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Snapd will only download the snap package once, and then configure the two requested instances separately. For example, let’s setup two instances of odio. You can try parallel installs with any snap in the store. In fact, this may be the preferred way, as you will be able to clearly tell your different instances apart. snap install vlc) and then use unique identifiers for your test installs only. You can install a production version (e.g. You can install them each individually or indeed in parallel, e.g. You have quite a bit of freedom choosing how you use this feature.
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Technically, gimp_first does not exist as a snap, but snapd will be able to interpret the format of “snap name” “underscore” “unique identifier” and install the right software as a separate instance. For example, if you want to install GIMP with your own identifier, you can do something like: snap install gimp_first This is a manual step, and you can choose anything you like for the identifier. The identifier is an alphanumeric string, up to 10 characters in length, and it is added as a suffix to the snap name.
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Now, the actual setup may appear slightly counter-intuitive, because you need to append a unique identifier to each snap instance name to distinguish them from the other(s). Once this step is done, you can proceed to installing software. The first step is to turn on a special flag that lets snapd manage parallel installs: snap set system experimental.parallel-instances=true Experimental features & unique identifier With snaps, this is a fairly simple task.įrom version 2.36 onwards, snapd supports parallel install – a capability that lets you have multiple instances of the same snap available on your system, each isolated from the others, with its own configurations, interfaces, services, and more. If you want to test multiple instances, you will most likely need to configure the remainder yourself. While the repository channels offer great availability to software, you can typically only install a single instance of an application. In Linux, testing software is both easy and difficult at the same time. Parallel installs – test and run multiple instances of snaps
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