Snapcraft is a next-generation package manager by Canonical. Using Snap you can install complex applications with one click, let’s take a look at how to install Snap and use it!
What is Snap? How do I install it on X distribution?
Snap (or Snapcraft) is an advanced package manager, you can read more about it in this article. Snap aims to run any application packaged as “snap” on any Linux distribution. However Snap’s not quite there yet and it works best on Ubuntu.
How to install Snapcraft
Important
I take NO responsibility of what you do with your machine; use this tutorial as a guide and remember you can possibly cause data loss if you touch things carelessly.
Installing Snapcraft is surprisingly on any recent version of Ubuntu (>=14.04):
Ubuntu >= 14.04
$ sudo apt-get install snap
Once you have installed snap you can easily check its version:
$ snap version
snap 2.34.2+18.04
snapd 2.34.2+18.04
series 16
ubuntu 18.04
kernel 4.15.0-29-generic
Basic operations
Searching for Snaps
Ubuntu
Searching for Snaps is easy, you can do it directly in the command line:
$ snap search "hello world
Name Version Publisher Notes Summary
hello-world 6.3 canonical - The 'hello-world' of snaps
Or, if you prefer there’s an official store for Snaps.
Installing a Snap
Ubuntu
Once again, installing a Snap is quite easy:
$ sudo snap install hello-world
2018-12-27T18:19:45Z INFO Waiting for restart...
hello-world 6.3 from 'canonical' installe
Now you can easily use:
$ hello-world
Programs installed through Snapcraft can be found in : /snap/bin. This folder is added to $PATH by default so that you don’t have to enter the full path every time you call a command.
Removing a Snap
Ubuntu
$ sudo snap remove hello-world
hello-world removed
Updating a Snap
Snaps are automatically updated but you can check for updates using this command:
Ubuntu
$ sudo snap refresh hello-world
snap "hello-world" has no updates available
Advanced functions
Snapcraft provides some advanced features such as update rollbacks and software “deactivation” (uninstalling without uninstalling).
Enabling/Disabling a Snap
There may be times where an installed snap is unused but you want to keep it on your system. In this case you can enable/disable the Snap:
Ubuntu
To disable:
$ sudo snap disable hello-world
hello-world disable
To enable:
$ sudo snap enable hello-world
hello-world enabled
Reverting an update (rollback)
Ubuntu
To revert an upgrade:
$ sudo snap revert hello-world
Beware: a reverted Snap won’t automatically update and Snap will only try to keep three previous revisions (versions).
Managing services
There may be Snap that contain complex software such as daemons, in this case you can manage their state using Snap as well!
Listing services
Ubuntu
To revert an upgrade:
$ sudo snap services
Service Startup Current
lxd.activate enabled inactive
lxd.daemon enabled inactive
Of course you won’t see anything here unless you have Snap that use services.
Starting/stopping services (also on boot)
Ubuntu
To start a service:
$ sudo snap start lxd.daemon
Started.
To enable the service at boot use the –enable flag in the previous command.
To stop a service:
$ sudo snap stop lxd.daemon
Stopped
To disable the service at boot use the –disable flag in the previous command.
Inspecting logs
Ubuntu
$ sudo snap logs lxd.daemon
[Output omitted]
The IT guy with a slight look of boredom in his eyes. Freelancer. Current interests: Kubernetes, Tensorflow, shiny new things.
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