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Accepted
Kalle Richter
Asked: 2023-12-27 21:44:51 +0800 CST

How to install or refresh a snap in one command?

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I just noticed during scripting that it's very hard to ensure that a snap is installed and refreshed if already installed because snap install fails if the snap is already installed and snap refresh fails if the snap is not installed yet. Am I missing some option listed or not listed in the --help of either command?

I know how to script this with snap list or even rudimentary with || in bash (missing a ton of error cases). But there has to be an option, right?

I'm using Ubuntu 23.10.

snap

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    No, you're not missing an option and that's the whole package AFAIK ... I understand that you probably have in-mind something similar to APT's option install --reinstall, but, unfortunately, that's not an option with the current SNAP manager ... So, you can either install or refresh but not both in one command.

    I just noticed during scripting that it's very hard to ensure that a snap is installed and refreshed if already installed

    Actually, there are ways ...

    Have a look at snap info :

    $ snap info firefox
name:      firefox
summary:   Mozilla Firefox web browser
publisher: Mozilla✓
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/firefox
contact:   https://support.mozilla.org/kb/file-bug-report-or-feature-request-mozilla
license:   unset
description: |
  Firefox is a powerful, extensible web browser with support for modern web application
  technologies.
commands:
  - firefox
  - firefox.geckodriver
snap-id:      3wdHCAVyZEmYsCMFDE9qt92UV8rC8Wdk
tracking:     latest/stable/ubuntu-21.10
refresh-date: 37 days ago, at 16:58 +03
channels:
  latest/stable:    121.0-1.1    2023-12-20 (3600) 257MB -
  latest/candidate: 121.0-1.1    2023-12-20 (3600) 257MB -
  latest/beta:      122.0b3-1    2023-12-22 (3611) 274MB -
  latest/edge:      123.0a1      2023-12-22 (3610) 292MB -
  esr/stable:       115.6.0esr-1 2023-12-19 (3542) 252MB -
  esr/candidate:    115.6.0esr-1 2023-12-11 (3542) 252MB -
  esr/beta:         ↑                                    
  esr/edge:         ↑                                    
installed:          119.0.1-1               (3358) 251MB -

    ... which you can refine (text-process) like so:

    $ snap info firefox | grep -E 'tracking:|refresh-date:|latest/stable:|installed:'
tracking:     latest/stable/ubuntu-21.10
refresh-date: 37 days ago, at 16:58 +03
  latest/stable:    121.0-1.1    2023-12-20 (3600) 257MB -
installed:          119.0.1-1               (3358) 251MB -

    ... that was the SNAP version of FireFox (installed) ... Compare it to VLC (not installed) below:

    $ snap info vlc
name:      vlc
summary:   The ultimate media player
publisher: VideoLAN✓
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/vlc
contact:   https://www.videolan.org/support/
license:   GPL-2.0+
description: |
  VLC is the VideoLAN project's media player.
  
  Completely open source and privacy-friendly, it plays every multimedia file and streams.
  
  It notably plays MKV, MP4, MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MOV, WMV, QuickTime, WebM, FLAC, MP3,
  Ogg/Vorbis files, BluRays, DVDs, VCDs, podcasts, and multimedia streams from various network
  sources. It supports subtitles, closed captions and is translated in numerous languages.
snap-id: RT9mcUhVsRYrDLG8qnvGiy26NKvv6Qkd
channels:
  latest/stable:    3.0.19                      2023-10-13 (3721) 336MB -
  latest/candidate: 3.0.19                      2023-10-02 (3721) 336MB -
  latest/beta:      3.0.20-28-g0cb962765f       2023-12-27 (3890) 336MB -
  latest/edge:      4.0.0-dev-27142-g37758b8c43 2023-12-27 (3891) 692MB -

    ... and refined:

    $ snap info vlc | grep -E 'tracking:|refresh-date:|latest/stable:|installed:'
  latest/stable:    3.0.19                      2023-10-13 (3721) 336MB -

    From man snap:

    info
    Show detailed information about snaps

    The info command shows detailed information about snaps.

    The snaps can be specified by name or by path; names are looked for both in the store  and
    in  the  installed snaps; paths can refer to a .snap file, or to a directory that contains
    an unpacked snap suitable for 'snap  try'  (an  example  of  this  would  be  the  'prime'
    directory snapcraft produces).
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