Snap Packages In Linux

When installing a snap package in Linux, Ubuntu users have snapd, a snap daemon, already installed into their system. This means that as of 18.04.x you can now install snap packages as sudo snap packagename. Snaps make it easy to install a package with all of its current and up-to-date dependencies. Snaps run in containerised sandboxes so security is a priority and malware packages can’t actively change the system without user approval. Previously, a Linux user was tortured by broken packages or unmet dependencies. This is quickly becoming a thing of the past. With so much support for the new package management system, users of all distros and desktop environments can take part in having the latest and greatest software at their disposal. Even Windows is getting interested in this marvel of the modern age of computing.

Manjaro and Arch users may not yet automatically have snapd installed, to ensure that it is installed on your system using pacman, type <sudo pacman -S –noconfirm snapd> in a terminal. Snap is a repository where vendors directly upload their finished projects. Opera has recently uploaded all of their desktop browser versions to the snap store.

  1. To list a package by name, type <snap find packagename>.

  2. To install a package, type <sudo snap install package>.

  3. To revert or downgrade a package in snap, type <sudo snap revert package>.

  4. To update a snap app, type <sudo snap refresh package>.

  5. To uninstall a package in snap, type <sudo snap remove package>.

  6. To make a list of all packages installed through snap, type <snap list >> snap.txt>.

Snap is still in the works, so some distros will be hesitant to adopt it, but the number of packages is increasing. Chances are that a package you use is installed in the new snap repository. Users who are also developers can benefit from snapcraft a new way for people to build their own snap apps.

To Learn More: https://www.linux.com/learn/intro-to-linux/2018/5/get-started-snap-packages-linux

To Visit Snapcraft: https://snapcraft.io

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