14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's David Callé is informing the Ubuntu community today that the Atom open-source and cross-platform hackable text editor loved by numerous developers can now be installed in Ubuntu Linux as a Snap.
Mark Shuttleworth promised to focus on advancing the development of the Snappy technologies, which allow users to install Snap packages across multiple Linux-based operating systems, so we should see more and more popular apps packaged as Snaps.
Atom is the latest app to be packaged as a Snap, which users can install on all Snappy-enabled Ubuntu releases, including Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.10, and Ubuntu 17.04, but also various other popular distros that support Snaps, such as Fedora, Arch Linux, and OpenSuSE.
"So why does it make sense to have Atom packaged as a Snap? Snaps mean simple installation and update management, without affecting the application: everything works as expected, including extensions," explains David Callé. "It also means that when software vendors make them available, it’s easier to access the Beta version of their app or even daily builds."
Here's how to install Atom as a Snap in Ubuntu
If you don't want to use a third-party PPA to install the Atom hackable text editor on your Ubuntu computer, it's extremely simple to install the Snap right now and then receive any new version as soon as it's released upstream. To install Atom as a Snap, open the Terminal app and paste the following command.
sudo snap install --classic atom
That's it! You don't have to worry about updating it as the process is completely automatic. However, in case you haven't noticed already, Atom is installed using the new classic confinement method, so it's not strictly confined, which means that it has access to the root (/) file system.
