How does it stack up against traditional package management and others like AUR and Nix?

  • Destide
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    859 months ago

    Best of the three major agnostic package formats. If it brings more focus to Linux development, I don’t see how it can be a bad thing. A bit more space needed but for most setups this is a non-issue

    • @jollyrogue@lemmy.ml
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      69 months ago

      Plus, being able to sandbox user space applications, which previously had free reign, is nice.

      Sandboxing isn’t 100% there yet, but it’s come along way.

    • @BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah duplication of running libraries is also a RAM/CPU resource issue but for modern well resourced machines probably not noticable. It is an issue when scaling down to low powered / old devices though. Like, running a web browser which runs in it’s own sandbox with duplicate libraries running is going to have noticable performance differences compared to a non-sandboxed program running native libraries on a low RAM or low CPU system.

      That’s not to say Flatpak isn’t a good solution; and all the agnostic package formats have the same issue compared to non-sandboxed apps. Plus the added security issues and stability on bleeding edge systems is good.

  • Liz
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    439 months ago

    As a non-technical user: fucking love it.

    • @sibloure@beehaw.org
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      49 months ago

      As a semi-technical user: I also fucking love it. It gets out of the way so I can focus my time on my work and not OS maintenance.

  • Hapbt
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    359 months ago

    @tet its great because you can listen to people whine about it now instead of systemd

      • Hapbt
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        49 months ago

        @kingmongoose7877 until someone tells me another way to run 2 python apps one which requires python 2 and one which requires python 3, on the same system, which is EASIER than installing a flatpak, im gonna maintain that they have a use case, even if they aren’t idealized package management as we dreamed of

        • kingmongoose7877
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          89 months ago

          Easy, tiger. I think you misinterpreted my original reply.

          I meant the whining about the two (systemd and flatpak) isn’t strictly OR but may be AND. Have a nice day.

        • @pingveno@lemmy.ml
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          39 months ago

          I think pyenv would be the appropriate tool for doing a native install. And of course when it comes to CLI, Flatpak isn’t really for that.

          • Hapbt
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            29 months ago

            @pingveno i think that two things get conflated. 1. flatpaks and appimages, snaps, have some niche uses for obsolete software and maybe some other edge cases 2. because the two major standards are backed by dumbass corporate entities, they have been promoted as the universal solution to everything that will revolutionize linux 3. the real thing everyone hates, is these stupid companies trying to get rid of a beautiful package management architechture so they can enshittify linux like windows

            • @pingveno@lemmy.ml
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              39 months ago

              I think their uses extend beyond obsolete software. In particular, trying to get updates out to a wide variety of Linux distros has generally meant a tradeoff between “move fast, break things” and “move slow, never change”. Flatpak gives you a stable set of libraries to work with and the ability to run multiple versions of those libraries at once. Linux package managers have a place, but their sheer proliferation means that for most applications to reach all desktop Linux users, they have to go through something like Flatpak for distribution.

  • @Vincent@feddit.nl
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    359 months ago

    It’s fantastic, for two reasons:

    • There’s so much great software available through it, and I can always get the latest version regardless of my distro - or an older version if it hasn’t kept up with its dependencies.
    • It’s part of the tooling that allows me to update my operating system without risk of it breaking (i.e. I can use an atomic distro because of it).
  • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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    289 months ago

    I really like the idea of a universal app format and flatpak seems the best for it. And flathub has been great as a repo.

    The idea of separate system layer (with traditional packages) and user app layer with flatpaks seems like the way to go. Perhaps even immutable system layer.

  • SavvyWolf
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    259 months ago

    I think it’s a good way for people to release software for Linux without having to deal with specific distro stuff (which historically has pretty much been “just provide a .deb for Ubuntu and a .tar.gz for other people to figure out”).

    I’m hoping that it pushes for more people porting stuff to Linux because it’s a single target that gives you access to Steam Decks, Chromebooks and desktops.

    I don’t think it makes sense for things that aren’t desktop applications such as servers or libraries, just because those tend to be open source, don’t need to be that up to date and benefit from tighter system integration. I see it as something that sits on top of other package managers rather than replacing them.

    For Flathub? Eh, if they turn out to be bad we can just all move to another server, we’re not snap. :P I’m willing to bet that someone has already made a flatpak repo for Citra and Yuzu.

  • @mudle@lemmy.ml
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    239 months ago

    I personally prefer to use Flatpaks over traditional packages because of the added security, sandboxing, and overall convenience of not having to deal with dependency hell. It’s especially nice being able to have proprietary applications sandboxed from the rest of my system without worrying that Steam is snooping on my ‘super-important-tax-documents’.

    Flatpaks are also very useful for having up-to-date packages on distros like Debian, and it’s derivatives. People can still use their preferred distro without having to worry about not getting a certain update, feature, bug fix, etc, for their applications.

    Being able to restrict what applications have access to is a game-changer for me. A lot of times Flatpaks, by default, have very lenient permissions, and with the use of Flatseal I can restrict it to my liking. Worried about Audacity’s telemetry?? Turn network permissions off. Now, not all applications will work well (or at all) without internet connectivity, but for applications like Audacity, it works great!! Flatpaks can also be very useful for developers.

    That’s not to say that Flatpaks are without their fair share of issues. Are they bloated?? Yeah, and although it’s not an issue for me, it may be for some people. Desktop integration is, meh. Themes, and fonts don’t always integrate the best. (A while back there were issues with Flatpak’s sandbox, but I won’t touch on that because I need to refresh my mind on it, and it was actively being developed to fix those issues so it possibly isn’t even an issue anymore.)

    Overall I think Flatpaks are absolutely wonderful.

  • @OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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    239 months ago

    People need to realize that before Flatpak, distributing a small-time Linux app was a nightmare. Appimages were your best option if you wanted to avoid distro specific builds, PPAs and AUR, etc. Ever since packaging 2009scape on Flathub I haven’t looked back. It auto updates. People can find it from software centers. It works on all distros. It connects straight to upstream’s CICD. It even forced us to adopt XDG compliance so we could sandbox it better.

    Yes, Flatpak has downsides like the download size (on disk it doesn’t matter because it gets compressed and the runtimes are shared, same as literally any other package manager). But overall, I hugely welcome it over the options we had before. Much love to the Flatpak and Flathub devs!

  • haui
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    219 months ago

    As a generalist I have to learn many concepts and dont have time to delve into any one that deep. Flatpak works and isnt proprietary like snap so I enjoy that. My recent debian+kde installation works well with if. Open discover and install flatpaks as much as you wish.

        • kingmongoose7877
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          -19 months ago

          The Snap Store is run and controlled by Canonical and is not open source. The rest of Snap is open source, meaning the daemon and core software. [emphasis mine] How threatening this is depends on you POV and has been the subject of much discussion.

          • This isn’t threatening in a way that Canonical would hack my computer with it. It’s threatening the Linux ecosystem. They created a distro agnostic package manager which is solely controlled by them. In other words they want everyone to use Snap and then vendor lock in everyone into it. “embrace, extend, extinguish”

            I honestly wouldn’t care if snap was both Canonical proprietary and Ubuntu proprietary but this M$ like strategy sucks.

  • Ryan
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    189 months ago

    I definitely prefer it over Snaps or appimages. Straight-forward to update, and Flatseal provides a nice GUI to control permissions (if needed). Themes may not work properly, but whatever, not a big deal for me.

    The distro’s repo is always my go-to. If it’s not available there, then flatpak, and I’ll use appimage under duress. If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out a different solution.

    • Random Dent
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      109 months ago

      Yeah I’m not a huge fan of Appimages because I don’t like that to update it you usually have to go find and download the file again, instead of just getting it from a repository. They feel too Windows-y to me in that way.

  • @D_Air1@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    I use them for some things and I think they are fine. Mostly apps that are kinda messy and I want to keep them and their atrocious dependency tree away from my base system. I also like to use them for proprietary apps or apps where I actually want to use the sandbox. Other than that I prefer native packages 99% of the time.

    Flatpak is slower to update than pacman, the cli interface just doesn’t feel good to use. There is the weird naming, no real way to get a dependency tree, can’t hide those annoying eol messages even for apps that I specifically don’t want to update. Another thing is that not every app was made to run in a sandbox or it is just more difficult to use sometimes. A lot of people tend to cite ide’s, but in my case I was having issues with the steam flatpak. Running games with steam was fine, but anytime I wanted to hook up something third party eg: mods, cheat engine, etc. Doing so in the flatpak either required some tinkering around the sandbox or straight up didn’t work.

    I feel like that last sentence sums up the whole experience. If you just need to point and click and have it work. Flatpak does that amazingly. If you need any kind of integration with other things, expect problems.

    Edit: just wanted to add that, the whole point and click and work is fine for 99% of people which is why I and many others choose to use it.

    • @ProtonBadger@lemmy.ca
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      89 months ago

      Yeah, I also had apps like Steam native break once or twice due to library updates (such as Mesa) - the downside to rolling distros. However, the Flatpak version continued to work so now I only use that. I don’t use mods though.

      I’m now gravitating towards treating my rolling distro a bit like an immutable; more Flatpaks, avoid user repositories.

  • Bobby Turkalino
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    169 months ago

    Flatpak is fantastic for end-user GUI applications

    Flathub is also great, but the fact that it’s really the only repo that flatpak maintainers are using concerns me. I know I’m dreaming, but I would love to see some sort of federated or P2P hosting

  • jkozaka
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    9 months ago

    While I don’t think flatpak shouldn’t replace traditional packages, I still like it.

    Flatpak apps just work most of the time, they work without issues and are often very up to date. The sandboxing does have benefits because no apps interfere with it, the problem is that it doesn’t work super well with other apps, sometimes the theming is off, and it doesn’t work well with other apps, installing apps takes much longer, and it isn’t as easily started from the command line.

    Edit: typo

    • @neidu2@feddit.nl
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      69 months ago

      In my opinion, with a debian style distro as the example, apt-get should be used for syatemwide stuff. Individual users can go for flatpak.

  • Shimitar
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    149 months ago

    Its a solution to one of the typical Linux issues. Its a step toward overcaming the fragmentation of Linux package managers.

    I don’t personally like it too much, I prefer the distro package stuff, but I understand the app developers cannot manage a plethora of different package formats.

    Distro maintainters should, but its clearly more and more a massive task for different distros to keep up with the amount of apps out there.

    Also, npm, pip and the various “packaging” ways existing add to the chaos.

    I see distro package managers converge toward providing basic packages for the general system and some other solution like flatpack to provide additional stuff.

    I think it would be wrong for flatpack/containers to replace package managers as well, it’s not their scope.

    • lemmyvore
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      39 months ago

      I see distro package managers converge toward providing basic packages for the general system and some other solution like flatpack to provide additional stuff.

      IMHO doing this would be suicide for most distros.

      There are only so many ways you can make a basic system and the distro scene is already saturated by various interpretations of “basic”.

      A distro needs to offer more than the basic system and a huge part of that added value lies in its packages (and by extension package manager).