According to https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/focal-changes/2020-February/010667.html
Yeah, it seems like they’re switching to the snap? @kenvandine has been busy these last few weeks making a strictly-confined snap.
But gnome calculator etc are switching from snap to deb? There wasn’t really much benefit to those apps being snaps because they didn’t get much updates. Let’s hope this means the software store will receive a lot of updates during the lifetime of 20.04!
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We had seeded those packages as snaps to put pressure on improving desktop integration. We’ve made great strides towards that goal. We’ve decided to replace the gnome-software deb with snap-store (modified gnome-software) as a snap for 20.04. By shipping such a key application as a snap it will continue to keep pressure on to ensure we keep improving the experience while also reducing our maintenance burden for the LTS and future releases of Ubuntu.
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Just to clarify; does this mean that the default “app store” GUI on Ubuntu 20.04 will not be able to install deb packages? It won’t have access to the regular Ubuntu/apt repositories?
It WILL be able to install apt packages. The snap-store snap in the stable/ubuntu-20.04 channel is capable of apt, snap and fwupd, but only when run on Ubuntu. If run on another distro, it will be snap only as to not interfere with the distro’s provided tool.
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Ok, thanks for the clarification!
Hi there 
What about flatpaks? Not that I use them but there are people that use them.
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For flatpak you just need to install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak like you do today. That would bring in the gnome-software as a deb, which will still be maintained.
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Awesome, thanks for the reply! This will please the flatpakers I guess 
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Does gnome-{calculator,logs,characters} switching from snap to deb mean that users/testers of the pre-release must manually uninstall the snap versions? Because my last apt-get dist-upgrade installed the deb versions, and now I’ve got both versions of those three applications. I’m not sure what to do or if I’m even meant to do anything?
I asked in the #ubuntu+1 channel and another user confirms having two calculators, the snap and the deb.
Reciprocally, are we supposed to manually install the snap-store snap to reflect the change from deb to snap in the distribution?
Wait, so then there will be two GNOME Software apps, the Snap version and the deb version? That would be confusing.
No, there will be only a snap.
… installed by default.
As I understand it there will be a migration, but that might not be done yet. Same applies for the others going snap->deb.
6 posts were split to a new topic: Inkscape snap .config
@Wimpress and @popey Thank you for the response. I was actually referring to this part of the response from @kenvandine
For flatpak you just need to install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak like you do today. That would bring in the gnome-software as a deb, which will still be maintained.
So what I’m asking is will I be able to install Flatpak apps (by installing gnome-software-plugin-flatpak) from the GNOME Software snap that will be in Ubuntu 20.04+?
To be clear, there will still be a deb package of gnome-software in the archive that can be installed. It will be installed as a dependency if you install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak. If you choose to do that, you will have two versions of gnome-software installed, but that is not the out of box experience. I think advanced users that choose to do that will understand why there are two versions.
The deb version of gnome-software will no longer be called “Ubuntu Software”, we will remove that branding. This should prevent confusion.
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Thank you for the clarification @kenvandine.
- Would uninstalling Ubuntu Software snap be possible without affecting the Ubuntu Desktop?
- Can the GNOME Software deb version still install snaps via gnome-software-plugin-snap?
I ask because I’d like to be able to install deb, snap and flatpak packages all from one app and GNOME Software on Ubuntu 18.04 through 19.10 allows that.
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@kenvandine - Can the GNOME Software deb version, if installed, still be able to install snaps via gnome-software-plugin-snap in 20.04 LTS?