Ubuntu’s New “Dangerous” Daily Builds – What Are They?

Name: Ubuntu Dangerous (subject to change).

Age: Yet to be born.

Appearance: A normal Ubuntu development build, but with hidden potential for utter chaos.

What’s this about? Ubuntu devs think regular unstable daily builds are not risky enough, so they’re creating new “dangerous” images (which sound like they should come with a skull and crossbones wallpaper pre-installed). I’ll explain more about the what and why in this laboured chat format.

Are we talking real danger here? Will my laptop explode? Unlikely. These will be normal desktop images of the in-development series, but with seeded (aka preinstalled) snap apps, runtimes, and drivers on to their “edge” channels. Using these images will be a bit like buying discounted sushi from a petrol station, probably safe to consume.

Double-edged sword. In Snapcraft, the “edge” channel is the pocket where bleeding-edge builds live, and these may or may not work properly. Ubuntu daily builds are development versions intended for testing, and edge snap channels are development versions intended for testing… See the synergy?

I like testing, but I only just changed my underwear… These builds are intended for Canonical employees and developers. When Canonical run “spikes” for focused testing, effort was needed to get everyone using the same stuff. With a ‘dangerous’ image, that’s null; everyone is running the same stuff.

Did you say …SPIKES?! At Canonical, a ‘spike’ is a 6-week focused development session in which many of its engineers and development teams are re-tasked to work on a specific snap-related area. A bit like being made to attend a snap-testing bootcamp, but with less shouting and better coffee.

What if a normie downloads a dangerous image? Normies struggle to download more RAM for their phone, and since these ISOs are aimed, primarily, at Canonical employees, chances are remote. Of course, knowing the internet, someone will try one out, if only so they can produce a 15 minute YouTube video rant moaning that “iT iS nOt eVeN daNgeRouS aT aLl!!1”. Modern internet gonna internet.

Do say: “Bleeding edge snaps baked in a development pie? Delicious”.

Don’t say: “Ubuntu is as dangerous as a strongly-worded email from my nan”.