Skype released as Snap for Linux

Snaps are a type of container created by Canonical Inc., to serve as a universal installation package across distributions, so that developers and users alike, know that the software can run on any system, anytime.

The idea, is that all dependencies are packaged, snaps auto-update and can easily be rolled back in the case of issues, so long as you use a distro that supports snaps, you’re good to go (in theory.)

Currently, the supported Distributions are:

• Ubuntu
• Linux Mint
• Manjaro
• Debian
• Arch Linux
• OpenSUSE
• Solus

Recently, Spotify and Slack, two other big name pieces of software, have released snaps of their own, and now Microsoft has jumped on board.

According to the release by Canonical, "Skype has turned to snaps to ensure its users on Linux, are automatically delivered to its latest version upon release. And with snaps’ roll-back feature, whereby applications can revert back to the previous working version in the event of a bug, Skype’s developers can ensure a seamless user experience."

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

Many users already have Skype installed on their distributions, and there is no real need to change that, but for anyone with it not currently installed, or for someone simply wishing to move to the new technology, simply read up on your distributions use of snaps and the commands associated with, and give it a go!

On Linux Mint for instance, if you don't have Snap installed already, you need to run sudo apt install snapd first to get it added to your system, and then snap install --classic skype to install Skype on the computer.