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Adios Apt and Yum? Ubuntu's Snap Apps Are Coming To Distros Everywhere (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the this-is-the-future dept.

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: Ubuntu's "snappy" new way of packaging applications is no longer exclusive to Ubuntu. Canonical today is announcing that snapd, the tool that allows snap packages to be installed on Ubuntu, has been ported to other Linux distributions including Debian, Arch, Fedora, and Gentoo among others. To install snap packages on non-Ubuntu distributions, Linux desktop and server users will have to first install the newly cross-platform snapd. This daemon verifies the integrity of snap packages, confines them into their own restricted space, and acts as a launcher. Instructions for creating snaps and installing snapd on a variety of distributions are available at this website. Snaps can exist on the same system as either deb or RPM packages. Snaps aren't the only new package manager for Linux distributions that aims to simplify installation of applications. There's also AppImage and OrbitalApps.

5 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. And hello problems by phorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Adios to tried and true package managers, hello dependency and network/firewall hell as you try to resolve conflicts between the different sources?

    1. Re:And hello problems by Dadoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Snaps help solve that - your program can be made into a snap with the versions of libraries it needs, while the rest of your system marches forward

      That sounds a lot like the "winsxs" folder, which is currently eating up 25% of the total space on my Windows machine, for no good reason. Having the same "feature" on Linux really doesn't thrill me.

      --
      Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
    2. Re:And hello problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      FUCKING AWESOME!

      You mean certain programs can opt to keep using vulnerable libraries?! YES! Soon Linux will finally catch up to Windows in terms of malware thanks to Snap!

  2. Re:Why switch? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its main purpose is for servers that require zero downtime, where you want to upgrade application X and/or its dependencies without breaking even the smallest functionality of application Y.

    I disagree, snapd is Canonical's attempt to bring an android/ios like 'app universe' to their linux OS. Unfortunately if it succeeds, I also forsee it bringing the in-app advertisements and micro-payments mess :(

  3. Re:Clickbait headline... by gmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know if I agree with point 1. SNAPS (as a concept) should be better for third party apps because the APP as it is packaged, now imports all of the libraries it needs. The downside of course, l is that if some library has a security issue, you must wait for the package maintainer of each SNAP app that contains it to do the update.