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
I like flatpak, but I can’t download Flathub flatpak applications and (specially) Flathub flatpak runtimes from my phone. I hope Flathub learns from F-Droid
flatpaks are fine and useful, i just wish we didn’t move into a scenario where applications that used to be easily available in distro repos start moving away from them and are only available through flatpaks. distro packages are just so much more efficient in every way. flatpaks are easier on maintainers and developers but that comes at a cost to the user. i have about a dozen or less flatpak apps installed and already i have to download at least 2 gigs of updates each week. i run debian
It’s a neat concept. The distro-agnostic aspect is definitely a plus for some people but I still prefer distro-specific installation methods. The only time I would seek out the Flatpak version of a particular software is when it’s the only version available.
Furniture? Integrated circuit packaging?
Is that supposed to be Ed Norton, or just an uncanny coincidence?
I’m 2 months into my Linux journey and I don’t use flatpak. I’ve had the odd problem with it. I stick to pacman and yay now.
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.
Flatpaks aim to be a middle ground between dependency hell and “let’s pull in the universe” bloat.
Applications packaged as Flatpaks can reference runtimes to share “bases” with other applications, and then provide their own libraries if they need anything bespoke on top of that.
And they are still, in my experience, slow to load, a cumbersome addition to the update process, and often un-necessary.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re in a tight spot and can’t make two significant software packages work in a distribution due to conflicting library version requirements… some kind of lightweight container solution is attractive, expedient, and better than just not supporting one of the packages. But, my impression is that a lot of stuff has been moved into flatpak / snap / etc. just because they can. I don’t think it’s the best, or even preferred, way to maintain software - for the desktop environment.
(Returns to checking on his Docker containers full of server apps on the R-Pi farm…)
I’m running an immutable distro at the moment (GNOME OS), and I felt no loss of performance due to Flatpaks. Snaps, on the other hand, do have a perceivably longer launch time.
Given that it’s an immutable distro, everything I need needs to be either a Flatpak, a Snap, an Appimage or an extracted tarball, otherwise it runs in a container. The advantage of this system is stability and making the host incorruptible, as well as the ability to very easily roll back updates or failed systemd-sysext layers.
Not everything can run in a Flatpak at the moment, but we’re hoping the evolution in Flatpak, XDG portals as well as encouraging developers to use the available XDG portals can make this a possibility someday. Namely, IDEs don’t run that well in a Flatpak, but GNOME Builder has proven that it’s 100% possible with the currently available XDG portals as well as connecting your IDE or editor to a container.
Not mocking: can you share any good guides to practical immutable systems?
What I observed of Ubuntu Core made a strong “not ready for prime time, and even if it was I don’t want it” impression on me.
Ubuntu Core, based on Snaps, is very much not ready for prime time IMO. It’s kind of a mess outside of server use.
Look instead at Fedora Silverblue, Vanilla OS, and for the bleeding edge of immutable systems, GNOME OS.
KDE is about to launch their analogue to GNOME OS relatively shortly, named “Project Banana”. These two are not exactly distros as they do not distribute the kernel, they are simply platforms that layer a bunch of images together to create a stable, reproducible system. There’s also OpenSuSE Aeon, but I don’t like its style of immutability as it’s immutable by rootfs lock-out rather than immutable by image.
As for advice, learn how to use Distrobox / Toolbx containers. If you’re a developer, this is where you will be working.
Immutable Linux is still young, and a lot of software isn’t written with it in mind, so expect some growing pains.
Thanks. In the past I have worked in Slackware, and even had Gentoo on my home system for a couple of years, but otherwise I’ve been fully saturated in Debian and its children - so that’s my “comfort zone.” I used to like KDE, but drifted away from it when I got a 4K screen notebook and KDE hadn’t figured out resolution scaling yet, while Ubuntu/Unity had. I never quite warmed up to GNOME, but definitely have done my time with it. XFCE has matured enough for me to daily drive it without too much pain now, and I love the ways it can be de-featured (don’t want a launcher bar? Don’t run it, nothing else breaks.)
Server-side, I have been filling my Raspberry Pis with Docker containers for a while now… it’s not completely alien, but I do kind of tend to “set it and forget it” when it comes to container deployments.
I’m on silverblue, well, bluefin, specifically.
So far so happy 🤷♂️
Could things like this go in linuxmemes? Memes are fun but it would be nice to keep this a place for actual information. And no, this is not a comment on what it’s saying, I’m just tired of so many memes.
I use SystemD binary Gentoo with Flatpaks. Sue me.
Watch out we’ve got a flatass over here
✋😕🤚
Absolute Dogshit
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.
Nah, it’s the same as with systemd, docker, immutable distros etc. Some people just don’t appreciate the added complexity for features they don’t need/use and prefer to opt out. Then the advocates come, take not using their favorite software as a personal insult and make up straw-men to ridicule and argue against. Then the less enlightened of those opting out will get defensive and let themselves get dragged into the argument. 90% that’s the way these flame wars get started and not the other way around.
For the record, I use flatpak on all my desktops, it’s great, and all of the other mentioned things in some capacity, but I get why someone might want to not use them. Let’s not make software choice a tribalism thing please. Love thy neighbor as thyself, unless they use Windows, in which case, kill the bastard. /s
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?
As someone who uses Flatpak you can still use the terminal to install, uninstall and do maintenance, not sure why people believe terminal is useless with Flatpak 😞
Flatpaks are containers, same as Snaps, I personally prefer Flatpaks over Snaps, but just my personal choice. I use Flatsweep and Flatseal apps to help administrate Flatpak apps, but use terminal as well 🙂
I’ve no real preference so long as my PC starts stuff. The reason I avoid flatpaks is because I have at some point acquired the habit of anything I install that’s not an appimage I pretty much launch from the terminal and I remember trying flatpaks and them having names like package.package.nameofapp-somethingelse and I can’t keep that in my head.
I’ve actually been discussing the idea of Flatpaks offering “terminal aliases”, similar to what Snaps do, with some people involved in Flatpak. It’s something that could happen in the future, but for now, you can totally create an alias to run a Flatpak from a single word, it’s just a PITA.
There was a few years where I pretty much only used Flatpaks because I was scared of the terminal. But now that I’ve learned how to use the terminal, it’s so much more convenient because I can quickly update all my applications all in one place without having to open a separate app. Plus, some Flatpaks can fall really behind on software updates.
There might be a Linux userbase someday where no one other than developers actually knows how to use the terminal, because users can run everything they want without a command line, but maybe that’s actually a good thing because it’ll drive up how many people use a Linux distro.
With Windows and Mac, there’s a shareholder incentive to enshittify. With Linux, if a distro goes bad and gets commercialized, there’s always another distro people can move to, not to mention there’s no financial incentive. The more people get on Linux, the less power these tech companies have. Personally, that and privacy are what drew me to Linux much more so than being able to tinker or fine-tune my experience.
Yeah I just wanted off mr corporation’s wild ride
There might be a Linux userbase someday where no one other than developers actually knows how to use the terminal, because users can run everything they want without a command line
Ideally, all the essential terminal commands could be replicated in a user-friendly GUI-applicable manner. Don’t ever have to remove the terminal for those that enjoy it, but if we could have a magic world where even the failure states could be navigated with little to no prior knowledge required and it gets everyone away from Windows and Mac for good, I’m all for it.
Personally I am okay with them actually. I use several on my system and having each app allowed to have different permissions is super useful.
But also I like things that are directly installed cause they seem just a tad faster performance wise.
The thing that grinds my gears is when I’m doing an apt update and then it goes off to check on the snaps and drags the process out a lot longer. It doesn’t help that they’re slower to load the apps too. Then there’s the additional attack surfaces to accumulate more CVE reports (and more out of date library versions on your system begging for a security patch…) Mostly, I just purge snap support from Ubuntu these days - but for people who don’t notice / mind such things, you do you - maybe they’ll eventually improve the lightweight container system until the rest of us don’t notice it either.
I’ve never had a problem with flatpaks or snaps.
I wouldn’t say I have had a problem with snaps or flatpacks either. I uninstall all snaps first thing when I install recent Ubuntu versions, and I have never messed with flatpacks, so… no problems.
I spent my time fighting AppImages until Canonical started to force Snap on me. I hated Snap so bad it forced me to switch distros. Now I appreciate Flatpak as a result and I don’t find AppImages all that bad, either. Also, I haven’t found myself in dependency-hell nor have I crashed my distro from unofficial Repos in well over a decade.
-It’s a long way of saying It works for me and it’s not Snap.
There’s a lot to dislike about Canonical, but snaps is still relatively easy to purge and just get on with your underlying Debian package support…
Appimages are ok, bloated but ok. Unless a library inside is old and won’t work.
Flatpak is annoying and I don’t like it at all, so I don’t use it. Easy solution.
Fuck snap though.
