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universal packages
, and the idea is to have a standard package type that 
can be installed on any Linux distribution. As a result, developers would only have 
to create one package to have their application work on all the popular distros.

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Managing Software Packages
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Another benefit of universal packages is that they have all of their dependencies built 
in, so conflicts are less likely to occur; everything the application needs would be 
contained in one single package. This is great, because the likelihood of you running 
into package conflicts with universal packages is next to non-existent.
As with all things in the IT industry, we can't collectively be satisfied and decide on 
the proper technology. As such, there is debate among the community regarding 
which one of the multiple types of universal packages is the most suitable. I won't 
get into the political debates in this book, as each has its strengths and weaknesses. 
But even easier for us in regards to Ubuntu Server, only one of them is ideal for 
server installations anyway. The competing technologies for universal packages 
include Flatpak, AppImage, and Snap packages.
Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, understand the pain points that developers and 
users experience, and have been making a great effort to change how packages 
are managed. The type of universal package they've developed to address these 
concerns is known as the 
Snap package
. Like all universal packages, Snap packages 
(or more simply, 
Snaps
) have no impact on the underlying Debian packages at all 
and are completely independent, thus removing the possibility of conflicts with 
your 
system packages. This also allows you to have a newer version of an application 
installed than what would otherwise be made available. Since Snaps are installed 
separately and independently from the underlying Debian packages, there's no 
reason to withhold them. Snap packages are better in just about every way and are a 
great concept. The only downside might be that they are larger packages, since they 
include not only the application itself but also all the libraries they require in one 
single package. However, they're really not that large and shouldn't cause an issue 
with disk space. These packages are no bigger than a typical application on macOS 
or Microsoft Windows.
The Ubuntu community commonly uses the word 
distro
 as a 
contraction of the term distribution.

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Chapter 3