Applications installed via Snap do not work with hardware acceleration, even on the latest Ubuntu 25.10. This issue affects pre-installed Snap applications, such as Firefox.
It seems that each application would need individual adjustments to support hardware acceleration when distributed via Snap. But each application will not do something to make the hardware acceleration supported via Snap.
Am I correct in this assessment? What do you think?
The default Ubuntu app store would be a great option if not for this issue.
What I’ve Tried:
I attempted to enable and connect hardware-related interfaces and drivers for the Snap packages, but hardware acceleration still does not work.
You have not told us anything about your hardware but claim there is a hardware support issue (I doubt there is), would you mind telling us more about your setup?
The default video player is not a snap, so it can not be the same issue (snaps ship their own mesa (and vaapi) drivers in the mesa-2404 snap, completely separate from the non-snap packages)
Regarding Firefox, the snap has simply been built without hardware acceleration enabled, there is a snap in the edge channel you can pick that has a build with HW accel. enabled which will eventually move to be in the default latest/stable channel…
It seems I was misinformed by reports that Snap does not work with hardware acceleration in all application.
If it works in other programs by default, then my message is no longer relevant.