How does it stack up against traditional package management and others like AUR and Nix?
Best of the three major agnostic package formats. If it brings more focus to Linux development, I don’t see how it can be a bad thing. A bit more space needed but for most setups this is a non-issue
Yeah duplication of running libraries is also a RAM/CPU resource issue but for modern well resourced machines probably not noticable. It is an issue when scaling down to low powered / old devices though. Like, running a web browser which runs in it’s own sandbox with duplicate libraries running is going to have noticable performance differences compared to a non-sandboxed program running native libraries on a low RAM or low CPU system.
That’s not to say Flatpak isn’t a good solution; and all the agnostic package formats have the same issue compared to non-sandboxed apps. Plus the added security issues and stability on bleeding edge systems is good.
Plus, being able to sandbox user space applications, which previously had free reign, is nice.
Sandboxing isn’t 100% there yet, but it’s come along way.
I love flatpak. It makes it easier for Linux to become mainstream.
As a non-technical user: fucking love it.
As a semi-technical user: I also fucking love it. It gets out of the way so I can focus my time on my work and not OS maintenance.
It’s fantastic, for two reasons:
- There’s so much great software available through it, and I can always get the latest version regardless of my distro - or an older version if it hasn’t kept up with its dependencies.
- It’s part of the tooling that allows me to update my operating system without risk of it breaking (i.e. I can use an atomic distro because of it).
@tet its great because you can listen to people whine about it now instead of systemd
The two whines are not mutually exclusive. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@kingmongoose7877 until someone tells me another way to run 2 python apps one which requires python 2 and one which requires python 3, on the same system, which is EASIER than installing a flatpak, im gonna maintain that they have a use case, even if they aren’t idealized package management as we dreamed of
Easy, tiger. I think you misinterpreted my original reply.
I meant the whining about the two (systemd and flatpak) isn’t strictly OR but may be AND. Have a nice day.
I think pyenv would be the appropriate tool for doing a native install. And of course when it comes to CLI, Flatpak isn’t really for that.
@pingveno i think that two things get conflated. 1. flatpaks and appimages, snaps, have some niche uses for obsolete software and maybe some other edge cases 2. because the two major standards are backed by dumbass corporate entities, they have been promoted as the universal solution to everything that will revolutionize linux 3. the real thing everyone hates, is these stupid companies trying to get rid of a beautiful package management architechture so they can enshittify linux like windows
I think their uses extend beyond obsolete software. In particular, trying to get updates out to a wide variety of Linux distros has generally meant a tradeoff between “move fast, break things” and “move slow, never change”. Flatpak gives you a stable set of libraries to work with and the ability to run multiple versions of those libraries at once. Linux package managers have a place, but their sheer proliferation means that for most applications to reach all desktop Linux users, they have to go through something like Flatpak for distribution.
Uh. Python is like the worst example for this, conda/mamba?
Cheese with your whines?
You should use WINE only through Flatpak btw
🤦♂️
Speaking of which, didja hear that for the upcoming Easter holiday, Amazon is offering a special gift basket of northern Israeli cheeses.
They’re calling it Cheeses of Nazareth.
You have received the Dad Joke Gold Star
Are you trying to start a war? Hopefully no one mentions wayland vs xorg else it might go nuclear
@squid_slime let me install this flatpak of kde wayland on my oracle unbreakable kernel running under redhat enterprise
That’s like two keystrokes in emacs.
I really like the idea of a universal app format and flatpak seems the best for it. And flathub has been great as a repo.
The idea of separate system layer (with traditional packages) and user app layer with flatpaks seems like the way to go. Perhaps even immutable system layer.
I think it’s a good way for people to release software for Linux without having to deal with specific distro stuff (which historically has pretty much been “just provide a .deb for Ubuntu and a .tar.gz for other people to figure out”).
I’m hoping that it pushes for more people porting stuff to Linux because it’s a single target that gives you access to Steam Decks, Chromebooks and desktops.
I don’t think it makes sense for things that aren’t desktop applications such as servers or libraries, just because those tend to be open source, don’t need to be that up to date and benefit from tighter system integration. I see it as something that sits on top of other package managers rather than replacing them.
For Flathub? Eh, if they turn out to be bad we can just all move to another server, we’re not snap. :P I’m willing to bet that someone has already made a flatpak repo for Citra and Yuzu.
I personally prefer to use Flatpaks over traditional packages because of the added security, sandboxing, and overall convenience of not having to deal with dependency hell. It’s especially nice being able to have proprietary applications sandboxed from the rest of my system without worrying that Steam is snooping on my ‘super-important-tax-documents’.
Flatpaks are also very useful for having up-to-date packages on distros like Debian, and it’s derivatives. People can still use their preferred distro without having to worry about not getting a certain update, feature, bug fix, etc, for their applications.
Being able to restrict what applications have access to is a game-changer for me. A lot of times Flatpaks, by default, have very lenient permissions, and with the use of Flatseal I can restrict it to my liking. Worried about Audacity’s telemetry?? Turn network permissions off. Now, not all applications will work well (or at all) without internet connectivity, but for applications like Audacity, it works great!! Flatpaks can also be very useful for developers.
That’s not to say that Flatpaks are without their fair share of issues. Are they bloated?? Yeah, and although it’s not an issue for me, it may be for some people. Desktop integration is, meh. Themes, and fonts don’t always integrate the best. (A while back there were issues with Flatpak’s sandbox, but I won’t touch on that because I need to refresh my mind on it, and it was actively being developed to fix those issues so it possibly isn’t even an issue anymore.)
Overall I think Flatpaks are absolutely wonderful.
People need to realize that before Flatpak, distributing a small-time Linux app was a nightmare. Appimages were your best option if you wanted to avoid distro specific builds, PPAs and AUR, etc. Ever since packaging 2009scape on Flathub I haven’t looked back. It auto updates. People can find it from software centers. It works on all distros. It connects straight to upstream’s CICD. It even forced us to adopt XDG compliance so we could sandbox it better.
Yes, Flatpak has downsides like the download size (on disk it doesn’t matter because it gets compressed and the runtimes are shared, same as literally any other package manager). But overall, I hugely welcome it over the options we had before. Much love to the Flatpak and Flathub devs!
Ever since packaging 2009scape on Flathub I haven’t looked back.
So YOU are the one to blame for my latest Runescape addiction relapse! I only learned of the project because I stumbled on it while browsing flathub
LOL
Flatpak shooould just download the diffs
They should, actually. Google released a tool for downloading only the diffs on binaries a few years ago
They use ostree afaik, so “they should” as in “I think they do”
As a generalist I have to learn many concepts and dont have time to delve into any one that deep. Flatpak works and isnt proprietary like snap so I enjoy that. My recent debian+kde installation works well with if. Open discover and install flatpaks as much as you wish.
isnt proprietary like snap
Exactly, proprietary.
The Snap Store is run and controlled by Canonical and is not open source. The rest of Snap is open source, meaning the daemon and core software. [emphasis mine] How threatening this is depends on you POV and has been the subject of much discussion.
Exactly, proprietary.
if the only way to use the open source client, is with a closed source server, is it really open source at all? The platform is the server.
This isn’t threatening in a way that Canonical would hack my computer with it. It’s threatening the Linux ecosystem. They created a distro agnostic package manager which is solely controlled by them. In other words they want everyone to use Snap and then vendor lock in everyone into it. “embrace, extend, extinguish”
I honestly wouldn’t care if snap was both Canonical proprietary and Ubuntu proprietary but this M$ like strategy sucks.
Better than snaps and AppImages. Do I want every package on my system to be replaced by a Flatpak? No. Am I glad that I can ex. install Zotero as a Flatpak instead of having to build it myself? Yes.
I definitely prefer it over Snaps or appimages. Straight-forward to update, and Flatseal provides a nice GUI to control permissions (if needed). Themes may not work properly, but whatever, not a big deal for me.
The distro’s repo is always my go-to. If it’s not available there, then flatpak, and I’ll use appimage under duress. If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out a different solution.
Yeah I’m not a huge fan of Appimages because I don’t like that to update it you usually have to go find and download the file again, instead of just getting it from a repository. They feel too Windows-y to me in that way.
I use them for some things and I think they are fine. Mostly apps that are kinda messy and I want to keep them and their atrocious dependency tree away from my base system. I also like to use them for proprietary apps or apps where I actually want to use the sandbox. Other than that I prefer native packages 99% of the time.
Flatpak is slower to update than pacman, the cli interface just doesn’t feel good to use. There is the weird naming, no real way to get a dependency tree, can’t hide those annoying eol messages even for apps that I specifically don’t want to update. Another thing is that not every app was made to run in a sandbox or it is just more difficult to use sometimes. A lot of people tend to cite ide’s, but in my case I was having issues with the steam flatpak. Running games with steam was fine, but anytime I wanted to hook up something third party eg: mods, cheat engine, etc. Doing so in the flatpak either required some tinkering around the sandbox or straight up didn’t work.
I feel like that last sentence sums up the whole experience. If you just need to point and click and have it work. Flatpak does that amazingly. If you need any kind of integration with other things, expect problems.
Edit: just wanted to add that, the whole point and click and work is fine for 99% of people which is why I and many others choose to use it.
Yeah, I also had apps like Steam native break once or twice due to library updates (such as Mesa) - the downside to rolling distros. However, the Flatpak version continued to work so now I only use that. I don’t use mods though.
I’m now gravitating towards treating my rolling distro a bit like an immutable; more Flatpaks, avoid user repositories.
While I don’t think flatpak shouldn’t replace traditional packages, I still like it.
Flatpak apps just work most of the time, they work without issues and are often very up to date. The sandboxing does have benefits because no apps interfere with it, the problem is that it doesn’t work super well with other apps, sometimes the theming is off, and it doesn’t work well with other apps, installing apps takes much longer, and it isn’t as easily started from the command line.
Edit: typo
In my opinion, with a debian style distro as the example, apt-get should be used for syatemwide stuff. Individual users can go for flatpak.
Flatpak is fantastic for end-user GUI applications
Flathub is also great, but the fact that it’s really the only repo that flatpak maintainers are using concerns me. I know I’m dreaming, but I would love to see some sort of federated or P2P hosting
