Distribute Komorebi as a Snap package

[heidiwenger]

Desktop integration comes along with it. Snaps are conveniently installed from app store instead of Github. No need to make the package executable by chmodding either, as in say, AppImages is a great no-no for new users of Linux. It is often very hard to grasp the position and general interest too for any tinkering, for a new, regular computer user.

Snap packages are automatically sandboxed. No matter how good of a tool terminal often is, most computer users absolutely do not want to touch it.

With a Snap package, backwards and forwards compatibility is easily achieved. With a Snap package you can use arbitrarily old Distro's to build software for arbitrarily old or new distros with no issue.

There are 3 types of confinement for snap packages.

1. Strict

This is the default confinement for all apps. It gives the application read and writes permissions only in its install folder and if a home plug or interfaces are available for the app, users are also capable of accessing the home folder.

2. Devmode

Used for developers to test their applications. Snaps in developer mode cannot be released in stable mode. For them to be able to release, the developer must change strict mode or classic and then change to stable or candidate snap stores channels.

3. Classic

Classic snaps are snaps that work the same way .deb packages work, without any confinement.

Snap apps with this confinement can go beyond home folder access – it can read and write on root folders.

Although applications can have classic confinement it doesn’t mean that every application can have this confinement.

Additionally: Snaps have many advantages over deb packages, regarding security and updates. With snaps, you can have up to date applications because it ships with its own libraries not needing system library to run.

Support for transactional updates lets you download only the part that changed on your application.

Features of Snaps in a nutshell:

• Simple to package leveraging your existing tools.
• Automatic updates for everyone.
• Reach tens of millions of Linux systems.
• Roll back versions effortlessly.
• Integrate easily with build and CI infrastructure.
• Free for open and closed source projects.
• Snaps are quick to install from GNOME Software or the command line.
• Snaps update automatically and transactionally so your app is always fresh.
• Snaps stay secure as they are confined from the OS, other apps, and hardware functions.

• You can revert snap to an earlier state if the snap fails.

  Many Linux distributions are using snap packaging including Fedora, Ubuntu, Manjaro and Debian.

https://snapcraft.io/ https://forum.snapcraft.io/c/snap-requests/21 Alan Pope shows how to make a snap package in under 60 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikoUByA5BLU

[heidiwenger]

Any word yet on the possibility of a snap package?