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While I generally appreciate the new universal software package approaches like snap or flatpak, I started to feel uncomfortable concerning how to actually tell whether an app installed on my system (16.04 LTS Unity) is a snap app or a flatpak app or even a native app.

To me, it becomes annoying to have an app installed twice or even three times. The 'Dash' search doesn't tell you which one is which. Neither does the Gnome / Ubuntu software center. So, how can I decide which version to remove in order to keep the system as clean as possible?

TRiG
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Bunjip
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1 Answers1

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GNOME Software does indeed tell you if something is a deb, snap or flatpak. If you click on an application and then scroll down past the screenshots you'll see the origin of the software was either from the Ubuntu archive, snapstore or flathub.

popey
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  • Oh, I haven't seen this before. However, there are applications that don't have any software origin statement at all. – Bunjip Feb 23 '18 at 15:26
  • Do you have an example of one? – popey Feb 23 '18 at 17:59
  • E.g. One of my Skype versions says 'Source: unknown' or VLC. While the snap version of VLC does show 'Snap' as source, the native Ubuntu version doesn't show a source at all. – Bunjip Feb 28 '18 at 09:12
  • Any chance you can post a screenshot of what you see in GNOME Software? It would help a lot. – popey Feb 28 '18 at 09:16
  • I've got a package which is installed as snap but source says "ubuntu-artful-universe" in source. – Mr.WorshipMe May 22 '18 at 06:52
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    The 'Software' did not realize that I've got a version already installed... Also Software would install a different version than apt, I guess it is all snap even in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. – Horror Vacui Sep 08 '20 at 10:01
  • @popey is there anyway to find that in terminal? – Masoud Borbor Mar 01 '23 at 20:17
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    Sure. If it's come from a snap, then which app (replace 'app' with the binary name) will show /snap/bin/app. If it's a deb then dpkg -S $(which app) will tell you which deb it came from. If it's a flatpak then it'll likely show the fqdn (dotted name) like `org.organisation.app``. – popey Mar 02 '23 at 11:37