Ubuntu-GNOME Digest, Vol 40, Issue 11

[Paul Smith]

On Wed, 2016-06-15 at 13:29 +0100, Adam Eveleigh wrote:
> >Snaps are already supported in the 16.04 base, you can play with them
> >now. It's just an idea, but maybe either snaps or XDG would make it
> >easier to run the latest version of GNOME 3 desktop/apps under Ubuntu.

> Yes I like that idea. It could be more stable for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
> users to use more recent GNOME applications via Flatpak rather than
> the PPA (the PPA could be kept, but if it works well then perhaps
> Flatpak should be the recommended option).

First, my understanding of the GNOME3 Staging PPA is that it's a
testing area for the next release of Ubuntu GNOME.  People using that
PPA are, to some extent, volunteering to help test the next Ubuntu
GNOME release.

I think switching to snaps would defeat that purpose, unless we plan to
switch the base Ubuntu GNOME installation to snaps.

Second, I'm not at all sure that putting the entire desktop in a snap
would work.  I mean, how do you get the system to start the display
manager in the snap instead of the one on the system?  Or if you decide
you'll use the system GDM, how do you tell it to start the desktop
(gnome-session/gnome-shell/etc.) in the snap?  And is it always the
case that the dbus etc. interactions will be compatible?

The desktop is infrastructural, not a separable app that can easily be
dropped into a container with limited access to other aspects of the
system.  I'm not sure I see how these new-fangled package formats would
work with something like that.