Why I No Longer Use Flatpak

Today I talk about my decision to leave behind flatpak for something much better.
👇 PULL IT DOWN FOR THE GOOD STUFF 👇

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==== Time Stamps ====
0:00 Intro
1:10 Why I No Longer Like Flatpaks
7:52 What I'm Using Instead
11:04 Conclusions

#ramble #flatpak #thelinuxcast

[damianateiro]

Using flatpak to snaps or appimages as your official way of distributing your app is to save having to maintain other formats and by having a way in which anyone can install no matter where they are from, I see it as much better than dealing with problems that have arisen. caused by the maintainers of a distro, whether they do it well is another thing

[arimil.]

I do think the size argument is a bit redundant considering distrobox installs an entire other OS which is likely to be several times larger than whatever flatpak and all of it's dependencies were.

[softwarelivre]

Flatpaks use runtimes in order to deduplicate dependencies and reduce file sizes. That's actually a feature. What you were suggesting at 2:50 looks more like what AppImages do stuff, which is not efficient.

[themisterchristie]

My preference is for Flatpaks as, normally they are more up to date than my distro's repos.

My problem with flatpaks is actually a few things.

1. To launch from the command line is difficult, requiring you to remember a criptic command.

2. Using add-ons that usually go in the apps folder in .config, it's not clear where to put them. An example, the NDI Stream plug in for OBS, I couldn't figure out how to use it in the Flatpak version of OBS.

3. Trying to find the user configuration files, those normally in .config, is so difficult and it drives me nuts.

[Berecutecu]

Matt, in this one I disagree. Flatpak is a path to reduce package management in multiple applications managers. Distrobox is the opposite, it encourages the fight of multiple package managers. This is a time waste for distro managers, they could be improving features instead of packing apps and this is the whole point of the discussion here

[survivor]

Im old and i just use debs :) these new package formats give me so many questions :) apt is fine and i don't understand why people are against it or any other distro based managers.

[ppaliwal]

What is the actual work that you do apart from producing videos? coz majority of your videos are I switched from X to Y and two weeks or maybe a month later I switched from Y to Z. Every video has a different rice (I hope that's what the customisations are called) so it kinda feels like that's what your main thing is. As a consumer of your content, I would love to get a clarity if this is going to be the content theme for this channel?

[iitzrohan]

L Take. So you prefer having all the bloat installed as system packages instead of having it installed as seperate runtimes. FYI the so called bloat packages only gets installed the first time you install a package. Then other applications then share the runtimes as long as they are compatible.What do you do when some package installed in system refuses to work because of newer dependencies?? Just wait and hope the package gets updated?

[DashieTM]

100%, the very moment I am expected to first fix broken permissions for software before using it, it's no longer just containerization but just plain broken and needs to be fixed. A dynamic permission system is needed, what we have right now is frustrating at best.

[donpeer]

As I understand these self-contained packages:
AppImages exist just in its own folder. Delete folder to remove.
Flatpaks put data outside its folder; this requires you to use --delete-data to cleanly remove.
Snaps spread themselves throughout the OS ala M$ Windoze. I doubt if they're ever really gone...

[rhiethreal]

I personally love flatpaks, and I think the support libraries being separate is a good thing. It means they can share, which saves you space overall. Instead of every pak needing to download the same library every time, if they share a library dependency, then they can just share the same install.

Like say some hypothetical library was 10 GB in size, just as an absurd example, and I had two flatpaks that needed to use it. I would rather it be separate and have one 10 GB install that they both shared, RATHER THAN then both being completely self contained and needing to waste 20 GBs of space rather than just 10 GB.

[leevi]

It seems all those OBS Studio issues are related to using window manager, because under KDE wayland session everything works out of the box. I just tried it because I happen to have pretty fresh openSUSE installation, so I'm sure there is nothing special already done. Screen and window capturing works without any permission or other configurations at all (via pipewire). And one thing what is better in flatpak version of OBS Studio is that it has browser source already installed, which has not been the case at least in the past with versions from repositories.

[jackelofnar]

You really should talk to the creators of bottles as flatpak is the only distribution method they want to support

[darkphotonstudio]

They work ok for me. If it makes it easier for devs to distribute their software, I don't see the problem.

[alexstone]

2:40 if you shove everything then you need to update whole app to update a possibly exploitable bug in an app that has been abandoned

[Skelterbane]

I primarily use flatpaks.
Very few packages are installed through pacman, making my arch install very stable, I feel

[tambuchalinux]

Great points in this video. Although I actually don't use very many flatpaks, the REALLY slow flatpak updates are true for me. This video has convinced me to look to distrobox. But I think most users, especially newer users will use flatpaks because they are integrated into the more user friendly software stores.

[Kneedragon]

Interesting to hear somebody else share roughly my own concerns.
I recently upgraded to Mint 21.2. Obviously, from 21.1 ... So, toward the end of the 21.1 cycle, I got fed up with flatpack and removed it. Since installing point two, I have not added a single flatpack and nor has Mint. Far as I can see, there are no flatpacks installed. That's fine by me.
Mint resisted Canonical's push to snaps, and made a point of disabling them. They included flatpacks. Ok, I can see the problem. So I tried a few pax and discovered several of the issues you mention, plus one other.
You have an ap, quite a small ap, based on or following on from something that's been around for 10 years, (let's say an old text editor you like) and to download and install that ap, took about 20 ~ 30 MB. But to download the flatpac, took 600MB.
~ But wait ~ that's not all, so that great plug of dependency, that should include everything ~ right? Well no, once you have and run 3 or 4 flatpacs, you start getting updates to the underlying system, which run into hundreds of MB. Ok, I will sigh and roll my eyes and shut up, but then the next day, you get a newer version again. And 3 days later, it comes down again. And a few days later ... So you put a question out to the nice people at Mint, and they say something along the lines of ~ "No, you're a silly old fart jumping to conclusions. That's not how it works. You are misreading or misunderstanding the introduction."
Excuse me, but you didn't read my email. I didn't say to you that I have some fantasy concern about a bad thing that _might_ happen, I'm telling you what I have _witnessed_ on my own machine, at least 6 ~ 8 times! Don't tell me that's not how it works, because brother, I can tell you ~ it _is!_
Since going to 21.2, I haven't seen that happen at all, but I have also been very careful not to install any snaps or any flatpax or any other fancy new-age 'container' things. I do understand the concept, but I think apt and conventional installs are way better.
"But that makes things hard for the developers."
Ok, fair call, but should developers hand off their maintenance problems to users? I realise it would be a nightmare to maintain something (let's spot vlc as an example) that has to work on Mate, and KDE, on gnome3~50+ (and all the old gnomes) and bloody Window$, and nifty-Russian-desktop and nifty Chinese desktop (do know what Budgie-smugglers are in Australia?) and ... let's not forget the fetish of the last year or two, Wayland ~ I can see how that becomes completely unworkable. But then you hand off a Linux version of DLL-Hell to the end user? That's not the way it should work either.
"But I use Arch, actually."
Ok, that's fair. You're smarter than I am. And I just stopped using your software. So who's right and who's a fool?

[CandyCaneChris]

As someone else said I feel like this is more of a lateral move. You are shifting the responsibility for maintaining the package from the flatpak maintainer to the docker/podman maintainer.
Building a flatpak isn't hard, but doing it in the best way is hard to nail down. The same way building a docker image is. Distrobox just pulls docker images to my knowledge, so if that maintainer stops earning a living outside of the project, it may fall behind just the same. (Granted most of it is automated for base images like Arch, Debian, etc.)

[codychan]

Since you didn't include a website image in your video or link in the description, is the distrobox you mentioned in your video the same thing as the distrobox I know, which is "Use any linux distribution inside your terminal."? In my opinion, snap/flatpak and distrobox are not the same things.

Anyway, looking forward to more content about the distrobox you are talking about.