Canonical continues to push forward with its adoption of snap, revealing .deb version of an app will not be available in Ubuntu’s app store if a snap is available.

Snaps are a packaging format that is designed to contain an app’s dependencies rather than relying on the system. In theory, this makes the app more secure, as well as easier to package for multiple distros. In practice, snaps are rarely used outside Ubuntu, with the competing Flatpak a more popular option.

Canonical isn’t backing down from pushing snaps, however, with plans to release a snap-based immutable version of Ubuntu next year. According to OMG! Ubuntu!, Canonical plans to push snaps over traditional .deb files in the upcoming version of its app store, even in the non-immutable version of Ubuntu.

According to the outlet, Ubuntu’s Director of Engineering says the new store will be a “snap-first app store.”

“It’s a non-goal to try and present debs and snaps as two options for the same app. Doing that is hard to get right and restricts design choices in other areas,” he says.

“Deb support will land later because resources are always tight. Finally nothing here stops users from installing applications the old fashioned ways.”

Canonical’s insistence on pushing snaps is one of the reasons some distros have become rebasing off of Debian instead of Ubuntu. This decision is sure to push more downstream distros in that direction.