Flatpaks aren’t perfect, but I think it’s a good solution to the fragmentation problem that is inherent to Linux.
Precisely. Flatpaks solve an important problem. Perfect should not be the enemy of good.
Binary compatibility is a sad story on Linux, and we cannot expect developers — many of whom work for free — to package, test, debug, and maintain releases for multiple distributions. If we want a sustainable ecosystem with diverse distributions, we must answer the compatibility question. This is a working option that solves the problem, and it comes with minor security benefits because it isolates applications not just from the system but from each other.
It’s fair to criticize a solution, but I think it’s not fair to ignore the problem and expect volunteers to just work harder.
Also companies are lazy and if we don’t want to be stuck on Ubuntu for proprietary app stability. We should probably embrace something like flatpak. Also when companies neglect their apps, it’ll have a better chance of working down the road thanks to support for multiple dependency versions on the same install.
Laughs in AUR
Laughs in nixpkgs
Laughs in confusion
(I dont know how i got here)
Laughs in support
Support laughs in you
Not great to laugh at the mess Linux is in, due to people paddling in different, incompatible, directions. Users can’t choose the package format. They have to take what they are given. Good or bad. I don’t care which format. As long as it works. But this is a good way to scare more people off of Linux.
laughs at people scared of choice and “mess” . . .
If they’re switcing to linux they should first come to know about open source forking around - arguably - one of the most important features of the whole thing.
If they don’t wan’t that choice and all that inevitable open source forkery, they probably should go for an apple mac or windows or something like that. And maybe they will have to pay for some software for the privilege because it takes work to do those things. They can of course try plain old ubuntu and do stuff the way canonical wants, that removes quite a bit of choice if it is otherwise too terrifying for them.
But in general, I don’t think its a good idea to to try to sell pig-carcasses to vegans by painting them the colours of broccoli.
False, if it exists in the Linux ecosystem it also exists in AUR
The broader meta point is that X thing you want isn’t the devs job, btw.
X thing you want isn’t the devs job
Well, it is if they decide it is, and it isn’t if they decide it isn’t.
That said, I do appreciate devs who put up native deb or rpm repos for the most common distros.
I like Flatpak just because it isn’t Snap
The enemy of my enemy, eh?
…is my enemy’s enemy, no more, no less. (Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries #29)
Haters aren’t worth listening to. Doesn’t matter if it is flatpak, systemd, wayland, or whatever else. These people have no interest in a discussion about merits and drawbacks of a given solution. They just want to be angry about something.
I know, right!? Add gimp to that list as well. I can go on and on about shortcomings of gimp despite being a happy user. The average gimp hater, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything to say besides “the UI is dumb and I can’t figure out how to draw a circle”
“The UI is unintuitive” is a legitimate complaint
Wayland gets the hate because compositors are authoritative so you cannot e.g. install your own window manager, taskbar, etc. It would be good if there were specifications governing these, but there isn’t.
And this, this is why I love the AUR
I’m new to Linux. Every time I’ve had a major issue with an application it turned out to be due to a flatpak. I’ll stick with other options for the time being.
Also at least let me compile it myself if not in a repo 😩
I’ve never used it. Its like all the others though and I have been forced to use snaps. Those I slowly replace every time I decide to start fresh.
Try linux mint, it’s basically ubuntu but without snap (you can install snap if you want to, but it’s not forced on you)
Oh I have. I have it running on some older hardware.
Nix: you package it yourself and do a pull request
Sadly, many flatpaks don’t even work on NixOS properly because of assumptions about the file structure or similar
If you really hate flatpak just make an arch distrobox and download off the AUR. Or install Nix or something
that website is such a joke, I can’t believe the guy’s still paying for the domain name… The whole argument boils down to “Many flatpak apps don’t make use of the sandbox by default, which is <somehow> less secure than not having a sandbox at all” and “this one app I like doesn’t work in flatpak, therefore all of it is bad”.
…unless it literally is a joke and I’m just missing out on the sarcasm?
Its only worse than not having it at all in the sense of giving users a false sense of security. Imagine if apps on mobile could decide what permissions they want automatically granted without the user opting in. The sandbox HAS to be enforced by default to be good. And the other issue with flatpak is the security, which we had several problems with in the past. On the same note, people criticise snap but its a much more competent solution from a technical standpoint regarding security and since people get all their apps from flathub anyways, the “propreitary” backend is mostly irrelevant. And before anyone says “snap store had malware hosted” that is not an issue with the format itself but the infrastructure.
Also. Maintaining snap packages are easier for developers, and companies, therefore they are more likely to distribute apps on Linux to begin with.
Its only worse than not having it at all in the sense of giving users a false sense of security.
Flathub’s website has a bigass banner telling you if an app requires permissions that they consider dangerous. And flatpak’s CLI tells you what permissions are needed when installing an app. It’s pretty hard to miss, no?
This is still not a reason to automatically grant them. This permission model is fundamentally flawed. Besides, the CLI doesn’t even show these.
Lol who the fuck is blaming app devs? Also something something arch
aur is the only thing I miss. I do like fedora with i3 very much but rpm can be pain in the ass sometimes
Bottle’s developers disagree with this meme
I cannot use bottles since months due to their faltpak monogamy policy :/
…explain? It literally has Flatpak as first-class support, i.e. it’s guaranteed and only guaranteed to work on Flatpak
If I can choose between flatpack and distro package, distro wins hands down.
If the choice then is flatpack vs compile your own, I think I’ll generally compile it, but it depends on the circumstances.
Why?
Stubbornness
Based
Because it’s easier to use the version that’s in the distro, and why do I need an extra set of libraries filling up my disk.
I see flatpack as a last resort, where I trade disk space for convenience, because you end up with a whole OS worth of flatpack dependencies (10+ GB) on your disk after a few upgrade cycles.
Is compiling it yourself with the time and effort that it costs worth more than a few GB of disk space?
Then your disk is very expensive and your labor very cheap.
They didn’t say anything about compiling it themselves, just that they prefer native packages to flatpak
edit: I can’t read
2 comments up they said
If the choice then is flatpack vs compile your own, I think I’ll generally compile it, but it depends on the circumstances.
I mean it’s 2024. I regularly download archives that are several tens or even over 100 GB and then completely forget they’re sitting on my drive, because I don’t notice it when the drive is 4TB. Last time I cared about 10GB here and there was in the late-2000s.
Great that you have 4tb on your root partition then by all means use flatpack.
I have 256Gb on my laptop, as I recall I provisioned about 40-50gigs to root.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize people were still regularly using such constrained systems. Honest. I’ve homebuilt my PCs for the last 15 years.
Why not upgrade your hdd?
TEN WHOLE GIGABYTES!! OMG WHAT ARE WE TO DO??
