Speaker
Description
Have you already thought about how the applications we develop get distributed to end users?
Often developers only provide the source code. So for not so tech-savvy users the major distributions need to pick up projects and package it, and maintain it for new releases.
This is why there is a need for distribution-independent, secure, and easy-to-use packaging, like on smartphones. This exists also for Linux ... Among the options, there is Snap! Applications are easy to find in the Snap Store and they are installable on most Linux distributions.
And, to make Linux even easier for end users, we cannot only provide applications in the Snap format, but also have an all-Snap operating system, Ubuntu Core Desktop, an immutable core operating system based on Snap. And here we do not only have Snaps of desktop applications, but also system applications and components (like the printing stack), the kernel, the desktop environment (like GNOME or KDE), the boot loader, and the core system. So everything can get easily updated or replaced by alternatives, and in case of failure one can easily revert (on boot failure we revert automatically).
All this is based on the knowledge and experience we gained at Canonical when creating the smartphone operating system Ubuntu Touch. After the phone project having been discontinued we started with the IoT system Ubuntu Core, snapped desktop applications, ...
More about Snap: The Powers, The People
https://snapcraft.io/
Biography
Till is leader of OpenPrinting since it was founded in 2001, introduced the CUPS printing system in Mandrake Linux in 2000 working at MandrakeSoft and with this and a lot of evangelism (booths, talks, workshops) made the other distros also switch to CUPS, since 2006 printing maintainer at Canonical, co-organizing annual meetings with the Printer Working Group (PWG), since 2008 every year mentoring in Google Summer of Code, doing everything to make printing on Linux and alike operating systems "just work". With his OpenPrinting work Till has many years of experience with presenting on conferences and participating in their organization. Till is also fellow of the Linux Foundation.
Summary
The motivation, advantages, and concept of the sandboxed, immutable Snap packaging format is shown and how it is used to make up immutable all-Snap OS distros, the IoT distro Snap was originally designed for, Ubuntu Core, and the easily usable and maintainable Ubuntu Core Desktop.
What audience can learn
How does the concept of Snap packaging work? Applications provided as immutable images, running in a sandbox, interacting with the host system and other apps only through well-defined interfaces.
Security concepts to provide third-party apps through the Snap Store.
Snap allows to package not only desktop apps, but also daemons, kernels, ... so allowing an all-Snap immutable operating system.
Concept of immutable operating systems, especially Ubuntu Core and Ubuntu Core Desktop.
| Difficulty level | Intermediate |
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