Linux

Don't like it for one simple reason: no integration with the distribution. Flatpak is this sort universal solution that works, but doesn't necessarily work hand-in-hand with the distro, unlike package managers.

Perhaps ironically, this is mocking a strawman. Flatpacks can be installed and managed using the terminal! Not only that but Linux-Distros have had graphical package managers for decades.

The primary reason that distros have embraced flatpack / snap / appimage is that they promise to lower the burden of managing software repositories. The primary reason that some users are mad is that these often don't provide a good experience:

• they are often slower to install/start/run
• they have trouble integrating with the rest of the system (ignoring gtk/qt themes for example)
• they take a lot more space and bandwidth

Theoretically they are also more secure... But reality of that has also been questioned. Fine grained permissions are nice, but bundling libraries makes it hard to know what outdated libraries are running on the systems.

?? I manage flatpaks exclusively in the terminal

My favorite part of the linux experience is the FREEDOM, but also being talked down to for not using my freedom correctly, I should only do things a specific way or I might as well just use windows.

Not a fan for a few reasons. Flathub (as far as I know) works on the app store model where developers offer their own builds to users, which is probably appealing to people coming from the Windows world who view distros as unnecessary middlemen, but in the GNU/Linux world the distro serves an important role as a sort of union of users; they make sure the software works in the distro environment, resolve breakages, and remove any anti-features placed in there by the upstream developers.

The sandboxing is annoying too, but understandable.

Despite this I will resort to a flatpak if I'm too lazy to figure out how to package something myself.

I've never heard anyone say that Flatpaks could result in losing access to the terminal.

My only problem with Flatpaks are the lack of digital signature, neither from the repository nor the uploader. Other major package managers do use digital signatures, and Flatpaks should too.

Enter the calm and quiet room

Pass out torches and pitchforks, guns and knives

“Snaps exist”

War erupts.

About the image: The joke's on you, I install my flatpaks via the terminal.

I've started using flatpaks more after starting using Bazzite and I liked them more than I expected. As a dev, I still need my work tools to be native, but most of my other needs are well covered by flatpaks.

Tip: Flatseal is a great config manager for flatpaks' permissions.

I spent my time fighting AppImages until Canonical started to force Snap on me. I hated Snap so bad it forced me to switch distros. Now I appreciate Flatpak as a result and I don't find AppImages all that bad, either. Also, I haven't found myself in dependency-hell nor have I crashed my distro from unofficial Repos in well over a decade.

-It's a long way of saying It works for me and it's not Snap.

Flatpaks are good, especially compared to snap.

The future is atomic OS's like silverblue, which will make heavy use of things like flatpak.

I "grew up" with Slackware, so I definitely understand the dependency issue.

I like flatpaks (and similar) for certain "atomic" pieces of software, like makemkv. For more "basic" software, like, say, KDE, I want it installed natively.

Certainly a fan, and I don't understand the hate towards it.

Flatpaks are my preferred way of installing Linux apps, unless it is a system package, or something that genuinely requires extensive permissions like a VPN client, or something many other apps depend on like Wine.

The commonly cited issues with Flatpaks are:

• Performance. Honestly, do you even care if your Pomodoro timer app takes up 1 more megabyte of RAM? Do you actually notice?
• Bloat. Oh, yes, an app now takes 20 MB instead of 10 MB. Again, does anybody care?
• Slower and larger updates. Could be an issue for someone on a metered traffic, or with very little time to do updates. Flatpaks update in the background, though, and you typically won't notice the difference unless you need something newest now (in which case you'll have to wait an extra minute)
• Having to check permissions. This is a feature, not a bug. For common proponents of privacy and security, Linuxheads grew insanely comfortable granting literally every maintainer full access to their system. Flatpaks intentionally limit apps functionality to what is allowed, and if in some case defaults aren't good for your use case - just toggle a switch in Flatseal, c'mon, you don't need any expertise to change it.

What you gain for it? Everything.

• Full control over app's permissions. Your mail client doesn't need full system permissions, and neither do your messengers. Hell, even your backup client only needs to access what it backs up.
• All dependencies built in. You'll never have to face dependency hell, ever, no matter what. And you can be absolutely sure the app is fully featured and you won't have to look for missing nonessential dependencies.
• Fully distro-agnostic. If something works on my EndeavourOS, it will work on my OpenSUSE Slowroll, and on my Debian 12. And it will be exactly the same thing, same version, same features. It's beautiful.
• Stability. Flatpaks are sandboxed, so they don't affect your system and cannot harm it in any way. This is why immutable distros feature Flatpaks as the main application source. Using them with mutable distributions will also greatly enhance stability.

Alternatives?

AppImages don't need an installation, so they are nice to see what the program is about. But for other uses, they are garbage-tier. Somehow they manage both not to integrate with the system and not be sandboxed, you need manual intervention or additional tools to at least update them/add to application menu, and ultimately, they depend on one file somewhere. This is extremely unreliable and one should likely never use AppImages for anything but "use and delete".

Snaps...aside from all the controversy about Snap Store being proprietary and Ubuntu shoving snaps down people's throats, they were just never originally developed with desktop applications in mind. As a result, Snaps are commonly so much slower and bulkier that it actually starts getting very noticeable. Permissions are also way less detailed, meaning you can't set apps up with minimum permissions for your use case.

This all leaves us with one King:

And it is Flatpak.

flatpaks are fine and useful, i just wish we didn't move into a scenario where applications that used to be easily available in distro repos start moving away from them and are only available through flatpaks. distro packages are just so much more efficient in every way. flatpaks are easier on maintainers and developers but that comes at a cost to the user. i have about a dozen or less flatpak apps installed and already i have to download at least 2 gigs of updates each week. i run debian

I love installing things from the CLI and prefer to only do it that way but Linux needs a single click install method for applications if it’s ever going to become a mainstream OS. The average person just wants to Google a program, hit download and install. If not that then they want to use a mobile-like App Store.

Flatpak is kind of perfect at achieving both those things

Flatpaks are great for situations where installing software is unnecessary complex or complicated.

I have Steam installed for some games, and since this is a 32 bits application it would install a metric shit-don of 32 bit dependencies I do not use for anything else except Steam, so I use the Flatpak version.

Or Kdenlive for video editing. Kdenlive is the only KDE software I use but when installing it, it feels like due to dependencies I also get pretty much all of the KDE desktop’s applications I do not need nor use nor want on my machine. So Flatpak it is.

And then there is software like OBS, which is known for being borderline unusable when not using the only officially supported way to use it on Linux outside of Ubuntu – which is Flatpak.

I need OBS on this new computer!

Let's install the flatpack!

V4l problems

Plugins Problems

Wayland Problems

I'm just going back to the .deb, thanks.

I have used rpms, AppImages, Flatpaks, and source. I have even used a snap or two when I had no other choice.

If you can't work with them all, can you even say you Linux Bro?

I'm a big fan of the idea of sandboxed apps. Flatpak is not great as it compromises sandboxing for compatibility (both with distros and apps) and also it's quite stagnant now. But there are no other options anyway, so I use it.

I'm 2 months into my Linux journey and I don't use flatpak. I've had the odd problem with it. I stick to pacman and yay now.

Honestly? I'm a fan of Flatpaks where they make sense. I'm also okay with Appimages. Native is pretty cool. Whatever gets the thing to run really.

I like to use the terminal to update my applications, it's just faster. I have an alias to run an update for native packages and flatpaks. You can use your GUI of choice. Or not, it's up to you. It's that sort of freedom that I love about using Linux.

In some cases, Flatpak actually helps, as in my case, with Prism Launcher. Some of my system libraries cause issues with a handful of mods, but the libraries distributed with the Flatpak get that working. Hopefully that's not foreshadowing more future library-related issues.

If it's a mostly self-contained app, like a game or a utility, then Flatpak is just fine. If a Flatpak needs to interact with other apps on the host or, worst case, another Flatpak it gets tricky or even impossible. From what I've seen though, AppImage and Snap are even worse at this.

The issue I have with flatpaks is the size for most applications. It just doesn't make sense for me. Not that it's not useful and has it's purposes.

Flatpak have their own set of issues. One thing is, that Flatpak applications do not integrate that easily and perfect like a native package. Either rights are to given, you need to know what rights are needed and how to set it up. Theming can be an issue, because it uses its own libraries in the Flatpak eco system instead your current distributions theme and desktop environment.

But on the other hand, they have actually a permission system and are a little bit sandbox compared to normal applications. Packages often are distributed quickly and are up to date directly from the developers, and usually are not installed with root rights.

I'm pretty much a CLI guy as well and prefer native packages (Arch based, plus the AUR). But I also use Flatpaks for various reasons, alongside with AppImages.

i like it. they are very convenient, work every time, and solves the distribution problem.

Size and gnome/GTK dependencies are main reasons why I don't use Flatpaks (I have nothing against gnome though, it just pulls in too much and KDE is worse in this regards, which is why I use Sway and River)

Former OS security here (I worked at an OS vendor who sold an OS or two and my job involved keeping it secure).

Fuck no.

Sorry if that makes you downvote, but it doesn't make them safer.

I'd take a well-maintained native package for my distro over a Flatpak, but sometimes, a Flatpak is just the the easiest way to get the latest version of an application working on Debian without too much tinkering - not always no tinkering, but better than nothing.

This is especially true of GIMP - Flatpak GIMP + Resynthesizer feels like the easiest way to experience GIMP these days. Same with OBS - although I have to weather the Flatpak directory structure, plugins otherwise feel easier to get working than the native package. The bundled runtimes are somewhat annoying, but I'm also not exactly hurting for storage at the moment - I could probaby do to put more of my 2 TB main SSD to use.

I usually just manage Flatpaks from the terminal, though I often have to refresh myself on application URLs. I somewhat wish one could set nicknames so they need not remember the full name.