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.

Olli Ries posted an article today at insights.ubuntu.com over "Adding snaps for secure, transactional packages in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS." He went on to explain, "In Ubuntu 16.04 LTS we will make it possible to install snap packages alongside traditional deb packages. These two packaging formats live quite comfortably next to one another and enable us to maintain our existing processes for development and updates to the OS. This reinforces our relationship with the Debian community and it enables developers and communities to publish either debs or snaps for the Ubuntu audience. Snap packages enable developers to bring much newer versions of apps to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. 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."

They will be holding some Q&A videos / clinics about Snappy package management tomorrow and later this month for those wanting to learn more. Snappy on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS proper should be a win for those wanting to pull down newer versions of packages, commercial software can now be more easily packaged, etc.