package. Canonical initially developed the snap system for Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Snappy Core so that applications run in their own container and pose a smaller security risk.

With the snapcraft.io platform, Canonical hopes to elevate this form of package management for Linux into a standard. Snaps should make it easier for developers to publish software by eliminating the need for a developer to keep track of different repositories and other update mechanisms. In addition to updates, a developer can also roll back an update, which is especially useful on non-display devices and the like, such as internet-of-things devices. It is also possible to add incremental updates.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said in a press call that the project is being supported not only by Canonical, but also by developers of other Linux distributions, such as Arch and Gentoo.

During the same press call about the introduction of snapd to other distributions, questions were also raised about other systems with a similar purpose, such as Flatpak, App Image and Orbital Apps. Today, according to Shuttleworth, about “95 percent of commits” are done by one Red Hat employee at Flatpak. Flatpak is the new name of the Freedesktop.org xdg app and there is also a specific Ubuntu repository for it.

Another interesting question during the conversation was whether it would be possible to port the system to Android. According to OMG Ubuntu, Shuttleworth’s response was that this would be a good idea. He added that “if OpenWRT gets snaps up and running in less than a week,” he’d be “surprised if Android couldn’t arrange something similar.”

A snap is available from LibreOffice 5.2.0 beta 2 of the more well-known large applications. Mozilla has also announced that it will deliver Firefox as a snap in the near future.