Enlarge / One thing you can say about this crypto wallet: You can't confuse it for any other. (credit: Getty Images)

The Snap Store, where containerized Snap apps are distributed for Ubuntu's Linux distribution, has been attacked for months by fake crypto wallet uploads that seek to steal users' currencies. As a result, engineers at Ubuntu's parent firm are now manually reviewing apps uploaded to the store before they are available.

The move follows weeks of reporting by Alan Pope, a former Canonical/Ubuntu staffer on the Snapcraft team, who is still very active in the ecosystem. In February, Pope blogged about how one bitcoin investor lost nine bitcoins (about $490,000 at the time) by using an "Exodus Wallet" app from the Snap store. Exodus is a known cryptocurrency wallet, but this wallet was not from that entity. As detailed by one user wondering what happened on the Snapcraft forums , the wallet immediately transferred his entire balance to an unknown address after a 12-word recovery phrase was entered (which Exodus tells you on support pages never to do).

Pope takes pains to note that cryptocurrency is inherently fraught with loss risk. Still, Ubuntu's App Center, which presents the Snap Store for desktop users, tagged the "Exodus" app as "Safe," and the web version of the Snap Store describes Snaps as "safe to run." While Ubuntu is describing apps as "Safe" in the sense of being an auto-updating container with runtime confinement (or "sandboxed"), a green checkmark with "Safe" next to it could be misread, especially by a newcomer to Ubuntu, Snaps, and Linux generally.

Enlarge / The Ubuntu 23.10 desktop, working just fine before you start messing with it.

Ubuntu 23.10 , codenamed Mantic Minotaur, is the 39th Ubuntu release , and it's one of the three smaller interim releases Canonical puts out between long-term support (LTS) versions. This last interim before the next LTS doesn't stand out with bold features you can identify at a glance. But it does set up some useful options and upgrades that should persist in Ubuntu for some time.

Your new installation options in Ubuntu 23.10. Neither of them is "Minimal," but that might be coming.

Slimmed down and Flutter-ed up

Two of the biggest changes in Ubuntu 23.10 are in the installer. Ubuntu now defaults to a "Default installation," which is quite different from what the "default" was even just one release prior. "Default" is described as "Just the essentials, web browser, and basic utilities," while "Full" is "An offline-friendly selection of office tools, utilities, web browser, and games." "Default" is somewhat similar to what "Minimal" used to be in prior versions, while "Full" is intended for those who are offline or have slow connections or just want as many options as possible right away.

At the moment, most people won't be saving much, assuming they install off an ISO file. The ISO for Ubuntu 23.10 is 4.6GB, which is smaller than the 4.9GB ISO of Ubuntu 23.04, but not drastically so. This may change, however; Ubuntu staffers note that they have bigger plans for provisioning and install options , which may make it into 24.04. For now, it's a way to avoid clutter in your app search, at least, if not your disk overall.

Enlarge / Steam, installed from the Snap Store, looks and feels a lot like Steam. You just see this interface a bit sooner, without a bunch of tabs open to find the right dependencies. (credit: Canonical / Valve)

Installing Steam on a Linux system just got a little easier, at least if you can install a Snap package. Ubuntu-maker Canonical announced today that its Steam Snap supports "bleeding edge" Mesa graphics APIs, with more improvements coming soon.

Snaps are self-contained packages that are easier for users to install without command lines and also contain the other programs and libraries they rely on, preventing conflicts between the versions of installed software applications (i.e. dependency hell ). They're theoretically easier to update through a store app and are sandboxed from the rest of the system. They're also not universally appreciated in the greater Linux community, as they're pushed primarily by Canonical through its Snap Store and can reduce the performance of some apps.

Canonical worked with Steam-creator Valve to create the Steam Snap in "Early Access" in March. It bakes in the Mesa drivers and Proton and Wine wrappers needed for some Windows-via-Linux games, resolves the 32-bit/64-bit discrepancies for certain libraries, and handles the other necessary items that users would typically be pulling in via command-line and private repositories.