snap vs apt install (here for eclipse)

When calling eclipse in terminal I am told to do one of

sudo snap install eclipse
sudo apt install eclipse-platform

However snap search eclipse gives only

Name Version Developer Notes Summary
eclipse 4.7.3a snapcrafters classic Extensible Tool Platform and Java IDE
mosquitto 1.5 ralight - Eclipse Mosquitto MQTT broker

whereas apt search eclipse gives a huge list of eclipse related packages. Does this mean that if I want to have e.g. "Python IDE for Eclipse" I have to go for the apt variant?

1 Answer

Let's compare version numbers.

1. Official Ubuntu repository has eclipse package with 3.8.1 version.
2. Snap - Eclipse 4.7.3a (as you have already discovered, should be installed with snap install eclipse --classic)

3. Ubuntu Make has 4.7.3a:

   sudo apt-get install ubuntu-make
   umake ide eclipse

Snap version has access to removable media because of --classic confinement:

This revision of snap "eclipse" was published using classic confinement and thus may perform arbitrary system changes outside of the security sandbox that snaps are usually confined to, which may put your system at risk.

But I recommend version from Ubuntu Make. It is more straightforward.