Enhance your Ubuntu experience with Gnome Software and Flatpacks

Ubuntu recently updated to version 22.04 LTS with Gnome 42, improving user experience and performance. We now have more touchpad gestures, power settings directly from the panel menu, smoother and polished animations, theme color customization, and more. However, Canonical has kept something that makes some users uncomfortable: the Snap store.

If you are one of the Ubuntu users looking for how to make your experience with managing apps as good as all the Ubuntu 22.04 interface, this post is for you. I will explain how you can remove the Snap store, install Gnome Software and use Flatpacks.

Why people don’t like the Snap store

Unfortunately, the Snap store (Ubuntu Software) doesn’t offer a user experience on par with Ubuntu. It is common to find developer test packages and pages that don’t display images correctly or don’t show the correct information about an app when browsing the store. Some apps also seem slowly loaded when installed as a Snap package.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Snap is an exciting project, but it could use some user experience improvements, especially the store (Ubuntu Software).

What is Flatpack?

Flatpack, similar to Snap, is a popular distribution package format. You can easily find apps on Flathub, its official store with thousands of packages. Flatpack also has an advantage over Snap in app load time and provides a great user experience with Gnome Software.

Installing Spotify from Flathub with Gnome Software

Now, let’s see how you can use Flatpack’s integration with Gnome Software to enhance your experience managing apps on Ubuntu.

Removing the Snap store

First, we’ll remove the apps installed with Snap, as we want to reinstall them with Flatpack. For listing all the apps installed, run the following command in the terminal:

$ snap list

Some packages listed are part of the Snap integration with Ubuntu, like bare core*, snapd, and snapd-desktop-integrations, don’t remove those if you want to keep the support for snaps in your system.

Now, run the following command to remove the apps installed:

$ sudo snap remove <<snap name>>

Next, remove the Snap store by running the following command:

$ sudo snap remove snap-store

After removing the Snap store and all apps installed with Snap, let’s install Gnome Software for managing our apps.

Installing Gnome Software

For installing Gnome Software, run the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo apt install gnome-software gnome-software-plugin-flatpack

This command will install Gnome Software, Flatpack, and the Flatpack plugin for Gnome Software.

Next, let’s add the Flathub repository to Ubuntu by running the following command:

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

Now, remove the Snap plugin by running the following command:

$ sudo apt remove gnome-software-plugin-snap

Finally, restart Ubuntu, and done! Search for Software in the applications menu to access Gnome Software:

Accessing Gnome Software from the applications menu

You can reinstall your apps and receive updates from Flathub on Gnome Software. You can even manage OS updates on the updates tab.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s easy to install Gnome Software and Flatpacks on Ubuntu. Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts in the comments section, and consider following me for more articles like this.