Fan of Flatpaks ...or Not?
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Flatpaks are great for situations where installing software is unnecessary complex or complicated.
I have Steam installed for some games, and since this is a 32 bits application it would install a metric shit-don of 32 bit dependencies I do not use for anything else except Steam, so I use the Flatpak version.
Or Kdenlive for video editing. Kdenlive is the only KDE software I use but when installing it, it feels like due to dependencies I also get pretty much all of the KDE desktop’s applications I do not need nor use nor want on my machine. So Flatpak it is.
And then there is software like OBS, which is known for being borderline unusable when not using the only officially supported way to use it on Linux outside of Ubuntu – which is Flatpak.
OBS worked pretty well for me last time I used it, using the basic package Debian provided.
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Joke's on you, I use Flatpaks on Arch
Why, it's totally unnecessary.
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I've never heard anyone say that Flatpaks could result in losing access to the terminal.
My only problem with Flatpaks are the lack of digital signature, neither from the repository nor the uploader. Other major package managers do use digital signatures, and Flatpaks should too.
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AFAIK, no
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Why, it's totally unnecessary.
i have a couple on arch also, mostly because of dependency issues breaking the program and it being a pain in the ass to fix
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Can someone explain why flatpak isn't necessary for distros that have proper OS dependency management like Arch-based distros or Nix?
Seems like flatpak is solving a problem for OS's that don't have proper dependency management.
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i have a couple on arch also, mostly because of dependency issues breaking the program and it being a pain in the ass to fix
Which ones? Everything in the arch main repos are compiled for your system, and most things in the AUR can either be built from source, or have -bin installs.
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never tried flatpak, snaps were so bad as to never consider non-native installs or just use docker instances when I need to run something weird. so dunno.
whats the use case for a flatpak exactly? maybe im not the target audience???
- Apps not available in distro repositories
- Apps with dependency conflicts
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Why, it's totally unnecessary.
Mostly because of detailed and easy permissions, and also because I have other distibutions on my other computers and want my programs to be consistent everywhere - same programs, same version.
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Which ones? Everything in the arch main repos are compiled for your system, and most things in the AUR can either be built from source, or have -bin installs.
aleph one from the AUR refused to run properly, often crashing on startup so i just grabbed the flatpak
the weirdest one was ghostwriter from the official repos, for some reason one day the preview window showed heavily corrupted output and tinkering with it on and off for a week did nothing, including a complete purge and reinstall of the program
the flatpak was the only version of it that worked after that -
Well a 10mb app could take 20 but what about a 1gb one?
It would take 1,01gb
Dependencies typically take 5-80 megabytes of space.
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I have used rpms, AppImages, Flatpaks, and source. I have even used a snap or two when I had no other choice.
If you can't work with them all, can you even say you Linux Bro?
If you don't compile everything from source, you may as well get a Chromebook!
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Do all laptops users have this option? Also you keep saying megabytes when it's never just a few megabytes. It downloads atleast a few gbs worth of data just for one gui app.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Please clarify, what option do you mean? Flatpaks are supported on any Linux system, it doesn't matter what distro or hardware. Or if you mean sparing some megabytes - typically yes as well. The smallest amount of memory I've seen on a laptop is 32gb, and typically it's no less than 250gb.
If it's not present in you distributions' app store, you can either enable it somewhere or download another app manager like Discover, GNOME Software, or pamac if you're on Arch.
If installation of some app incurs a few gbs of downloads, it is likely that your system updates packages alongside installing your app. Typical Flatpak app takes 10-150 megabytes.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
I'm not a huge fan of Flatpaks, they're a lot harder to distribute offline versus something like AppImage. Seriously, you have to like create an offline repository, then create a bundle, and it's like 6 or 7 steps, it's honestly kind of ridiculous lol but other than that they seem fine, and they're easy enough to update (but so are apt packages)
I know some people may say "oh why do you need that", but Linux has taught me that my computer is my own, and I should be able to use it the way I want to. I shouldn't have to fight with my package manager to get it to do what I want. So I guess you could say, no I'm not really a fan of Flatpaks.
Personally, I didn't mind Snaps, but I'm getting kind of really fed up with especially for-profit companies etc so I don't like Snap that much now either.
Apt packages are nice, but the more of them you have installed, especially if you're using Ubuntu-based distros and have lots of PPAs, the more annoying upgrading your distro version can be because of all the dependencies and cross-dependencies.
AppImage tends to just work for me, as long as it's not compiled with a newer libc-bin version than the distro I'm currently using has, and I really enjoy that it's just one file I can copy and run pretty much anywhere.
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If you don't compile everything from source, you may as well get a Chromebook!
Never, ever, ever do more effort than is required.
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I've never heard anyone say that Flatpaks could result in losing access to the terminal.
My only problem with Flatpaks are the lack of digital signature, neither from the repository nor the uploader. Other major package managers do use digital signatures, and Flatpaks should too.
I was just wondering the connection between flatpaks and the terminal because I’ve never heard of flatpaks before and Wikipedia says they’re a sandboxed package management system or something?
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Can someone explain why flatpak isn't necessary for distros that have proper OS dependency management like Arch-based distros or Nix?
Seems like flatpak is solving a problem for OS's that don't have proper dependency management.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]You answered your own question. Arch and Nix solve the same problem Flatpak solves, but by using better dependency management. Flatpak’s main proposition is built-in sandboxing and convenience, but if you’re on an “expert” oriented distro like Arch (btw), you probably don’t care as much about those “freebies.”
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If i got it right, flatpacks gather all of the dependencies of the package and bundles them with tha package. Maybe those extra 290mb were from dependencies that you already had installed but that flatpak wanted to install another copy.
I wonder why they don't just stuff them inside, like an appimage, so I can see the size when I download the program
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I'm relatively new to Linux. I honestly don't see what the problem is.
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You answered your own question. Arch and Nix solve the same problem Flatpak solves, but by using better dependency management. Flatpak’s main proposition is built-in sandboxing and convenience, but if you’re on an “expert” oriented distro like Arch (btw), you probably don’t care as much about those “freebies.”
In that case flatpak is basically a hack for OS's with broken or improper dependency manangement systems. Either those OS's should fix their broken systems, or ppl should move to OS's that do it properly, as that's one of the most important functions of your OS anyway.
