14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's Jamie Bennett talks in his latest blog post about how hard it is to package your applications for various GNU/Linux operating systems, as well as how easy it to distribute them on Ubuntu via a Snap package.
Snap is a new secure, isolated technology designed by Canonical for its Snappy Ubuntu Core operating system, which relies on snapd, the snap-based runtime environment, and Snapcraft, the tool anyone can use to package their applications into a Snap for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and later.
"Distributing applications on Linux is not always easy. You have different packaging formats, base systems, available libraries, and distribution release cadences all of which contribute to the headache. But now we have something much simpler: Snaps," said Jamie Bennett, Ubuntu Core Engineering Manager at Canonical.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is the first version of the acclaimed operating system to come with out-of-the-box support for the new Snap package format, which Canonical thinks is the future for easy distribution of Linux applications. However, the Snap package format cannot yet be implemented in distributions that aren't based on Ubuntu.
Without any further ado, if you plan on distributing your application to Ubuntu-based operating systems that support the Snap format, you are invited to take a look at a quick and simple example of how to package an app into a Snap, publish it on the Snappy Store, and install it.
Also, you can visit the Ubuntu developer website to get started with Snaps on the Ubuntu Desktop, where you'll find more examples, complex ones for bigger applications. In the same manner, Canonical invites you to glimpse into a tutorial on how to package an Electron-based application.