GNU/Linux developer Björn Michaelsen reported on June 14, 2016, managing to package the latest Beta build of the upcoming LibreOffice 5.2 office suite as a Snap package for various GNU/Linux distributions, including Ubuntu.

LibreOffice 5.2 Beta 2 was quietly released a few days ago, and as usual, it is packaged by the LibreOffice maintainers as DEB and RPM binary archives for Debian- and Red Hat Linux-based operating systems. Of course, the source package is available as well, but the community needs a universal binary format that works across all GNU/Linux distros.

As reported by us the other day, Canonical has been working lately with various developers and contributors, as well as major hardware manufacturers to bring its innovative and secure Snap package format to virtually any Linux kernel-based operating system out there. So Björn Michaelsen saw this as a great opportunity to package LibreOffice 5.2 Beta 2 as a Snap.

"So, here is what I have been up to: The upcoming LibreOffice 5.2 packaged as a nice new Snap package," said Björn Michaelsen in his latest blog post. "This is one of the things that Snap packages will make a lot easier: upgrading or downgrading versions of an application, having multiple installed in parallel and much more. Watch out as there are more exciting news about this coming up!"

We've only tested this on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) right now, but it should work on any other GNU/Linux operating system out there that comes with an up-to-date version of LXD, Canonical's container hypervisor. Installing it is as simple as opening the Terminal app and pasting the following command.

Once the LibreOffice 5.2 Beta 2 Snap has been downloaded and installed, it will fire up so that you can use it. Right now, the Snap contains the Writer, Impress, Calc, Base, Draw, and Math components. To remove it from your system, simply run the next command in the Terminal app.