So a few popular Linux distros decided to drop a few major packages like how red hat dropped rpm packages for libreoffice in favor for the flatpak packages.
If more distros decided to drop more packages from their main repository in favor for flatpak packages, then are there any obvious concerns? From my personal experience, flatpaks didn’t work well for me. If flatpaks become mainstream and takeover the linux distros, then I might just move to Freebsd. I just want to know if there is any positives to moving away from official repositories to universal repositories.
You must log in or register to comment.
It’s the midpoint before we ascend to enlightenment with NixOS
Our Lord and Saviour Nix
What is NixOS and how does it iterate on flatpak?
NixOS is a distribution built around the package manger Nix. Nix is not necessarily an iteration of Flatpak ( especially since it’s been around since 2004), but it does accomplish many of the same goals in a more robust way with fewer trade offs.
The main idea of nix is that EVERY dependency of a package is tracked, from the exact glibc version all the way up to e.g. Python packages. I am not a Nix expert, but my surface-level understanding is that this is accomplished by hashing the package and all its dependencies, very aggressively, so that even if a hot fix patch is released that doesn’t change the version number, the new package is still different (as is every package that depends on the new version). That enables Nix to be the best of all worlds as far as sharing system packages like a native dependency while assuring stability and encapsulation like a flatpak. So it ends being as fast and small as the former while being as convenient and cross-distro as the latter. There are other innovations, like declarative dependency management and perfect rollbacks, that make Nix/NixOS stand out, but the above is it’s main innovation over Flatpak and older system package managers.
The kingpin linux OS
deleted by creator
I’m liking them especially for long complile-time binaries that are otherwise difficult to keep up to date.
It makes sense to drop them in favour of flatpaks but flatpak, snap or appimage are still not fully developed. I think that universal packaging makes sense for some (most) apps.
For core OS apps it makes sense to package them the old way but everything added like office, games, browser … it is just not sustainable.
I’d say it’s the future but it’s kind of already the norm. They’re just a lot better then system packages in a lot of ways. Predictable, one system developers have to target, portable, immutable, and system agnostic. Linux has needed this for a long time. This is similar to how apps on your phones work. Windows is going this route too, and I think OSX does it too but I don’t use that garbage os to know.
MacOS apps are sandboxed and signed by default now. The biggest problem I see with sandboxed apps is they require more disk space and ram, for example each electron app can’t leverage the same underlying WebKit engine. The real benefit is that you don’t have to worry about incompatible dependency versions wreaking havoc on your system. It’s very difficult to modify the underlying OS, which is overall a good thing for most users.
Mac OS X is based on some really good design, portability, security, and development environment. BUT some of the direction Apple has been taking for the last decade+ has made the platform less open and a lot less appealing to me (and others in my family).
I give them credit for vision that matches what some people want, and providing and experience that just works within that vision, but that vision doesn’t match what I want (or even need) from of desktop anymore.
The very fact that they work like mobile apps is a reason to dislike them, honestly. At least Flatpaks aren’t total fucking crap like Snaps.
I have also avoided flatpack and the like.
On Arch and other Arch based distros, if something isn’t in the community repo it’s extremely likely it’s in the AUR.
Of course, if you actually want to sandbox something, there’s always firejail and docker
I believe that will always be a linux distro that dont use it by default
There will always be distros that buck the trend. I’ve never had to use one in Arch or Manjaro. I doubt Arch would ever make it a default/requirement since Arch is largely about building the system out yourself with what you need. I also don’t see Flatpak being integrated to the Linux base system (yes, I’m aware Linux is just the kernel) like Systemd is.
What’s flatpak
It’s a universal package manager for Linux.
As others have said flatpak is not just the future, it is the present of Linux. Many mainline distros have fully adopted it and many smaller community distros, especially immutable ones like blendos and vanillaos, are all in on flatpak completely abandoning native packages for containers and flatpaks. I’d say for the average non-technical user, using Flathub through gnome software or discover is as good or better than the mac AppStore. The future of apps on Linux is very bright imo. Flatpaks have already brought in way more developers than before.
Linux is Linux - Nah… there will be distros like Arch where you can just use the AUR (someone started a project to bring AUR like functionality to other distros), and there will be distros that go mostly or all in on other packaging methods. There’s also wrappers like topgrade for those of us that don’t want to bother with multiple commands to update all.
deleted by creator
only played around with mint so no idea why folks hate flatpacks, it seems to be very seamless
I feel like there will always be some applications that will limited by being a flatpak.
Off the top of my head NeoVim comes to mind. My workflow uses libraries/config files/code from all across my home directory. I can’t imagine trying to shove everything inside a flatpak, or using flatseal to give it 10 billion permissions (at that point it may as well not be sandboxed).
I’m a software engineer, but when it comes to configuring and managing my OS I think I have more in common with the average user than a power user. I just want to install programs and I want them to work.
The other day I wanted to install valgrind. Should be easy, right? I’m on the latest LTS version of Xubuntu. That should be the easiest thing in the world, just sudo apt install valgrind. Lo and behold, apparently I’m in an unresolvable dependency hell.
But turns out there’s a snap version of valgrind. Worked fine!
So what am I supposed to think? People bitch about snap, even here, but it works every time for me. Flatpak is the same thing to a guy like me.
Same for me, snaps work everytime, flatpacks rarely do.
Firefox would like a word….
Forced snap+Firefox is hell
Not for me, it always works smoothly.
I agree that the decision to force users to use firefox as a snap and take away their ability to use it as a .deb goes against the linux spirit in a meaningful way, but the firefox snap has been working really well for a while now and canonicals ‘political’ games don’t take away from snap’s fundamental improvements over normal packages.
I had the same experience trying to get a game (Stepmania) to work on Fedora. I could not resolve the damn dependencies. 3 hours later I found a flatpak of the game and it just worked immediately. I think I’m sold.
Every graphical app I have installed that isn’t a basic system application included with the distro install is either in a podman container or flatpak.
I haven’t really kept up with flatpak, so maybe my view of isn’t right.
but what is your reasoning behind using flatpak for all your GUI apps instead of your distributions package manager?On the fly atomic updates (the recommended update path for DNF installed apps requires a system reboot.) Though you can do it live, doing offline upgrades is safer so you don’t replace some runtime something is using midflight.
Also, flatpaks have some system isolation and have to use flatpak portals and explicit permissions/mounts giving them less ability to negatively affect my system.
Also, Flathub just has everything that I need to run anyway, at least for GUI apps.
