Skip to main content

Blog posts tagged "Snaps"

Introducing etrace – a multi-purpose application profiling tool

These days, the internal workings of Linux applications involve many different moving parts. Sometimes, it can be rather difficult to debug them when things go wrong or run slower than expected. Tracing an application’s execution is one way of understanding potential issues without diving into the source code. To this end, we wrote an app

Snap speed improvements with new compression algorithm!

Security and performance are often mutually exclusive concepts. A great user experience is one that manages to blend the two in a way that does not compromise on robust, solid foundations of security on one hand, and a fast, responsive software interaction on the other. Snaps are self-contained applications, with layered security, and as

The Windows Calculator on Linux with Uno Platform

The good folks in the Uno Platform community have ported the open-source Windows Calculator to Linux. And they’ve done it quicker than Microsoft could bring their browser to Linux.  The calculator is published in the snapstore and can be downloaded right away. If you’re on Ubuntu or you have snapd installed just run:  snap install

How to make snaps and configuration management tools work together

In environments with large numbers of client machines, configuration management tools are often used to simplify and standardize the target state of each host in a seamless, automated and consistent manner. Software like CFEngine, Chef, Ansible, and others offer a high degree of granular control over software packaging and system configur

Security corner: snap interface & snap connections

One of the defining features of snaps is their strong security. Snaps are designed to run isolated from the underlying system, with granular control and access to specific resources made possible through a mechanism of interfaces. Think of it as a virtual USB cable – an interface connects a plug with a slot. Security and

Snapcraft corner: Staying on track

Snapcraft channels and, consequently, tracks are an important, highly useful element of the snap ecosystem. Tracks enable snap developers to publish multiple supported releases of their application under the same snap name. All snaps must have a default track – called latest, but there can be many others, giving both developers flexibilit

Develop Uno Platform projects on Linux with Visual Studio

Uno Platform is bringing their support to Linux. Uno allows you to build native mobile, desktop, and WebAssembly apps with C# and XAML from a single code base. You can build Linux applications with Uno using Visual Studio and Ubuntu on WSL. In collaboration with Uno, we built a mock-up snap that measures and adjusts

Complex problems, clever solutions – unique containers and virtualization snaps

Snaps come in many shapes and forms: security tools, productivity apps, games, handy utilities, video editing software, and more. Often, most snap package a single application. But snaps can also include services, databases, as well as multiple binaries. How far can this concept scale, you ask? Quite far. There are also some rather unique

How to manage snap updates

Updates are an integral part of the software lifecycle. Quite often, they bring improvements, vital security patches – and sometimes, unfortunately, bugs, too. In mission-critical environments, it is important to assert a high degree of oversight and precision over updates. Snaps come with a built-in automatic update mechanism, whereby sn

Canonical enables Linux desktop app support with Flutter

By Chris Sells (Google) & Ken VanDine (Canonical) Google’s goal for Flutter has always been to provide a portable framework for building beautiful UIs that run at native speeds no matter what platform you target. To validate this capability, we started by focusing on the mobile platforms, Android and iOS, where we’ve seen more than

A blast from the past – Shutter

The wheel of software turns, and apps come and go. But the end of development does not always mean the end of usefulness. Sometimes, programs stubbornly remain around, offering a complete experience that can withstand the test of time. Several weeks ago, we talked about how you can preserve old applications with snaps. Today, we

How to preserve old software – with snaps

If you have been using computers for some time now, you probably have fond memories of this or that piece of software from the past, an application or a game that was fun, useful and just plain great, but which isn’t available any longer. For those who have had a chance to experience the digital

How Domotz streamlined provisioning of IoT devices

Learn how Ubuntu Core and snaps gives Domotz a competitive advantage As the number of IoT devices scale, the challenges of provisioning and keeping them up to date in the field increases. Domotz, who manufacture an all-in-one, network monitoring and management device for enterprise IoT networks, found themselves with this challenge that w

Bosch Rexroth adopts Ubuntu Core and snaps for app-based ctrlX AUTOMATION platform

19th February 2020 – Canonical today announced that Bosch Rexroth has selected Ubuntu Core for their app-based platform ctrlX AUTOMATION. ctrlX AUTOMATION leverages Ubuntu Core, designed for embedded devices, and snaps, the universal Linux application containers, to deliver an open source platform to remove the barriers between machine co

How to upgrade from Windows 7 to Ubuntu – Desktop tour and applications

This is the third and the last guide in this series. In the first installment, we learned about considerations for an update from Windows 7 to Ubuntu, key differences in hardware and software between the two operating systems, the terminology, and how to safely backup data ahead of migration. In the second tutorial, we covered

Keep enterprise ROS robots up-to-date with snaps

When a robot is not up-to-date, it becomes about as useful as an expensive paperweight, or companies have to burn money to get them back online. Yet when mobile apps need updating, it only takes a few clicks and a minute or two before it’s back up and running. This blog discusses how ROS robots