Your submission was sent successfully! Close

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates from Canonical and upcoming events where you can meet our team.Close

Thank you for contacting our team. We will be in touch shortly.Close

  1. Blog
  2. Alan Pope

Alan Pope

Alan Pope

39 posts


Alan Pope
10 October 2019

Chromium in Ubuntu – deb to snap transition

Ubuntu Article

We have recently announced that we are transitioning the Chromium deb package to the snap in Ubuntu 19.10. Such a transition is not trivial, and there have been many constructive discussions around it, so here we are summarising why we are doing this, how, and the timeline. Why Chromium is a very popular web browser, ...


Alan Pope
26 September 2019

Easy Linux Game Streaming with OBS

Desktop Article

For many, watching other people play games has long taken over from TV as the favoured source of entertainment content. As a creator, whether you stream via YouTube, Twitch.tv or Mixer, Open Broadcast Software (OBS) Studio is the swiss-army knife to do it. The OBS snap makes this a breeze, whichever Linux distro you’re playing ...


Alan Pope
15 August 2019

8 Ways Snaps are Different

Ubuntu Article

Depending on the audience, the discussion of software packaging elicits very different responses. Users generally don’t care how software is packaged, so long as it works. Developers typically want software packaging as a task to not burden them and just magically happen. Snaps aren’t magic, but aim to achieve both ease of maintenance and ...


Alan Pope
19 June 2019

Fresh snaps for May 2019

Ubuntu Desktop

A little later than usual, we’ve collected some of the snaps which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) during May 2019. Once again, we bring you a suite of diverse applications published in the Snap Store. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. Cloudmonkey (cmk) is a CLI and interactive shell that ...


Alan Pope
11 May 2019

Publish Your Unity Games in the Snap Store

Ubuntu Article

We often feature and promote applications and games in the Snap Store and via our social media channels. Perhaps unsurprisingly, games are popular among our followers, and our users. There are a few great games already in the Snap Store, but there’s always room for more! Snap lends itself well to packaging and distributing free ...


Alan Pope
14 February 2019

Bootstrap Your Snap

Desktop Development

People frequently tell me they’d like to make a snap of an application they care about. Whether it’s in person at events like FOSDEM, or online via IRC or Telegram, there are developers who want to share their Linux software creations with the world, and snaps are designed exactly for this. We have run a ...


Alan Pope
24 January 2019

Zero to Snap – Rev up your packaging

Desktop Article

Software developers often have enough to worry about. Their focus is creating the best application they can, often without having to consider packaging. We recently discovered Akira, which illustrates this well. The small team of developers are hard at work on the application, so software packaging isn’t a high priority at the moment. Aki ...


Alan Pope
27 December 2018

Top Snaps in 2018

Desktop Desktop

With 2018 drawing to a close, and many of us spending with family during the holiday season, I thought we’d take a look back over some of our favourite Linux applications in the Snap Store. Some have been in the store for over a year, and a few landed only recently, but they’re all great. ...


Alan Pope
20 December 2018

Ubuntu Core Smart Speaker

Desktop Article

With the holidays coming up, many of us can expect to spend time with our friends and families, often listening to seasonal music, or indeed escaping the seasonal music! Whether you’re joining in or getting away from the crowd, this simple project can help. This is part one of a series of posts where I ...


Alan Pope
12 December 2018

Secure VPN Connection with Ubuntu Core

Desktop Desktop

As part of a personal drive to be less dependent on 3rd party Internet services, I’ve moved some things in house, under my own control. This includes self-hosting important shared files, photos and media at home. Which can pose a problem if I’m away from home and want to access those files. Previously, I would ...


Alan Pope
7 December 2018

Fresh Snaps from November 2018

Desktop Article

Another month passes and we’ve got a collection of applications which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) towards the end of 2018. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. 1. MiniZinc MiniZinc MiniZinc is an open-source, high-level solver constraint modeling language Get MiniZinc from the Snap store or install it on the ...


Alan Pope
13 September 2018

Fresh Snaps from August 2018

Desktop Desktop

Another month passes and we’ve got a collection of applications which crossed our “desk” (Twitter feed) during August 2018. We have a mix of social tools, music creation and curation software, password storage systems, developer tools and some fun too. Take a look down the list, and discover something new today. 1. Whalebird AkiraFukushim ...