Ubuntu 16.04 Reaffirms Support For Snap Packages Along Side Debian Packages

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 16.04 Reaffirms Support For Snap Packages Along Side Debian Packages

We've known Canonical has been planning to support Snap packages alongside Debian packages on the Ubuntu desktop for the 16.04 LTS milestone and today they reaffirmed their commitment...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-16.04-Snap-Deb

[bug77]

The marketing speech is there:

Newer versions of KDE, GNOME, browser or other desktop environment apps will usually build easily on older LTS releases but the complexities of packaging and providing updates have prevented us from delivering them in the past.

But how does Snap help with that?

[JonathanM]

The marketing speech is there:

But how does Snap help with that?

As far as I know it is easier to bundle newer versions of libraries with snap packages, so the outdated libraries in the default repo should be less of a problem a far as third party apps are concerned.

[bug77]

As far as I know it is easier to bundle newer versions of libraries with snap packages, so the outdated libraries in the default repo should be less of a problem a far as third party apps are concerned.

How is it easier? For deb, you just declare a dependency or you package them yourself.

[jwtalbot]

How is it easier? For deb, you just declare a dependency or you package them yourself.

Deb: you cant declare a dependency for a lib that is not in the repository and if you package it your self you may be over writing a library used by some thing else.

[tegs]

I like how I can share one library with the rest of the system via the Debian packaging. With Snap, I'll end up with multiple copies of that library that take up more space. Meh.

[jwtalbot]

I like how I can share one library with the rest of the system via the Debian packaging. With Snap, I'll end up with multiple copies of that library that take up more space. Meh.

This is why we are stuck on old software
you cant update the library without breaking some thing that relies on old libraries
With snappy you can have as many versions of the same library installed as you like

[SpyroRyder]

This is why we are stuck on old software
you cant update the library without breaking some thing that relies on old libraries
With snappy you can have as many versions of the same library installed as you like

or maybe we just need to have a rethink about how we handle multiple versions of a library. Maybe we need a system whereby every version of a given library is on the system and the program just calls the one it needs. So if both your desktop and Firefox are built against libXYZ.so but Firefox needs a new version it just calls the library version it needs. In short, a bit like how the versioning in Direct3D works. That is in contrast to Snappy which by what I am reading ends up with a system that looks a bit like your windows Program Files folder, where every program has to have it's own version of most libraries

[Cerberus]

I like how I can share one library with the rest of the system via the Debian packaging. With Snap, I'll end up with multiple copies of that library that take up more space. Meh.

That is really not an issue today, disks are not small any more and I dont see a problem with sparing more disk space to have my most used applications or desktops up to date. This will make LTS releases far more attractive, no longer will you be stuck with old software after some time, sure there are PPAs, but PPAs for desktop environments can cause all sorts of issues with the base system, snap packages will hopefully resolve that problem.

[duby229]

This is why we are stuck on old software
you cant update the library without breaking some thing that relies on old libraries
With snappy you can have as many versions of the same library installed as you like

How does it do that though? Is it like a winsxs and a registry? And really does it matter how? There is no possible way it can be secure.