Snaps & Ubuntu Core Desktop Talked Up At FOSDEM 2024

Canonical engineer Till Kamppeter was at FOSDEM 2024 last weekend in Belgium to talk up the Snap packaging format spearheaded for Ubuntu Linux as well as their ongoing work around Ubuntu Core Desktop for providing an all-Snap based operating system.

By now most of you are likely already well-versed on Snaps for Ubuntu and are either in the camp that loves them or hates them. Snap is an alternative to Flatpak but largely with similar goals albeit differences in how they get there. While most commonly associated with Ubuntu systems, Snaps run on other Linux distributions too and recently Canonical has begun ensuring a more diverse distro experience for Snap use.

The FOSDEM 2024 presentation also focused on Ubuntu Core Desktop as their in-development all-Snap-based operating system. From the kernel to bootloader and other low-level components as gadget Snaps, everything is a Snap all the way up through the desktop environments. This builds off the existing Ubuntu Core to provide a full-featured Snap'ed desktop OS.

Still to be addressed for the Ubuntu Core Desktop is proprietary NVIDIA driver support, printer setup tools, scanner applications, more development tools as Snaps, TPM full disk encryption support, remote management, Active Directory integration, and other infrastructure work.

Those wanting to learn more about the state of Snaps and Canonical's focused on this sandboxed app tech in 2024 can do so via the FOSDEM presentation.