Oh Snap!

[lammert-nijhof]

Snaps
- do run on any distro, except the obsolete ones not supporting snaps (Ubuntu first support 14.04).
- run sandboxed, so in a kind of container,
- are more secure against attacks
- can't crash the system
- comes with its own package manager snapd
- runs from a kind of read only virtual disk.
- are updated automatically and only the modified parts of the virtual disk are sent.
- you will have the newest version of the App, also if for deb files only an older version is supported,
- full automatic and manual snapshot support and rollback to a previous version of that virtual disk
- have a central storage for distribution, to avoid websites that distribute malware.

Flatpack and Appimage are more vulnerable for attacks and both do not support snapshots. Flatpack only supports KDE, Gnome and FreeDesktop and their security is somewhat questionable. Appimage can be run on any distro by making the file executable, but then you have to add a link to the image in the menus or docks yourself. "Appimaged" should solve that, but than you have to install it like snapd. AppImage programs are not sandboxed.

[mastablasta]

well that pretty much explains it all. thank you.

snaps seem to be safer, better option.
appimage seems to be an option for apps not needing the internet connection.

[hk42]

I found that appimage packages can even run if they are stored on a
samba NTFS share.
So yes they are big but you can share them between several machines.
In my case (mini PC)it is quite helpful.

[dustyt]

I haven't decided which side of the fence I am on with this.

I do get the suggestion that this is good for app development and deployment across distros and that sort of thing, you know the positive stuff that is put on our dish to eat up.

I do wonder though what the flip side of this package management is though?

I am all for furthering things, more better easier, yada yada. I just can't help but think of this though. I guess it is because I changed mobile platforms a short time ago and I'm not to happy. I am noticing exploitation, and also less functionality and capability with the same things on a different platform. I didn't foresee that coming when I changed. So maybe that makes me be more questioning on this sort of stuff now. IDK.

[mastablasta]

I do wonder though what the flip side of this package management is though?

- larger packages for application (so app get's bigger in size).
- certain things need to be running and loaded. as i understand this increases boot time and potentially burdens the system with additional services running in background.

i guess it depends on how much of this is added to the OS. if the difference is tiny then it is not that important as the benefits should be a lot bigger. but if we talk 10% CPU load increase and huge apps size then it's an issue.

perhaps there are more downsides but these get mentioned often.