Fan of Flatpaks ...or Not?
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Atomic distros are cool, and I'm sure they will only get more popular, but I don't buy the idea that they're "The" future. They have their place, but they can't really completely replace traditional distros. Not every new thing needs to kill everything that came before it.
They have their place, but they can’t really completely replace traditional distros.
As it stands, I kinda agree. But I truly wonder to what extent we might be able to close the current gap.
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I love installing things from the CLI and prefer to only do it that way but Linux needs a single click install method for applications if it’s ever going to become a mainstream OS. The average person just wants to Google a program, hit download and install. If not that then they want to use a mobile-like App Store.
Flatpak is kind of perfect at achieving both those things
wrote on last edited by [email protected]OpenSUSE has OneClick install for RPMs. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:One_Click_Install
Edit: and if you happen to download an rpm, you just double click it in the filemanager (or single click if that is your setting) and it launces the install GUI.
Its similar to how MSI file install looks...just next next finish kind of thing
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OpenSUSE has OneClick install for RPMs. https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:One_Click_Install
Edit: and if you happen to download an rpm, you just double click it in the filemanager (or single click if that is your setting) and it launces the install GUI.
Its similar to how MSI file install looks...just next next finish kind of thing
wrote on last edited by [email protected]For sure and I agree that should be enough but the average person is not good with computers and they don’t want to learn. They won’t understand the nuances of different distributions of Linux. Like try explaining the difference between a .deb, a .tar.gz, and a .rpm to a person who’s already hésitent about using Linux. Flatpak solves that by just having one download that any Linux install can use
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Haven't had much opportunity to use snap, what's the problem with them?
What everyone else has already said, plus sudden updates that nuke active applications.
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my issue with all of these gui tools ut never forces you to learn the cli to fix things just use guis
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I like the sandboxing of Flatpak, but I prefer AppImage as I don't like having the Flatpak runtime requirement.
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For sure and I agree that should be enough but the average person is not good with computers and they don’t want to learn. They won’t understand the nuances of different distributions of Linux. Like try explaining the difference between a .deb, a .tar.gz, and a .rpm to a person who’s already hésitent about using Linux. Flatpak solves that by just having one download that any Linux install can use
Those mystical average people would probably stay on Windows, if they don't care or cannot learn basics of other systems. Its really not hard to explain and understand, even for "average person" that there is an universal source for applications and there are packages designed and managed by your operating system. I think its important for people to learn basics and we should teach them, not dumb them down like on Windows. Soon people won't be able to eat themselves anymore...
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Plus I found on my install flatpak wasn't cleaning up the flatpaks autoinstalled for older versions of nvidia drivers, they were all still listed as dependencies. Not sure who's to blame but that was taking up a few much needed GBs.
I agree that flatpak should just invoke
flatpak uninstall --unusedright after uninstalling a flatpak. I don't get why it doesn't do this automatically. Granted, some distro package managers (used to) operate somewhat similarly in that they required theautoremoveoption. -
What everyone else has already said, plus sudden updates that nuke active applications.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]> plus sudden updates that nuke active applications.This is not what's supposed to happen. If an app installed through flatpak is active while it's receiving an update, then the update is not supposed to affect the running application until it's closed/restarted.Edit: Somehow I didn't realize the concern was raised against Snap and not Flatpak.
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For sure and I agree that should be enough but the average person is not good with computers and they don’t want to learn. They won’t understand the nuances of different distributions of Linux. Like try explaining the difference between a .deb, a .tar.gz, and a .rpm to a person who’s already hésitent about using Linux. Flatpak solves that by just having one download that any Linux install can use
Appimage
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It's not my fault they make running apps from the cli so irritating. Broken by design. Even snaps work better.
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i like it. they are very convenient, work every time, and solves the distribution problem.
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Would you mind elaborating?
A few reasons security people can have to hesitate on Flatpak:
- In comparison to sticking with strictly vetted repos from the big distros like Debian, RHEL, etc., using Flathub and other sources means normalizing installing software that isn't so strongly vetted. Flathub does at least have a review process but it's by necessity fairly lax.
- Bundling libraries with an application means you can still be vulnerable to an exploit in some library, even if your OS vendor has already rolled out the fix, because of using Flatpak software that still loads the vulnerable version. The freedesktop runtimes at least help limit the scope of this issue but don't eliminate it.
- The sandboxing isn't as secure as many users might expect, which can further encourage installing untrusted software.
By a typical home user's perspective this probably seems like nothing; in terms of security you're still usually better off with Flatpak than installing random AUR packages, adding random PPA repos, using AppImage programs, installing a bunch of Steam games, blindly building an unfamiliar project you cloned from github, or running bash scripts you find online. But in many contexts none of that is acceptable.
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Flatpaks together with "immutable" distributions, Wayland and systemd are a heresy, a crime against the UNIX principles, a disgrace in the eyes of of SED and AWK. REPENT! Save your immortal core dumps and return to the one true /home !
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I agree that flatpak should just invoke
flatpak uninstall --unusedright after uninstalling a flatpak. I don't get why it doesn't do this automatically. Granted, some distro package managers (used to) operate somewhat similarly in that they required theautoremoveoption.wrote on last edited by [email protected]I actually tried
flatpak uninstall --unusedand it didn't remove these ones. So there's something odd going on there. My guess is maybe Mint manually installed them through the driver manager program? That's a wild guess, I don't know how it works. -
Appimage
Ah, that’s actually what I was thinking of in my previous comment
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theyre whatever, they have their place in my system, but inprefer installing debs from the repo
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If it's a mostly self-contained app, like a game or a utility, then Flatpak is just fine. If a Flatpak needs to interact with other apps on the host or, worst case, another Flatpak it gets tricky or even impossible. From what I've seen though, AppImage and Snap are even worse at this.
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> plus sudden updates that nuke active applications.This is not what's supposed to happen. If an app installed through flatpak is active while it's receiving an update, then the update is not supposed to affect the running application until it's closed/restarted.Edit: Somehow I didn't realize the concern was raised against Snap and not Flatpak.
Luckily this was about Snap.
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I'd take a well-maintained native package for my distro over a Flatpak, but sometimes, a Flatpak is just the the easiest way to get the latest version of an application working on Debian without too much tinkering - not always no tinkering, but better than nothing.
This is especially true of GIMP - Flatpak GIMP + Resynthesizer feels like the easiest way to experience GIMP these days. Same with OBS - although I have to weather the Flatpak directory structure, plugins otherwise feel easier to get working than the native package. The bundled runtimes are somewhat annoying, but I'm also not exactly hurting for storage at the moment - I could probaby do to put more of my 2 TB main SSD to use.
I usually just manage Flatpaks from the terminal, though I often have to refresh myself on application URLs. I somewhat wish one could set nicknames so they need not remember the full name.
