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Blog posts tagged
"Snaps"


Igor Ljubuncic
7 May 2021

The snap developer’s guide on how to migrate to new bases

Apps Article

A couple of weeks ago, we published an article about Ubuntu 16.04 entering Extended Security Maintenance (ESM), and the implications of this change for snap publishers. We talked about the different options available to developers and publishers who still may rely on the older bases in their build process – free Ubuntu Advantage (UA) toke ...


Igor Ljubuncic
23 April 2021

Better snap metadata handling coming your way soon

Ubuntu Article

Open the Snap Store, click on any application you like – you will now see a page full of useful tidbits – screenshots and videos, application description, last update, license, contact data, and other information. The data shown here is often the first impression the user gets about the software, and can be a deciding ...


Igor Ljubuncic
15 April 2021

Should you ever reinstall your Linux box? If so, how?

Desktop Article

Broadly speaking, the Linux community can be divided into two camps – those who upgrade their operating systems in-vivo, whenever there is an option to do so in their distro of choice, and those who install from scratch. As it happens, the former group also tends to rarely reinstall their system when problems occur, while ...


Rhys Davies
8 April 2021

How to make your first snap

Desktop Article

Snaps are a way to package your software so it is easy to install on Linux. If you’re a snap developer already or you’re a part of the Linux community, and you care about how software is deployed, and you’re well versed in how software is packaged, and are tuned into the discussions around packaging ...


Igor Ljubuncic
26 March 2021

What’s in a snap?

Desktop Article

Snaps are several things, all at once. They are confined, standalone Linux applications that bundle all their necessary dependencies, which means they do not need to rely on the underlying system, and can run independently of it. Snaps are also packaged as compressed Squashfs filesystems, using the .snap extension. For most users, they ar ...


Igor Ljubuncic
23 March 2021

How does Ubuntu 16.04 entering Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) affect snap publishers?

Cloud and server Article

At the end of April, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will reach the end of its five years of mainstream support and enter the Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) phase. If you’re a snap developer, and you have built or based your snaps on Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) packages and libraries, you may want to know how this milestone ...


Rhys Davies
26 February 2021

What is virtualisation? The basics

Desktop Article

Virtualisation plays a huge role in almost all of today’s fastest-growing software-based industries. It is the foundation for most cloud computing, the go-to methodology for cross-platform development, and has made its way all the way to ‘the edge’; the eponymous IoT. This article is the first in a series where we explain what virtualisat ...


Canonical
25 February 2021

DFI and Canonical offer risk-free system updates and reduced software lead times for the IoT ecosystem

Canonical announcements Article

Feb. 25, 2021 – DFI and Canonical signed the Ubuntu IoT Hardware Certification Partner Program. DFI is the world’s first industrial computer manufacturer to join the program aimed at offering Ubuntu-certified IoT hardware ready for the over-the-air software update. The online update mechanism of and the authorized DFI online application s ...


Igor Ljubuncic
28 January 2021

Want to publish a snap? Here’s a list of dos and don’ts

Desktop Article

Technology is a medium that enables us to achieve things in life, ideally in a pleasant way. In the software world, operating systems, programming languages and application frameworks are the tools of the trade. But you need the right tool for the right job. If you’re thinking about writing or porting your code to snaps, ...


Igor Ljubuncic
31 December 2020

Snaps and themes – on the path to seamless desktop integration

Desktop Article

Alongside performance, theming is one of the primary concerns for desktop snap users. People expect applications bundled inside snaps to look and behave just like their counterparts shipped and packaged in the traditional way in their Linux distributions, and any discrepancy in this space can lead to a degraded user experience. Over the y ...


Alan Pope
10 December 2020

Snaps: How we got here

Desktop Article

I’m celebrating nine years at Canonical, and coming up on 15 years since I started contributing to Ubuntu in the community. It’s been quite the ride, helping build, support and advocate for the most popular Linux desktop, and most used Linux distribution in the cloud. Over those years, we’ve strived to make it easy for ...


Igor Ljubuncic
13 November 2020

Popular snaps per distro (2020 edition)

Desktop Article

Back in mid-2019, we wrote a blog post detailing and comparing the most popular snaps across multiple distributions – Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Manjaro, and Ubuntu. This article gave us a fascinating insight into the usage patterns across these different systems and their audiences. We wanted to see if and how the situation has ...