Did you know that Canonical’s Snap store is available to install as a Snap app?

If, like me, you didn’t, you most certainly do now!

The ‘Snap Store’ app is a fork of GNOME Software dedicated to Snap apps, and Snap apps exclusively. When installed, it can be used to browse, search, install and manage Snap apps on almost any Linux distribution out there.

You won’t be surprised to hear that the forked store does not support installing, searching or managing regular repo apps, AppImages, Flatpak apps or anything else that is not — all together now — a Snap app.

The Snap Store Snap App

The Snap Store snap could be useful on Linux distributions which do not integrate Snap apps in to the app store by default

When you think about it logically, of course the Canonical Snap store is available as a Snap app. It makes sense. I mean, what better way is there to promote the app format than by packaging the store dedicated to the format, in the format! Genius! Snapception!

Is the standalone Snap store of any use to Ubuntu users?

No. Not really.

I mean, it might be if you’re someone who is super-duper into Snap apps as a format, and you have no intentions of ever using the regular Ubuntu Software tool to install other kinds of apps again.

But let’s be serious: that’s no-one.

Instead, the Snap store snap will be of most use on Linux distributions which do not integrate Snap apps with whatever their default ‘app store’ offering is, by default.

I think it’d also suit those pernickety users who don’t want Snap app results to get mixed up with regular repo app results when browsing for or searching out software to install.

The Snap store snap (like the regular Ubuntu Software app pre-installed in recent versions of Ubuntu, lets you do more than just install apps. You can switch Snap channels, adjust snap app permissions, and read and submit app reviews.

Get the Snap Store

To install the Snap store on your desktop you MUST be running a Linux distro that either has snapd , the underlying snappy framework, already installed, or has it available in the repos.

Snapd is included by default in Ubuntu, but on other distros, like Manjaro, it’s not — check for it in your distro’s repos if you’re unsure.

Once set, install the Snap store snap app by running the following snap command:

sudo snap install snap-store

Once downloaded and unpacked, launch the tool from your desktop’s application launcher by searching for ‘Snap Store’ (or, if you’re lazy, by scouting for the little shopping bag icon with a bird on it:)