It should come as no surprise, given how Canonical is pushing Snap packages for its flagship OS, Ubuntu, that they'd take things to the next level by offering a version of Ubuntu that is comprised completely of snap packages.

Before anyone gets up in arms, the all-snap version of Ubuntu will not be the default. When you go to download Ubuntu next year (when the all-snap version will be available), it will default to the traditional deb version of the OS.

So, what's the appeal of the all-snap version of Ubuntu? It'll be immutable, which means it was designed so the operating system is mounted read-only, so it can't be changed. Once the OS has been installed, system files and directories cannot be changed. This isn't new to Ubuntu, as Ubuntu Core (another immutable version) has been around since 2015. The idea being immutable operating systems is to make them more secure.

This announcement was subtly dropped in the comments of the CUPS Snap announcement posted on omgubuntu.com. Canonical’s Oliver Grawert said, "There will be a desktop release of it with the next LTS (optional though, the classic desktop install will indeed not go away)."

The next LTS version of Ubuntu is 24.04, which will be released in April 2024, so you can bet there'll be a slow trickle of information about this new all-snap version of the Ubuntu Desktop distribution.