Swap snaps for Flatpaks with unsnap
Package Exchange
© Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash
If you want to move away from Ubuntu's Snap package format, the unsnap script removes snaps from your computer and replaces them with Flatpaks where possible.
The Linux community, like any other community, is not particularly good at welcoming new things. Most people want to retain the status quo. In the words of the philosopher Voltaire, the better is the enemy of the good. Nothing is more dangerous than leaving the good for better things.
Systemd, the still controversial system and session manager, illustrates this concept. Other examples are the new package systems Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage, which Linux Magazine previously covered in December 2022 [1]. These package systems are by no means met with unanimous approval in the Linux community. In particular, the Snap format, which Canonical initially designed for cloud applications and the Internet of Things (IoT), but later ported for desktop applications, is experiencing opposition beyond the basic criticism of new package systems.
If you've become disillusioned with Snap, the unsnap script can help you replace snaps with Flatpaks where available on Ubuntu and its deriviatives.
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