A long time ago I needed to install a program. It needed snap I think. Well I googled and googled and googled and I couldn’t just type “sudo apt install snap” for some reason. But there was a way to get snap if you had flatpak. I didn’t have flatpak So I googled and googled and googled some more and I couldn’t find a way to install flatpak that didn’t involve already having snap first.
So then I never fucked with flatpak or snap ever again except for that one time I installed gzdoom in flatpak and it actually worked for some reason, the end.
Are there enough watermarks on this meme? At least we got reddit covered.
makes it authentic lol
Flatpak and SystemD Portable services are actually pretty good.
That’s the direction I see Linux going. I personally use NixOS because I am sad.
I looked into Nix but it seemed like it locks you into using bash for your shell. Is that the case?
Sorry I was meaning in the context of using nix-shell for isolated reproducible environments. I read that things can go wrong if you try to use a shell other than bash
You could use something like nix-your-shell.
Excellent, ty for showing this to me
Nix is just across the street sipping tea because it understands what it is and is at peace with the chaotic world around it.
Gentoo is too busy compiling to notice what’s going on around it
If you want, you can also compile everything with Nix!
I use NixOS and Flatpak (Nix-Flatpak) to install software that is not available in Nixpkgs. Unlike Arch’s AUR, Nixpkgs has fewer popular packages. However, Nixpkgs beats AUR in terms of quantity because many Nixpkgs packages are redundant.
Nix organizes Bohemian Grove.
Tar is not a package manager, it is just a packaging format. AppImage has the same problem.
Flatpak is a bit of a crappy package manager but at least it is one. And, due to its use of container technology, it allows the same packages to run on any Linux kernel (any Linux distro). That is pretty useful.
Of the other package managers, apk 3 is my favourite but the only distro that uses it is Chimera Linux. Pacman is good. dnf / RPM is ok. apt / deb is in last place for me. The recent Ubuntu 25.04 launch snafu illustrates some of the problems with apt. The first Linus Tech Tips Linux challenge really highlighted the dangers of apt.
I only used snap briefly but instantly hated it. Fstab was a mess. It was slow. It was proprietary. I fled before I could form an educated opinion.
it allows the same packages to run on any Linux kernel (any Linux distro). That is pretty useful.
flatpak itself depends on namespaces, so saying that it works on any kernel is quite a stretch.
Can flatpak do this? This is a GIMP3 appimage running on ubuntu 10.04 without any container:
The kernel is so old that even the appimage runtime itself complains of missing functions and has to fallback to a workaround.
UPDATE: flatpak can’t work because bubblewrap itself can’t:
PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVSis only available since kernel 3.5Just curious, why are you using a 15 year old version of Ubuntu?
deleted by creator
I’m not, it’s a vm that I use to test.
There is quite a lot of systems still stuck on kernel 2.6 that can’t be updated, so it is always nice to make sure what I do can work on such.
It’s not about the package management method that we use. It’s about the friends and enemies we made along the way (while arguing about package management.)
You can change the labels but the groups in them would remain the same. :)
AppImage is the no-nonsense universal package format.
AppImages have a lot of problems
Like not updating or shared dependencies duplicated for every single app image
Just use flatpak
or they somehow still find a way to not work. I can count the number of times i had an appimage just work, and it is exactly 2. Any other time i had crashes
Absolutely my favorite. Just download and go. Super portable.
The lack of package management sucks though
It would, if there were no other options for package management. Package formats don’t have to be either/or. My systems typically end up with mixes of native packages, flatpak, appimages, and you could technically consider Steam a package management system as well.
Last time I read something from the main dev I almost ran stright into the woods.
Also idk about how it is the management situation, portals integration, etc…
If flatpak didn’t make me put the entirety of KDE onto my system (thats an exaggeration but you know what I mean) I’d gladly crown it king of the package managers.
Plus make it hell on earth to a) access drives other than the one flatpak is installed on, b) interoperate with non-flatpak applications, and c) retain any amount of free space on my drives (exaggeration for effect).
Yeah, flatseal should come stock with flatpak IMO. You will have to configure many apps to get them to play nice with your system.
This is a “security” feature and I’m so tired of it. Same thing with Wayland, random crap doesn’t work sometimes
Wayland is trying to replace a standard that people have been saying is obsolete for a decade. I’ll give them a bit of leeway.
I just want to point out the dependencies of Konsole (arguably a small and simple application in concept):
glibc gcc-libs icu kbookmarks kcolorscheme kconfig kconfigwidgets kcoreaddons kcrash kdbusaddons kglobalaccel kguiaddons ki18n kiconthemes kio knewstuff knotifications knotifyconfig kparts kpty kservice ktextwidgets kwidgetsaddons kwindowsystem kxmlgui qt6-5compat qt6-base qt6-multimedia sh.Psst … the first KDE app you installed via your package manager also put “the entirety of KDE” onto your system.
i don’t think I use any kde apps on my system at all
Indeed. As much of how loved and popular KDE is, fuck it. I use the glorious XFCE. XFCE is beautiful too. Fuck, I’m not the maniac who would waste 2GB just for my DE to look beautiful.
Flatpak does not install KDE by default. It is only required if you install a KDE app. You can hardly blame it if you do that.
I need nothing but apt or dnf. Miss me with that other junk.
Weird way to spell pacman
As an Arch user for many years, my question is when is Arch going to ditch pacman and upgrade to APK 3?
I’ve never used it – what do you like about it?
Muh portage tho😲
I use apt and flatpak. They both are good for what they do.
Why do you need flatpak
Because it just works. After being with computers all day fixing the insane problems that other people create I just want to come home and press buttons and have things work
I use boring Debian, so apt and older packages, and flatpak for a few programs that I want up to date.
If you are going to be running an Atomic/immutable distro, you really want to use things like flatpack/snap/appImage to keep your user space separate from the OS.
Oh, you can sledgehammer an rpm/deb/what ever into the underlying OS. But if you do that, why did you choose an immutable distro in the first place? It’s kind of the whole point.
Why do you need flatpak
Not OP, but I like Flatpak (in addition to Apt) because it doesn’t require escalation to add or remove packages, so my kids can self-serve adding or removing games.
When using certain apps I prefer them being containerized on my system. It’s case-by-case for me. I keep steam containerized, my web browser containerized, etc.
But…why
In the case of steam and web browser, the containerization means I can control their access permissions via flatseal. This adds another layer of security, since they’re both web-accessing applications, and it’s easier than setting up a VM to run those applications.
Be aware the sandbox of flatpak is not safe for web browsers, specially firefox based browsers:
https://seirdy.one/notes/2022/06/12/flatpak-and-web-browsers/
https://librewolf.net/installation/linux/#security
https://github.com/uazo/cromite/issues/1053#issuecomment-2191794660
Ah, wasn’t aware. Will have to look into it more.
Flatpak is a common way to install something newer than you can get in your repo. If you are using apt in Debian Stable, Flatpak is a miracle. This is even the reason Ubuntu installs Firefox as a snap (their version of Flatpak).
ensures software support when the developer in question is a moron
LFS + conda
A rusty bucket riddled with holes and the stick part of a shovel is better than snap for running software.
Still don’t know how I’m supposed to add dictionaries to FF on snap. So many little issues like this with snaps.
Haha, I break snap a lot less than the others, and it took a bit to figure out the differences. Appimages are annoying af. Flatpaks are my favourite when there isn’t a good old .deb. I recently broke Flatpak though so it’s on my naughty list. Snap still chugging along for some reason, I just wish the permissions weren’t so crazy strict (Nextcloud).
Speaking of all this, I realised I’ve accidentally installed some things twice. Is there a good way to list all the different package managers together to see what is duplicated?
How do you break a flatpak?
Asking the real questions here.
I once uninstalled a flatpak and it rendered another installed flatpak unlaunchable. Not even the repair function would fix it. Ended up having to use timeshift to rollback. Not sure if that was the fault of Flatpak or that one specific app but it was pretty frustrating.
I broke Gnome and now I have Flatpaks that don’t launch. I don’t want to reinstall so I am slowly fixing things.
You can try
flatpak repair. Or it could be a leftover .desktop file for that app.You can check if that app is still installed with
flatpak listYeah that isn’t the problem haha. I have deleted something gnome is not happy about. This has been a few days of tinkering. I think I actually just might have fixed it. Fingers crossed, anyway.
How exactly are appimages annoying? I think they are awesome tbh
AppImage is a package format, not a package manager. Same with tar.
So, I would say the primary complaint should be a lack of package management.
So, I would say the primary complaint should be a lack of package management.
I want a centralised app manage, not 50. I’d probably stick them in a folder and forget them if not for Gear Lever.
So, I would say the primary complaint should be a lack of package management.
Oh perfect, they added this to topgrade.
https://github.com/topgrade-rs/topgrade/pull/423
But yes, they hyper trigger my ocd because I cannot manage it all in one place and they just float around as a seperate entity. I just discovered Bauh too which can manage them. The problem there lies that you have to choose one manager now to manage them all and they don’t all just detect them like a flatpak manager. They’re too manual. The more that these things are separated the more time I’ll spend fucking with them and that’s the last thing I need. I need them to be all in one place and standardised to stop my bad habits. It’s too much extra shit. I get why they’re good, it’s just not for someone that is not a dev thay actually needs to do other work.
what
Is topgrade used to update all the package managers at once? how many stuff are you using that you need that???
Different users need different things. Not everyone can run a bare bones Arch setup. I’d use it anyway even if I didn’t have a lot of updates. It’s the centralisation that’s important. It even updates Docker containers and windows. I have several devices I can just automate now. It’s a set and forget.
Alright be aware that AM not only can manage appimages, it also manages other portable formats and has access to over a 1000 static binaries from soarpkgs repo.
And it can do all of this at user level when used as
appman, that is elevated rights are never needed to install anything and I can just take myHOMEand drop it on any distro and be ready to go.It made me get rid of flatpak all together and become an appimage contributor lol
That’s because we are…
If .y Firefox will once again be updated without asking me and then refusing to open any page without a restart I’ll fucking lose it
Wait hold on wait, does that bullshit have something with Firefox being distributed through Snap?
If it does, I’m going to sn… also fucking lose it
Yeah, it’s snap
Always updating without letting you know, without asking and it’s ALWAYS at the most inconvenient time
Ah gotcha, it’s not the cause but it makes the problem way worse
I have bad news for you …
(TBH I am not sure, but as I remember, this problem was specifically a snap problem.)
laughs in Nix and NixOS
Like a bunch of old farts in a coffee shop arguing over which truck brand is better.
Yeah, but Snap is the equivalent of Tesla…
You want me to top off your coffee before you go home to take a nap?
Yes please, and more cake!
Now remember old fella you can’t have cake anymore. It messes with your blood sugar.
