Canonical unveils Snappy Ubuntu Core, a lightweight operating system for your home



For the past few years, Canonical, the UK software developer behind the Ubuntu operating system, has been working to extend its traditional desktop operating system into a much broader range of products. Today, the company launched the alpha version of Snappy Ubuntu Core — an ultra-lightweight Ubuntu distribution designed to interface with large-scale cloud application build outs and power the so-called Internet of Things.

Snappy Ubuntu Core is built on the Ubuntu Core project. As the name implies, Ubuntu Core is a barebones, stripped-down implementation of Ubuntu that’s designed to operate in extremely constrained environments. Its advantage is that its software loadout can still be customized with very specific applications, without the additional overhead typically imposed by the full operating system.



The difference between “Snappy” Ubuntu Core and Ubuntu Core is that Snappy is designed to offer an even simpler package management and update system with support for transactional updates. It also supports Docker, the open platform for distributed application distribution and development.

Enabling cross-communication

The point of “Snappy” Ubuntu Core is to drive increased software capability in the emerging Internet of Things ecosystem — the OS will run on a single-core CPU at 600MHz with 128MB of RAM and 4GB of storage (for OS repair and reinstall). The OS itself runs in just 40MB of RAM, with the remainder available to applications. In theory, Snappy Ubuntu Core should run just fine on devices like the recently announced Intel Curie.



One of the problems with current IoT hardware is that there are few standards for devices to talk to each other. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear was a particularly bad example of this problem, but few people are going to buy into IoT devices if it means being locked into particular vendors. Everyone agrees that just because you own a Samsung Galaxy phone doesn’t mean you necessarily want a Samsung television, refrigerator, or dishwasher.

In theory, Snappy Ubuntu Core could obviate some of these problems by providing a universal operating system and common backend for application support. If your smartwatch and your smartfridge are running the same application backed up by the same cloud infrastructure, it drastically simplifies the cross-communication question.

The other potential advantage of the Snappy Ubuntu Core model is that it could provide a far safer alternative to manufacturer-specific updates and security patches. We’ve seen just how badly cellular carriers are at providing security updates or new versions of operating systems — and these are companies that actually devote significant resources to software testing and development. The idea that Samsung, LG, or GE are going to suddenly roll out entirely new validation departments to maintain and update their appliance divisions is farcical at best.

If there’s a larger problem with this plan, it’s that the entire use-case for Internet of Things devices is currently dubious at best. Everyone is talking about wearables, smart technology, and a future where microprocessors are embedded into all our hardware — but for all that talk, there’s precious little technology on the market that actually makes a compelling case for mass adoption.

The ability to build ultra-lightweight applications and maintain them through the cloud could be a vital component of an eventual IoT strategy, but only once someone has invented a device that people want to buy. Ubuntu’s ability to penetrate new markets, meanwhile, is a very open question. The company’s long-term investment in its Unity UI has yet to pay dividends (unless you count Linux Mint’s surging popularity as a plus). The Ubuntu Touch phone OS was delayed into 2015 and no commercial devices have shipped to date.

Canonical may not have failed in these markets, as many projects remain in their early stages and it’s difficult to bring a phone or tablet to market under the best of conditions, but it clearly hasn’t hit its initial goals, either. Refocusing on IoT could be a way for the company to expand the Linux market, in much the same way that Linux expanded from desktops into servers and embedded systems — or it could further distract Canonical from emphasizing the core applications that make Linux popular in its existing segments.