I've predicted, several times, that Ubuntu will soon abandon it's "Snap" package / container format -- a system that has proven to be wildly unpopular (due in no small part to significant performance issues coupled with decreased system functionality).
Well. Looks like I might be proven quite wrong on that one.
According to Oliver Grawert -- an Ubuntu developer working for Canonical (the company which runs Ubuntu) -- we may be seeing a version of the Ubuntu desktop system which is entirely using Snap packaging as soon as next year!
A quote from Grawert posted in a comment on OMG Ubuntu:
"An immutable version exists since 2015, called UbuntuCore... there will be a desktop release of it with the next LTS (optional though, the classic desktop install will indeed not go away)"
This was in response to an article discussing Ubuntu's plan to move the entire printing system into a Snap package.
So. What, exactly, does that simple, little comment mean?
There are big ramifications for such few words!
An "immutable version" of an operating system is one where the end user cannot modify the system itself. The idea, in this case, is that the core Ubuntu system would be maintained entirely by Canonicall / Ubuntu and the end user would not have access to it.
Individual components (applications) would be downloaded as Snap packages and run inside sandboxed containers.
For those applications to udpate would mean a re-download of the Snap package, killing the old version, and launching the new one.
There are many benefits to such a system... and many drawbacks. Especially with the current Snap implementation, which has numerous design limitations for a desktop system.
The good news is that this Ubuntu developer states that this "Snap Only" version of the Ubuntu desktop will be optional in the 24.04 release (the next Long Term Support release on the schedule). So, presumably, you would continue to be able to use APT and Debian packaging for the time being.
That said... this was the same way Ubuntu handled the transition from GNOME 2.x to the Unity Desktop (another much hated development from Canonical). Not long after Ubuntu Unity was made "optional"... it became default.
What does that mean?
Simple. The writing is on the wall... the death of Debian style packaging on Ubuntu will likely occur sometime after April, 2024.
Unless -- hopefully -- someone at Canonical changes his mind.
