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Canonical is cooking up a desktop version of its immutable Ubuntu Core OS with package management handled only by Snaps. Will it catch on?
On 31st May, Canonical product manager Oliver Smith raised the possibility on the Ubuntu blog of an all-Snap immutable desktop version of Ubuntu Core. Canonical even has a testing version of its popular Ubuntu Core incorporating the GDM display manager on GitHub (https://github.com/ canonical/ubuntu-core-desktop) .
Ubuntu Core dates back to 2014 and was designed to create a fully containerised platform for IoT, using the same kernel container tech as Docker and LXC. The advantage is that every system component is sandboxed and follows a defined upgrade and rollback procedure. Updates for IoT devices are automated and the OS itself is virtually tamper-proof. Apps only see system data that they need to run. They cannot affect the core system or other applications. This is why Ubuntu Core is known as immutable, because a running system cannot be modified directly by users or applications, and all updates are applied automatically.
Although the security and stability benefits of an immutable OS are obvious, creating a userfriendly desktop version of Ubuntu Core could prove tricky for Canonical.
For instance, Snaps can be considered to be immutable applications. They’re installed as complete, self-contained packages containing all dependencies. They can be run in a strict environment where they can’t modify or access systemwide resources, and during upgrades the entire package is replaced automatically.
This would explain why an all-Snap desktop version is seemingly under development, but feedback has been lukewarm. Some users have cited the long startup time for Snaps using the default xz compression. Canonical has since switched to LZO compression, which results in faster startup times but larger packages.
Other Redditors are curious about how this desktop version of Ubuntu Core will go full Snap, asking if the OS image will be one big Snap containing different system components. This would make it harder to make changes to the base image, as you can with other immutable OSes like Fedora Silverblue.
Ultimately, whether a desktop version of the immutable Ubuntu Core OS proves popular is a matter for the Linux public at large. Despite some trepidation on discussion groups, however, there’s no suggestion that the regular flavours of Ubuntu Desktop are going anywhere any time soon. The most recent release (23.04) of the OS did drop support for Flatpaks and is clearly pushing installation of packages via Snap via Software, but
