- A user on Reddit has noticed that Ubuntu might be looking for ways of replacing the official Snap Store with an unofficial one.
- The unofficial Snap Store is currently in the alpha stage with its 0.1.3 version and it is based on Flutter.
- It is possible to switch to the unofficial Snap Store by removing the old one and changing the channel to preview/edge.
While Canonical’s own Snap Store is quite capable of delivering the goods for the Ubuntu operating system, a portion of the Ubuntu community is developing their own, unofficial Snap Store. Apparently, Canonical likes the community-developed store as well; they might be replacing the official store with it.
The unofficial becoming the official
As noticed by a Reddit user, when the user tries to install Snap Store with –channel=preview/edge command arguments, the system installs the unofficial and community-driven Snap Store instead of the official one which is developed by Canonical. That means Canonical is testing the unofficial Snap Store to make it the official one in the future.
The unofficial Snap Store is in the alpha stage with 0.1.3 as the latest version. It is being developed on the Flutter framework; the old store was based on the GNOME platform. The app pages look very clean with the version and the screenshots at the top, an option to select the channel, contact with the developer button, and more. You can see the screenshot of it below:
Currently, it supports Debian and Snap packages. It is not known if the Snap Store will support Flatpak applications in the future. If you want to try out the new store, you can use the following commands in your Ubuntu system:
sudo snap remove snap-store
sudo snap install snap-store --channel=preview/edgeIf you have tried and want to go back to the current official Snap Store, use the following commands in the terminal:
sudo snap remove snap-store
sudo snap install snap-store --stable