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  1. Blog
  2. Alan Pope

Alan Pope

Alan Pope

9 posts


Alan Pope
7 January 2021

Time to Branch Out

Ubuntu Article

Branches are an under-used but important feature of the Snap Store publishing capabilities. Indeed as I’m writing this post, I’ve never had a need to use the feature, and I’ve been publishing snaps for four and a half years. Let’s fix that! Start with acorns The rationale for branches is simple. Each snap in the ...


Alan Pope
12 November 2019

Growing the Linux app Ecosystem at LAS 2019

Desktop Article

The third Linux Application Summit (LAS) kicks off this week in Barcelona, Spain. Formerly organised under the GNOME project, known as Libre Application Summit, the new LAS is a joint effort between the KDE and GNOME projects. The aim of the conference is to encourage the growth of a vibrant Linux application ecosystem. Canonical are ...


Alan Pope
7 August 2018

Fresh Snaps from July 2018

Desktop Article

Another month, and another bumper crop of snaps for you! This time around we have a great mix of developer tools, productivity applications and of course games. All of these are available as snaps which can run on millions of Linux computers around the world. You can stay up to date with our editorial picks ...


Alan Pope
26 July 2018

Bringing Electron applications to millions of Linux users

Desktop Article

Electron is one of the most popular frameworks for creating cross-platform desktop applications right now. Many developers use electron-builder to do the heavy-lifting of package management for their Electron apps. electron-builder has support for creating snap packages out of the box. Bringing your Electron desktop app to Linux can be as ...


Alan Pope
19 July 2018

Snaps Add Flexibility with Tracks

Ubuntu Article

Snap packages have a rich set of features beyond getting the latest shiny on your Linux distribution. Tracks enable developers to publish multiple supported releases of their application under the same name. With this enabled, a user can switch tracks at any time to install and use an alternate supported relase of software. Within each ...


Alan Pope
12 July 2018

Demystifying Snap Confinement

Desktop Development

Snaps introduce some new concepts to the Linux ecosystem which developers can take advantage of, and snap users need to appreciate. When installing a snap, it’s important to understand what parts of the system the application wants access to. It’s up to the user to decide to install (or not) a snap, and the confinement ...


Alan Pope
22 May 2018

Offline Computing – 10 Apps for the Digital Nomad

Desktop Desktop

In today’s always-connected, constantly-inturrupted world, it can often be rewarding to go offline. Disconnecting from the Internet doesn’t mean you have to buy a yurt, live on beans, and get no work done though! While there’s a ton of great apps in the Snap store which rely on a connection to function, there’s also a ...


Alan Pope
1 September 2017

Ubuntu Rally in NYC

Internet of Things Article

The Ubuntu Rally, taking place in New York City September 25th-29th, is a forward-thinking five day software hackathon attended by major software vendors, Ubuntu developers working at every level of the stack, and community contributors. There are a limited number of non-sponsored slots remaining. If you’re local to New York or can arrang ...


Alan Pope
8 August 2017

Ubuntu Artful Desktop Fit and Finish Sprint

Desktop Article

The Artful development cycle is full speed ahead to the Ubuntu 17.10 release in October. As you may have heard, we’re switching the default desktop from Unity to GNOME Shell in this cycle. With such a significant change, we need all the eyeballs we can get on every part of the desktop experience. As usual ...