A few days ago , we published a news item announcing Canonical's intention to release a version of Ubuntu that uses all software in snap packages. This would be an immutable option, meaning it's virtually unbreakable. Of course, this comes at a significant cost for those who prefer greater control over their operating system. This option is already available for testing, although I think it goes without saying that it's not ready for production environments.
I just discovered this news thanks to Joey Sneddon, who explained how to get one of these images (details below). Once we download the image, we can try out what this immutable version of Ubuntu would look like , and I must admit that the test wasn't very satisfactory.
How to test the immutable version of Ubuntu
The steps to follow to test the immutable version of Ubuntu would be these:
- We go to the Ubuntu Core GitHub page and then we go to the “Actions” section (direct link).
- We look for a “build-image” and click.
- Below, in “artifacts”, we click on “image” and download it. It is a ZIP of about 2GB.
- Once the ZIP is downloaded, we unzip it. In the end we will have an image that at the time of writing this article is called pc.img and has a weight of about 12GB.
To test it, you can use GNOME Boxes (I haven't tested VirtualBox) if you enable UEFI boot, and you can also burn it to a USB drive (16GB minimum) using tools like Etcher . Here's a gallery with images of the installation process:
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- Welcome screen
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- choice of keyboard
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- Privacy options
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- Time zone
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- Online accounts
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- Ubuntu user creation
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- Set the password
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- End of the Ubuntu installation process
The previous images will be seen after a while in which we will see the following, with the different packages that are being installed:
And in the following screenshot we can see the images that are installed by default:
I'm adding a lot of screenshots because, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the following one makes it clear that sudo can't be used (apt isn't even installed):
The software store is the Snap Store, which doesn't even feature the Ubuntu logo, but is slightly different than what we see in the current non-snap version. No normal DEB package software appears.
If all goes as planned, this immutable version of Ubuntu will arrive in April 2024, coinciding with the release of Ubuntu 24.04 NAnimal.