Canonical announces Skype 'Snap' for Linux

Chris Merriman
@ChrisTheDJ
01 February 2018

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LINUX DISTRO MAKER Canonical has announced another major release in its series of ‘Snap' apps, bringing Windows/Mac functionality to Linux.

This time it's Skype, which has been available for Linux for years but has always lagged behind other platforms in terms of functionality.

By containerising it in a Snap, Linux users (not just those on Canonical's Ubuntu distro) will be able to use the full app as it appears on other platforms. Presumably in all its car-sick glory. The full list of compatible distros includes Linux Mint, Manjaro, Debian, Arch Linux, OpenSUSE, Solus and of course Ubuntu. Many more are served unofficially.

"We're delighted to welcome Skype to the snaps ecosystem," said Jamie Bennett, VP of Engineering, Devices & IoT at Canonical. "Skype and the ever-growing number of snaps it joins looks to put the Linux user first, allowing them to enjoy the latest versions upon release and provide a wider range of applications for users to choose from."

Last month, Canonical announced the arrival of collaboration platform Slack as a Snap, bringing the hugely popular workplace application to Linux users. Skype continues the rollout of significant apps, bringing them to Linux users as part of the ongoing cooperation between Windows and Linux.

"Skype has been enabling the world's conversations for over ten years," said Jonáš Tajrych, Senior Software Engineer at Skype, Microsoft.

We want to be able to deliver the same high-quality experience on Linux as we do on other platforms. Snaps allow us to do just that, by giving us the ability to push the latest features straight to our users, no matter what device or distribution they happen to use."

The snap is called 'classic Skype' suggesting it won't be the Universal Windows Platform application, which is a blessing because it'll work.

Snap also includes a rollback feature, so if anything goes wrong with the latest version, users can move straight back to the last known working configuration. µ