In the past, I had a lot of troubles with the snap ecosystem and I suggested to not use it for the production systems. All my first attempts to use snap failed, all my PCs became unresponsive, all the applications in snap version proved to be much slower than others.
But I want to give snap another chance, so I’m trying using it (them for snap applications) on newer Ubuntu installation.
The results are pretty encouraging. Applications are more responsive and the loading time is shitty only for the first time. At all, I found no issue using snap applications on a clean Ubuntu 18.04 install. I’m really impressed with the work that the devs did and for the simplicity in using the ‘Software’ applications’ store and the snapcraft.io website. All this experience remind me of Apple’s past moments.
Tests and trials will continue in the coming days/months and, of course, we will keep you updated. Having said that, there is one thing we really can’t stand on about the snap system: a folder named ‘snap’ and placed inside the ‘home’ folder. Wow; what an intrusive (and ugly) thing that doesn’t follow any (please, take a look here: The Linux Filesystem Hierarchy) of the Linux filesystem organization guidelines!
The /snap
directory is, by default, where the files and folders from installed snap packages appear on your system.
From the official documentation, it has the following structure:
/snap/bin - Symlinks to snap applications
/snap/<snapname>/<revision> - Mountpoint for snap content
/snap/<snapname>/current - Symlink to current revision, if enabled
But you also find a ‘snap’ folder in your home directory, it has dedicated to snap applications’ settings, caches and more. And it is ugly to see it in your home folder.
A lot of people are demanding ‘how to move the snap folder to another location’, but it seems something like impossible without broking the snap system. AskUbuntu and LaunchPad bug for references.
So, in the end, the most fashionable solution I found is the following: hide the snap folder!
$ touch .hidden # create a .hidden file in the $HOME directory
$ vim .hidden # edit the .hidden file and put the word 'snap' in it
snap
:wq # to save and close the file in vim
Now, your ‘snap’ folder is disappeared from the home directory.
These steps are working and tested for Caia, Nautilus, and Thunar. And, maybe, also for other file managers.