"Flatpak Is Not the Future"

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MattJ86
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MattJ86 »

Some Linux righteous purists still can't understand that software accessibility is the esential thing for most users and all those ideologies, politics and other cultist mumbojumbo is bringing Linux down. What helped Linux to get new users and better support from hardware manufacturers are Ubuntu, Proton, Vulkan and software stores in distros that helped new users to install software without having to use terminal, building packages etc. Flatpak and Snap are another options that made Linux easier for newbies letting them easily install more (and newer versions of) software on distros of their choice. You don't want it, don't use it. What's the problem? You're disappointed by Canonical's ways, don't use Ubuntu. You got at least 10 quality distros to replace it and have similar user experience and most of the software it offers. You don't want to use Flatpak, you can always install apps from apt and find .debs and appimages.

Last time I had problems with VLC playing 1080p videos using HEVC codec, so I installed newer version from Flatpak and it solved the problem. No problem with dependencies, no building, no voodoo just

Code: Select all

flatpak install vlc
. I could also install it from Mint's Software Manager if I was a newbie not knowing how to use terminal.

The another example is Obsidian and Youtube-DL (GUI) which are not available from apt...
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by ne0h »

i use only .deb packages on my system. No flatpak, no snap.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by rambo919 »

Portreve wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 5:59 pm I'm not saying I utterly oppose the usage of patronage. I just say it rubs me the wrong way a bit, particularly in the traditional form of "some extremely wealthy person decides to make something happen". I just don't feel that "progress" is something which should come from "the Master's table".
Fair enough but what is preferable seems by all accounts to be not in human nature. If patronage is the only thing that actually works you have no choice but to be at the mercy of whatever patron you happen to fall under.

I think a lot of "progress" is simply rank fantasy and we have not really made all that many permanent improvements to anything.... it's all balanced on a knife's edge and we can loose any part of it at any time.

Rome was not the first time most "progress" have been lost and it won't be the last. China tells the same story though I can't say which empire specifically. The irony is because we are so focused on cheap fast progress..... we cannot today replicate what either these civilizations did at their peaks and our own age of grand projects seems to have stopped signalling the start of the decline of modern western civilization.

As the song goes, "10 thousand years, nothing was learned"
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by Agentl074 »

I am not sure, but I do know that some of my Flatpak software installs work great on this Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon machine, but others do not. I would suggest keeping the old apps just in case the newer Flatpak versions do not work as well. I have noticed this with FIrefox -- the old app works better than the FP version.

The safe way to install things is through Software Manager, but some proprietors have command instructions on their websites as well.

However, I manually installed Brave browser lol. It all depends though... I am just glad to have the freedom to choose -- rather than having Microsoft or Apple decide for me.

I am just getting into IT (my undergrad was in another area), so operating systems are still a bit of a learning experience for me.
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MurphCID
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we need a consistent standard across Linux distributions. This "do your own thing" in terms of package managers is killing us. .deb will not run on .rpm, will not run on AUR or Pacman, will not run on Slackpackage, etc. We need a consistent standard which resolves all dependencies, handles .deb, .rpm, Pacman, etc. We have got to get serious about standards for packages, but each group is in their own little walled garden and refuses to help the other for fear of losing their "special-ness". See here: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=360938&start=160 Linus and Luke address it well in that there are too many competing standards, and this hurts us as a community.

As one of those who remembers dependency h*ll, and having to suffer the agonies of not knowing what dependency you needed for a piece of software to install, and if you did find it there may be a further dependency that you need as well. Installing software back then was "whack a mole" in terms of attempting to resolve all the dependencies.

Perhaps Flatpak is not the way, but we need something that any, and I mean ANY Linux distribution can reach out, grab, install and run, with the comfort and knowledge that the application or software package will run safely, and as intended. I don't really care what it is, as long as it works, is secure and stable. Also we need to sit down and agree. Recently I installed Manjaro 21.2 on the old Darter Pro, under Manjaro 21.12 I could find and install Chrome through the AUR, but now, there was no Chrome. Unacceptable. Chrome came with .deb, and .rpm packages, but nothing that would run under Arch or Arch clones. Nor Slackware.

Added to the fact that few or no major hardware makers have Linux as an option that you can purchase at Best Buy so that people can see and try Linux is also holding us back. I can't program, but I can and do contribute money, so can we all agree to help somehow as our circumstances allow? If you cannot code, or support with cash, act as a beta tester, or something to help.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MattJ86 »

That's why flatpak and snap were created to be distro agnostic. These different Linux branches like Arch, RedHat and Debian have different architectures and they use different native package systems. And these branches exist, because people who created them years ago didn't agree with each other over base system components, release model and various other things. They are different at the core and incompatible with each other. Snap and flatpak are the only solution here. But again some devs prefer one or another.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

MattJ86 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:05 am That's why flatpak and snap were created to be distro agnostic. These different Linux branches like Arch, RedHat and Debian have different architectures and they use different native package systems. And these branches exist, because people who created them years ago didn't agree with each other over base system components, release model and various other things. They are different at the core and incompatible with each other. Snap and flatpak are the only solution here. But again some devs prefer one or another.
We have got to get away from the "Walled Garden", it is killing us.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MattJ86 »

MurphCID wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:16 am We have got to get away from the "Walled Garden", it is killing us.
I agree with you, but as a famous American hardcore punk band Cromags were singing some time ago:
World peace can't exist, it just can't be done
:?
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MurphCID
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

MattJ86 wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:32 am
MurphCID wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:16 am We have got to get away from the "Walled Garden", it is killing us.
I agree with you, but as a famous American hardcore punk band Cromags were singing some time ago:
World peace can't exist, it just can't be done
:?
Sad, but I think I must agree.
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MurphCID
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

Well Nick thinks that Flatpak IS the future for Linux and I cannot disagree with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs9QpPKDw74
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

I also did not know that Flatpak is in its own sandbox, and so you do not have to worry about malware as much as you do with other distribution systems. That explains why I do not have to enter my password when installing a flatpak.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by acerimusdux »

MurphCID wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 10:09 am I also did not know that Flatpak is in its own sandbox, and so you do not have to worry about malware as much as you do with other distribution systems. That explains why I do not have to enter my password when installing a flatpak.
Yes. That's why I think they should be recommended at this point for programs that directly accesses the internet, or regularly use files that were downloaded from the internet. Right now, I only have flatpaks installed for Firefox, Bitwarden, Celluloid, Spotify, Skype, Discord, and then Flatseal for managing them all. And altogether that takes about 2.8G of space.

I find it is well worth that tradeoff for the security benefits. All these programs will now be kept up to date, and will not have access to my system. I've even used flatseal to give firefox access to it's own download directory (xdg-download/Firefox) and Spotify its own music directory (xdg-music/Spotify). Because I don't want Spotify, for example, to see my own music collection.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

acerimusdux wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 12:23 pm
MurphCID wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 10:09 am I also did not know that Flatpak is in its own sandbox, and so you do not have to worry about malware as much as you do with other distribution systems. That explains why I do not have to enter my password when installing a flatpak.
Yes. That's why I think they should be recommended at this point for programs that directly accesses the internet, or regularly use files that were downloaded from the internet. Right now, I only have flatpaks installed for Firefox, Bitwarden, Celluloid, Spotify, Skype, Discord, and then Flatseal for managing them all. And altogether that takes about 2.8G of space. Linux is so darn space efficient that it is just not an issue compared to Windows systems. Linux takes up far less space

I find it is well worth that tradeoff for the security benefits. All these programs will now be kept up to date, and will not have access to my system. I've even used flatseal to give firefox access to it's own download directory (xdg-download/Firefox) and Spotify its own music directory (xdg-music/Spotify). Because I don't want Spotify, for example, to see my own music collection.
I agree with you here.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

Flatpak IS the future. DistroTube on his YouTube channel is pushing Appimage, but there are issues, and SNAPs sorry, not for me. Flatpak seems to have the most up to date software and seems to work the best on all versions/distros of Linux.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by rene »

I get the slight feeling that you trust this "Nick" person a bit much. I actually subscribed him due to your recommendation but have a week or so ago also unsubscribed again, with him coming from singing praise of KDE's configurability to now haven fallen in love with Fedora and GNOME whereby it is now concluded that clearly one never in fact needed configurability since one has always just been Doing It Wrong. Blimey. If only enlightenment had struck sooner (no pun intended).

<making fart noises at the screen>

Yes. Well. Let me in any case have said that I quite sincerely doubt that Flatpak is going to be my future at least...
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by MurphCID »

rene wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 8:36 am I get the slight feeling that you trust this "Nick" person a bit much. I actually subscribed him due to your recommendation but have a week or so ago also unsubscribed again, with him coming from singing praise of KDE's configurability to now haven fallen in love with Fedora and GNOME whereby it is now concluded that clearly one never in fact needed configurability since one has always just been Doing It Wrong. Blimey. If only enlightenment had struck sooner (no pun intended).

<making fart noises at the screen>

Yes. Well. Let me in any case have said that I quite sincerely doubt that Flatpak is going to be my future at least...
And that is the beauty of Linux, use what you want and do not use what you do not like. LOL on enlightenment.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by Petermint »

Appimage has always worked for me. Flatpak has failed. Might be just luck.

The big bad reason I do not recommend Flatpak is simple. When Flatpak failed for a new Flatpak application, it screwed up some existing Flatpak installs. The result was really confusing. I would hate to be a Linux beginner trying to decode what Flatpak did. :?:

Appimage downloads are sometimes bigger but they do not crash other applications.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by mediclaser »

I do hope Flatpak (nor AppImage nor Snaps nor whatever) will never be the future of Linux. If so, that would be like eating crows (for me at least). I've been trying hard to convince many friends to switch to Linux because it takes less diskspace and loads faster than Windows, making it possible to get a more responsive system without the need to upgrade their aging hardware.

Is Flatpak the devs' alternative to WINE...to create a binary that works everywhere? Is this the devs' new way of saying Linux will be the future of desktop computing, or is this an indication of throwing in the towel?
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by rene »

mediclaser wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:25 am [ ... ] or is this an indication of throwing in the towel?
That one basically. It's an admission that "Linux" will never, ever have binary compatibility at a level that third-party developers will consider it worth their time and effort to try and support. So flatpak and snap -- conceptually and what with runtime versions in practical terms fairly actually -- bundle individual applications with their own little private Linux distribution to run under. AppImage actually bundles with whatever subset of some given private Linux distribution its developer thinks at the time might give it a chance to run unaltered on what it considers enough different distributions and/or versions thereof.

That "Linux" is and will always be the proverbial herd of cats. Which is both true and a very real problem: it's just that shipping applications alongside their own distributions is technical stupidity even if other solutions to said true and very real problem do also not exist.
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Re: "Flatpak Is Not the Future"

Post by Hoser Rob »

mediclaser wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:25 am I do hope Flatpak (nor AppImage nor Snaps nor whatever) will never be the future of Linux. If so, that would be like eating crows (for me at least). I've been trying hard to convince many friends to switch to Linux because it takes less diskspace and loads faster than Windows, making it possible to get a more responsive system without the need to upgrade their aging hardware.
Many Linux users seem to think that the whole purpose of Linux is what they want to use it for. People with really old computers think it's for that, privacy nuts think it's for privacy, etc. It's not. Notice that the OS per se may run fine on ancient hardware but the 'default' desktops of Mint and Ubuntu (Cinnamon and Gnome) stink on old machines. ANd a lkot of old machines can't run a lot of modern software properly either. Browsers, Gimp, etc.
Is Flatpak the devs' alternative to WINE...to create a binary that works everywhere? Is this the devs' new way of saying Linux will be the future of desktop computing, or is this an indication of throwing in the towel?
Well, Wine doesn't create any binaries, it's just a hacky compatibility layer, and it definitely doesn't work everywhere. It usually doesn't work.

The devs are throwing in the towel. Open source app software is made by unpaid volunteers. They're basically making tools that they want to use. Myself that's what I like about open source software but not everyone is going to agree, they'll just think it's a geek fest. Which it is.

In Linux there's very little backwards and forwards compatibility, no stable APIs or ABIs, and not even a standard packaging system. Do you really exoect unpaid devs to put up with all that? Portable Linux softtware isn't going away.
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