Ubuntu’s new App Center app has arrived in the latest Ubuntu 23.10 daily builds, meaning you no longer need to tussle with obscure snap channel commands to test it out.
App Center is an all-new front-end for installing Snap packages on Ubuntu, and it’s built not with GTK but Google’s Flutter. Ubuntu made Flutter its ‘default choice’ for app making in 2021.
Despite being made using an unconventional1 toolkit, the new store looks largely in-keeping with the rest of the Ubuntu desktop.
Read on for a closer look at the natty new client, and to learn more about what it can and can’t do.
Ubuntu’s New App Center App
App Center replaces the “old” Ubuntu Software app (also called Snap Store). The legacy version was a fork of GNOME Software, but routinely criticised by users for its poor performance, high memory usage and inconsistent behaviour.
A large part of that was the age; it was based on an older version of GNOME Software, with snap package features bolted-on via a plugin.
App Center starts afresh; it’s no-longer a Frankenstein fork of GNOME Software.
It’s too early to say definitively if App Center avoids any of aforementioned performance pain points, but my own hands-on testing of it over the past few months has been positive: it feels faster and more responsive than the app it replaces, and it certainly uses less RAM.
Visually, the app is pleasant. The homepage is clean and uncluttered, logically ordered and uses eye-catching banners to draw interest when scrolling.
App listing pages show the all-important ‘install’ button clearly, with info on license, download size, confinement and publisher links all visible up-front:
Screenshots (always an important factor when looking for things to install) are large, clear, and prominent. Clicking on an image opens a larger version in a light-box style overlay.
The new App Center makes it possible to manage Snap apps from within the app itself. The old Snap Store client could apparently do this, but it was a little, er, bad at it. Not so here; the Manage page lets you check for and apply Snap updates, and see a list of your installed Snaps:
What’s really interesting (to me, an Ubuntu swot) is the genesis.
Ubuntu’s App Center has its roots in an unofficial, community-made app which, naturally, I wrote about last year. I don’t recall many instances in Ubuntu’s history where such a critical piece of software began in the community and was adopted officially.
Of course, Ubuntu’s desire to ship its own app store (i.e. one not based on GNOME Software) goes back further.
In 2019 I was (politely) asked by Canonical to remove a post I’d published which gave you an early-look at a new Snap-only software store they were developing (which, it seems, never came to anything).
App Center Caveats
A few drawbacks are evident, though I’m loathe to linger on them too long since development remains in flux and nothing shown or mentioned here should be taken as fixed or final.
The “big one” is that there is currently no support for finding or installing Deb packages from the Ubuntu repo – a bit odd. If I search for an app that is available as a Deb in the repos (e.g., VLC), App Center will only return a result if there’s a snap version:
The good news is that the lack of Deb handling is a temporary omission. A code pull-request is pending – though not yet approved – which would add the ability to search and install Deb software from the Ubuntu repos, the way earlier versions could.
But Flatpak support?
Ubuntu’s App Center does not support Flatpak or Flathub, and (likely) never will. Ubuntu has flatly (heh) ruled out adding Flatpak support in its new app. They aim to offer a bespoke frontend for installing and managing Snaps and repo software – and only those.
App Center
App Center has only recently landed in Ubuntu 23.10 daily builds, so if you run a current build you’ll need to wait for the old version to auto-update to the new one. It looks, works, and performs better (already) than the app it replaces, though support for installing Debs is currently MIA.
If you’re not sold on Snaps as a packaging format you will find the new App Center a little pointless. As it is pre-installed as a Snap (there’s no deb build of it in the Ubuntu repo), those who run sudo apt purge snapd after installation will miss out on trying it entirely.
Still, if you’re not sworn off Snaps, the new App Center looks set to provide an improved experience.
- Flutter can be used to build desktop Linux apps but these aren’t common (yet, I guess) ↩︎