Blog posts written by Alan Pope

Alan Pope
15 August 2019

8 Ways Snaps are Different

Article Ubuntu

Depending on the audience, the discussion of software packaging elicits very different responses. Users generally don’t care how software is packaged, so long as it works. Developers typically want software packaging as a task to not burden them and just magically happen. Snaps aren’t magic, but aim to achieve both ease...

Alan Pope
15 August 2019

Alan Pope
19 June 2019

Fresh snaps for May 2019

Desktop Ubuntu

A little later than usual, we’ve collected some of the snaps which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) during May 2019. Once again, we bring you a suite of diverse applications published in the Snap Store. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. Cloudmonkey (cmk) is a CLI and interactive shell that

Alan Pope
19 June 2019

Alan Pope
11 May 2019

Publish Your Unity Games in the Snap Store

Article Ubuntu

We often feature and promote applications and games in the Snap Store and via our social media channels. Perhaps unsurprisingly, games are popular among our followers, and our users. There are a few great games already in the Snap Store, but there’s always room for more! Snap lends itself well to packaging and...

Alan Pope
11 May 2019

Alan Pope
14 February 2019

Bootstrap Your Snap

Development Desktop

People frequently tell me they’d like to make a snap of an application they care about. Whether it’s in person at events like FOSDEM, or online via IRC or Telegram, there are developers who want to share their Linux software creations with the world, and snaps are designed exactly for this. We have run a

Alan Pope
14 February 2019

Alan Pope
24 January 2019

Zero to Snap – Rev up your packaging

Article Desktop

Software developers often have enough to worry about. Their focus is creating the best application they can, often without having to consider packaging. We recently discovered Akira, which illustrates this well. The small team of developers are hard at work on the application, so software packaging isn’t a high priority...

Alan Pope
24 January 2019

Alan Pope
27 December 2018

Top Snaps in 2018

Desktop Desktop

With 2018 drawing to a close, and many of us spending with family during the holiday season, I thought we’d take a look back over some of our favourite Linux applications in the Snap Store. Some have been in the store for over a year, and a few landed only recently, but they’re all great.

Alan Pope
27 December 2018

Alan Pope
20 December 2018

Ubuntu Core Smart Speaker

Article Desktop

With the holidays coming up, many of us can expect to spend time with our friends and families, often listening to seasonal music, or indeed escaping the seasonal music! Whether you’re joining in or getting away from the crowd, this simple project can help. This is part one of a series of posts where I

Alan Pope
20 December 2018

Alan Pope
12 December 2018

Secure VPN Connection with Ubuntu Core

Desktop Desktop

As part of a personal drive to be less dependent on 3rd party Internet services, I’ve moved some things in house, under my own control. This includes self-hosting important shared files, photos and media at home. Which can pose a problem if I’m away from home and want to access those files. Previously, I would

Alan Pope
12 December 2018

Alan Pope
7 December 2018

Fresh Snaps from November 2018

Article Desktop

Another month passes and we’ve got a collection of applications which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) towards the end of 2018. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. 1. MiniZinc MiniZinc MiniZinc is an open-source, high-level solver constraint modeling language Get MiniZinc from the Snap store or...

Alan Pope
7 December 2018

Alan Pope
13 September 2018

Fresh Snaps from August 2018

Desktop Desktop

Another month passes and we’ve got a collection of applications which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) during August 2018. We have a mix of social tools, music creation and curation software, password storage systems, developer tools and some fun too. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. 1....

Alan Pope
13 September 2018

Alan Pope
28 August 2018

Fresh Linux Applications On Demand

Desktop Cloud and server

Traditionally Linux users have relied on central distribution-maintained repositories to get new software. With six-month or longer spans between releases, this meant many users just put up with old versions of applications & libraries. In many cases newer software was just missing from the archives. Modern applications...

Alan Pope
28 August 2018

Alan Pope
14 August 2018

Retro Style Games on Linux

Desktop Desktop

Gaming on Linux doesn’t have to mean buying a ludicrously priced GPU (thanks crypto miners!). Nor does it require a beefy CPU. There’s a real resurgence in retro style gaming going on right now. We’ve pulled together a selection of retro-inspired games for you to play today, on your beloved Linux machine. You can stay

Alan Pope
14 August 2018

Alan Pope
7 August 2018

Fresh Snaps from July 2018

Article Desktop

Another month, and another bumper crop of snaps for you! This time around we have a great mix of developer tools, productivity applications and of course games. All of these are available as snaps which can run on millions of Linux computers around the world. You can stay up to date with our editorial picks

Alan Pope
7 August 2018

Alan Pope
26 July 2018

Bringing Electron applications to millions of Linux users

Article Desktop

Electron is one of the most popular frameworks for creating cross-platform desktop applications right now. Many developers use electron-builder to do the heavy-lifting of package management for their Electron apps. electron-builder has support for creating snap packages out of the box. Bringing your Electron desktop app...

Alan Pope
26 July 2018