Snap packages - why?

Why is there so many snap packages all of a sudden?
And how do snap packages work with old and small computers, that are practically too small to run Gnome or KDE?

Canonical pushes for snaps because snap packages are easier for them to maintain. See Chromium in Ubuntu – deb to snap transition.

Originally Posted by turboscrew And how do snap packages work with old and small computers, that are practically too small to run Gnome or KDE?

A quote from ubuntuforums.org

Originally Posted by CatKiller Snaps are no slower than software installed through deb packages. They are slower to start the first time than software installed through deb packages.

Here's a nice explanation that I stumbled upon ...

Having read this – you should very(!) carefully consider what they have decided to do here! In effect, they're implementing a "lightweight container environment." Which means that they're trading convenience for disk space, and maybe trading "short-term convenience" for "much larger headaches down the road." (Only you can tell ...)

It is therefore very important for you to fully understand what they are doing here, and why, and then to decide for yourself whether this ("one might say, 'radical' ...) strategy is compatible with your situation. In particular, if you need to deploy various packages that need to interact tightly with one another, it might not be.

Here's another situation where I wish that the original implementors had more-carefully chosen their terminology. I wish they'd just called them "snaps," rather than "snap packages ..." Because the implementations have nothing to do with each other, whether or not the outcome apparently does.

Well there's another clown pressing for nothing but flatpacks. I'm downloading Debian non-free testing as I type

Originally Posted by shruggy Canonical pushes for snaps because snap packages are easier for them to maintain.

Word.

Originally Posted by shruggy A quote from ubuntuforums.org

They do take a lot of resources though; hard drive space and RAM iirc. We have had numerous examples right here on LQ where people have problems precisely with what OP is asking.

And BTW, that applies to all containerised software packages. They do have their place, but making them the default is madness. The sort of madness that is considered normal in the computer/internet world of the 2020s.

I don't use snaps, flatpacks, or modular stuff.

The issue I see is bloat and package incompatibility. Each is supposed to contain all the dependencies it needs so when you have several of those "packages" that each use the same libraries then you wind up with multiple copies of the same libraries, and there is nothing to ensure they are all the same or compatible with other installed software.

Multiple copies ===>> bloat
different versions ===>> potential incompatibiities

All leads to headaches for the user.

Let's not forget that Linux software management is fundamentally different from Windows'.
Some people feel the need to even out any sort of hurdle to "pull more people over to Linux", and containerised packages are often thought to help with that because they finally allow newbies to install packages "the way they're used to": hunt it on the WWW, run an installer... as I said, they have their use but this is abuse...

Sounds like they are exactly what I feared them to be.