Ship the DE as a snap?

[dwd-daniel]

{ Was there , is there , will there be } an initiative to ship the desktop environment as a snap to decouple it from the rest of the system packages and therefore enable access to newer DE versions on older (LTS?) releases?

Best regards

Daniel

[that_leaflet]

This is done for Ubuntu Core Desktop, though it has not had a stable release yet.

Miracle WM does offer a snap though.

[tenplus1]

The size of the snap would be huge for each desktop environment as will updates when something is changed.

[ogra]

See:

GitHub - canonical/ubuntu-core-desktop: This directory contains an image of Ubuntu Core 22...

Ubuntu Core Desktop - Deep dive

Our recent blog post introducing the upcoming Ubuntu Core Desktop explains what Ubuntu Core Desktop is and outlined many of the features and, more importantly, our modular approach using the capabilities of snap. This will be the first post in a series detailing the architecture of Ubuntu Core Desktop, explaining the challenges we’ve had to overcome to make this a reality, and where we’re going. Read on to learn about the major building blocks, and how they come together to create the desktop e…

Ubuntu Core Desktop - The desktop session

I hope you enjoyed learning more about Ubuntu Core Desktop in our last post. This week we’ll be getting into some of the engineering work necessary to make this all work, specifically the Ubuntu Desktop Session as a snap. Let’s talk a bit more about what the desktop session snap really is. This is the component that flavours or other derivatives will need to provide to build custom desktop experiences. For Ubuntu Desktop, the snap provides all the necessary desktop services to run a traditional…

[paddylandau]

To add to the other comments, Ubuntu Core is Canonical’s immutable distribution, and is 100% snap — even the kernel itself is snapped.

Ubuntu Core is made specifically for IoT devices.

The upcoming Ubuntu Core Desktop will be the equivalent for desktops (and laptops, obviously) rather than for IoT. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished version!

I don’t know if there’ll be an Ubuntu Core Server.

[ogra]

UbuntuCore is already a (very minimal) server, so that would not make a lot of sense, you could already take UbuntuCore and i.e. install a LAMP snap on top of it or some “imap-mail-server” snap (or, more practical, the nextcloud-server snap) …

Along with that, the desktop session snaps should also be installable on a classic headless Ubuntu already, so technically you should be able to run a snapped desktop on top of a classic deb based install too…

[ericmarceau]

If I may give an opinion, delivering GUI and Desktop Environment as a snap package is

• for stand-alone End-User context … a nightmare scenario (IMHO);

or

• for Corporate fleet of Desktop Computers … a possible god-send (again IMHO).

[ian-weisser]

Reminder: Topics in the Project Discussion category are for collaboration and contribution.

This is the wrong place for fire-and-forget opinions. (The right place is The Lounge)
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Please stay on topic.

[graymech]

I have installed Ubuntu Core Desktop. The method chosen by Canonical avoids the need to snap package the whole desktop environment.

The Ubuntu Core Desktop operating system is broken down into components or modules. It is these components that are being snap packaged. Here is a list of snap packaged components that I have seen on my installation of Ubuntu Core Desktop.

• avahi
• bare
• bluez
• core22
• core22-desktop
• cups
• gnome-42-2204
• gtk-common-themes
• ipp-usb
• lxd
• network-manager
• pc-desktop
• pc-kernel
• snap-store
• snapd
• snapd-desktop-integration
• ubuntu-core-desktop-init
• ubuntu-desktop-session

I appreciate the work being done. It is surely hard going. Some of these components are installed in traditional Ubuntu. Depending on the libraries an application uses we will get some of these components in traditional Ubuntu. My install of Ubuntu 24.04 has

• core18
• core22
• core24
• gnome-42-2204
• gnome-46-2404
• gtk-common-themes

as well as, to be expected

• snapd
• snapd-desktop-integration
• snap-store

there is also

• mesa-2404
• webkitgtk-6-gnome-2404

Canonical is taking a different approach to providing an immutable Ubuntu distribution. I find that very interesting.

Informative explanation of the different approaches to an immutable OS

Regards

[lammert-nijhof]

I use the Ubuntu Core Desktop in a Vbox VM since Dec 2014. I like it, because it is very reliable. I only have problem with updating snapd, it deleted the content of the dock and the menu. So I revert that change, which restores the dock and menu. A stupid error, so I’m a couple of snapd versions behind.

I like to use the Core Desktop 26 for my finances, currently I use Ubuntu 16.04 ESM, but I have to stop it in Apr 2026. On 16.04 I run it from the latest Firefox snap, so the conversion will be a peace of cake in 2026. Some month ago I already tried the Core Desktop 24 out and of course it worked with the same Firefox snap. I expect no compatibility issue going from 16.04 ESM to the Core Desktop 26 :).

I missed two snaps VirtualBox Linux Additions and Conky. So my question is; are they planned or do I have to try to create them myself. I’m 80 and I have never done it before and I have only limited knowledge of the Linux internals. However I designed an OS for Air Traffic Control systems end of the seventies for mini computers. So with a lot of studying and try-outs I probably could get it working, but maintenance for the coming years would be a gamble :(.

[paddylandau]

@lammert-nijhof

I like to use the Core Desktop 26

Where did you find that? I only see Core Desktop 24 listed.