Fan of Flatpaks ...or Not?
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I'm happy to use Flatpaks but the annoyances I've had are like when one application says to use you'll need to point to the binary of another application that it depends on but very understandably doesn't package together, figuring that out to me can be annoying so I'll switch to a regular installation and it all just works together no fuss, no flatseal, no thinking about it really. Also some applications where it's really nice to launch from the terminal especially with arguments or just like the current working directory and with Flatpaks instead of just right off the bat it's application name and hit enter, Flatpak hope you remember the whole package name
org.wilson.spalding.runner.knife.ApplicationName ...
Ya alias but got to remember to do that. So far anything I'd ever want to run from terminal, no Flatpak
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The person you're replying to is talking about the permissions manager flatseal, not flatpaks
Oops. I got confused
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I've never had a problem with flatpaks or snaps.
I think people who dislike flatpaks or similar aren't having "problems". They work, but they're using using a sledgehammer to drive a nail.
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As long as software is available in the Software Manager to be installed that way... I don't care what format it's in.
But don't make normies go to the terminal. It's inhumane, and really does not help the masses get away from big tech - which is a worthier goal than keeping your software terminal-only.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote on last edited by [email protected]
While I wouldn't want flakpak going deep into the OS I think the advantage of using them on the desktop is obvious. Developers can release to multiple dists from a single build and end users get updates and versions immediately rather than waiting for the dist to update its packages. Plus the ability to lock the software down with sandboxes.
The tradeoff is disk consumption but it's not really that big of a deal. Flatpaks are layered so apps can share dependencies. e.g. if the app is GNOME it can share the GNOME runtime with other apps and doesn't need to ship with its own.
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Perhaps ironically, this is mocking a strawman. Flatpacks can be installed and managed using the terminal! Not only that but Linux-Distros have had graphical package managers for decades.
The primary reason that distros have embraced flatpack / snap / appimage is that they promise to lower the burden of managing software repositories. The primary reason that some users are mad is that these often don't provide a good experience:
- they are often slower to install/start/run
- they have trouble integrating with the rest of the system (ignoring gtk/qt themes for example)
- they take a lot more space and bandwidth
Theoretically they are also more secure... But reality of that has also been questioned. Fine grained permissions are nice, but bundling libraries makes it hard to know what outdated libraries are running on the systems.
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My guess was the point is that it's difficult to install CLI tools using Flatpak
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Installing them is not difficult. It's the same as any other flatpak.
The problem is when running them (actually, when running any flatpak, not just CLI tools) you need to type out the whole backwards domain thingy that flatpaks use as identifier, instead of having a proper typical and simple executable name like they would have if they were installed normally.
I end up adding either symlinks or aliases for all my flatpaks because of this reason. After doing that it's ok.. but it's just an extra step that's annoying and that the flatpak devs have no interest on fixing apparently.
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I seem to have constant issues with AppImages. Every single one I have currently won't open. I get an error message relating to either qT or GTK. Tried searching for the error and get a bunch of old forum threads talking about either not being compatible with Wayland at all, or comments stating that the one specific AppImage in question must have been "packaged badly". Thankfully, nothing 'mission critical' for me is an AppImage currently, but it is quite upsetting that I have the most problems with the supposed "just works" app packaging/distribution option.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Yes, Flatpak is overall a better approach when compared to AppImages, since being dependent on a known runtime ensures the program will run whenever the runtime is available.
What I wish they would add is a way to run the flatpak in a portable way. Because as it stands, AppImages is the only option for that. Flatpak doesn't really allow to have a portable installation in a pendrive, for example. At the moment there's no replacement for AppImage in such use cases, which is a pity.
But there's no fundamental technical design roadblock in flatpak that would prevent it from supporting this in the future, imho. theoretically one could create a program that mounts the flatpak file into a ramfs layered with the runtime and run it.
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My favorite part of the linux experience is the FREEDOM, but also being talked down to for not using my freedom correctly, I should only do things a specific way or I might as well just use windows.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]You are mixing different ideas of freedom.
Software freedom is not the same as freedom of choice of software.You don't need Linux to have choices of what software to use, you have that in most (all?) proprietary systems, in some you might even have more choices than in Linux.. even if it includes proprietary software.
This is analogous to how being a free person (not a slave) is not the same as having freedom to choose who to work for, even if some of them are slavers (ie. having freedom to choose your master).
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you (rhetorical you, not you) can recommend not using the AUR officially all you want. it doesn’t mean anything if a large number of tasks the average user is going to do require AUR packages. i’m kind of drunk rn but i’ll go find specific pages of the wiki that demonstrate what i’m talking about, i stg this isn’t nothing. the core system itself can entirely be managed with pacman, yes, but the average user is going to be doing a lot more than just that. there is a certain discord in the messaging of arch as a whole.
this is exactly my point. arch can either be a nuts and bolts distro or it can be made for normies. it can’t be both.
it doesn’t mean anything if a large number of tasks the average user is going to do require AUR packages
You keep saying this but can you give any concrete examples? I don't recall coming across anything like this.
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The issue I have with flatpaks is the size for most applications. It just doesn't make sense for me. Not that it's not useful and has it's purposes.
Fast storage is one of the cheapest components of modern PCs so I'm always surprised when Flatpak file size is brought up. It's not something I worry about very much.
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The issue I have with flatpaks is the size for most applications. It just doesn't make sense for me. Not that it's not useful and has it's purposes.
and has it’s purposes
Unlike that apostrophe.
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While I wouldn't want flakpak going deep into the OS I think the advantage of using them on the desktop is obvious. Developers can release to multiple dists from a single build and end users get updates and versions immediately rather than waiting for the dist to update its packages. Plus the ability to lock the software down with sandboxes.
The tradeoff is disk consumption but it's not really that big of a deal. Flatpaks are layered so apps can share dependencies. e.g. if the app is GNOME it can share the GNOME runtime with other apps and doesn't need to ship with its own.
FTFY: Flatpaks are layered so apps can share dependencies. e.g. if the app is GNOME 4.2.11.3 it can share the GNOME 4.2.11.3 runtime with other apps and doesn't need to ship with its own, but every app requires a different GNOME version anyway
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I seem to have constant issues with AppImages. Every single one I have currently won't open. I get an error message relating to either qT or GTK. Tried searching for the error and get a bunch of old forum threads talking about either not being compatible with Wayland at all, or comments stating that the one specific AppImage in question must have been "packaged badly". Thankfully, nothing 'mission critical' for me is an AppImage currently, but it is quite upsetting that I have the most problems with the supposed "just works" app packaging/distribution option.
Yeah that's why I'm a bit weary of switching to Wayland, so many apps still seem unsupported, or have issues, whereas on X11 everything for me just works. Plus, the two DE's I'd actually consider using either don't have Wayland support at all or have very early experimental support (Cinnamon and Xfce) so it'll still be a while for me before I am able to consider switching to Wayland, assuming everything else works.
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Size and gnome/GTK dependencies are main reasons why I don't use Flatpaks (I have nothing against gnome though, it just pulls in too much and KDE is worse in this regards, which is why I use Sway and River)
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saying it can happen in the AUR feels disingenuous to me when you consider how integrated the AUR is to the arch ecosystem. this is a genuine complaint from a user perspective and is an issue with the design philosophy imo. it is a special case but it’s so frequent as to be annoying, is my point.
not sure why everyone is replying like i’m unaware and totally ignoring the actual grievance i have. im very well aware of pacman and yay’s intended behaviors, i just think they’re shit in some cases. idk if people who say this have never tried to daily drive arch before or something but the AUR is absolutely not optional unless you want to constantly hand roll your own shit. see my edit to the original comment.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Feyd did a pretty good job of outlining the AUR disclaimers in a different comment so I won't do that here. It's true that Arch won't stop you from shooting yourself in the foot, but again it's nuts to claim that routine compiling is the usual case for all rolling distros and belies your claim that you're familiar with usual case experience. There's absolutely no routine experience where you're regularly compiling.
I've used debian and apt-get most of my life, I've used arch on a pinetab 2 for about 6 months, regularly playing with pacman and yay and someone who's never met me is saying I'm a fanboy for being familiar with linux package management.
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But why is that?
Because the OBS developers say so.
And since I’m not on Ubuntu, I use the Flatpak version to get OBS as intended bey the OBS developers.
So its not the package formats issue, but your distribution packaging it wrong. Right?
Exactly. Most distributions fail hard when it comes to packaging OBS correctly. The OBS devs even threatened to sue Fedora over this.
https://gitlab.com/fedora/sigs/flatpak/fedora-flatpaks/-/issues/39#note_2344970813
I don't know what you are smoking, I've used OBS for years installed from the AUR with zero problems...
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Yeah that's why I'm a bit weary of switching to Wayland, so many apps still seem unsupported, or have issues, whereas on X11 everything for me just works. Plus, the two DE's I'd actually consider using either don't have Wayland support at all or have very early experimental support (Cinnamon and Xfce) so it'll still be a while for me before I am able to consider switching to Wayland, assuming everything else works.
I don't actually know if it is a Wayland issue - most of those forum posts are like 3 years old... And I have definitely used these same AppImages in the past on Wayland without issue. I think the AppImages are expecting some specific dependency to be installed on my system that is no longer installed due to updates. (which I thought was counter to the entire point of an AppImage? I thought it was supposed to be kinda like Flatpak where it has it's dependencies in the image? Maybe I just misunderstood AppImage...)
To give you some hope, my Distro switched to Wayland as default a little over a year ago (i think) and I have not been running into problems (outside this AppImage problem, if it is indeed a Wayland issue, which I cannot confirm or deny).
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I need OBS on this new computer!
Let's install the flatpack!
V4l problems
Plugins Problems
Wayland Problems
I'm just going back to the .deb, thanks.
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I need OBS on this new computer!
Let's install the flatpack!
V4l problems
Plugins Problems
Wayland Problems
I'm just going back to the .deb, thanks.
Flatpak being securely sandboxed by default is both its biggest strength and its worst point of contention. The XDG is still scrambling to replicate the permission requests paradigm from Android on the Linux desktop.
