Basically title.

I’m wondering if a package manager like flatpak comes with any drawback or negatives. Since it just works on basically any distro. Why isn’t this just the default? It seems very convenient.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    For me it’s lacking in user friendliness. Go easy on the downvotes if I’m doing it the hard way.

    • Flatpaks aren’t really single-executables. You have to use to the flatpak command to run them.
    • I can’t just say flatpak run firefox, I have to use the full app-id which could be quite long.

    Yes, I could make this simpler with scripts or aliases but how hard would it have been for Flatpak to automatically do this for me?

    • Miyabi@iusearchlinux.fyi
      0·
      1 year ago

      I’m using KDE and when I download a flatpak it automatically creates a .desktop file. I think gnome does this too if I’m not mistaken. I do have to restart or relogin for it to put the file there but that’s not that bad IMO.

  • Snoopy@jlai.lu
    1·
    1 year ago

    There is some drawback. The main one : app can’t communicate with each other.

    Example firefox and his extension keepass. As keepass can’t communicate with firefox, you will have to open both apps and switch their windows.

    You can use flatseal to manage communicatiom between app but that’s not an easy process and may prove a security issue if you don’t understand the technical jargon.

  • burgersc12@mander.xyz
    0·
    1 year ago

    Take a look at this site that goes into the details of the shortcomings of Flatpak, its from 2020 but I’m sure some of this is relevant still

  • BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br
    0·
    1 year ago

    As everything in life, yes, there is downside. Major downside is that it can occupy more space in your hd or ssd.

    However I think the downsides are not that bad to justify all the hatred some guys have.

    Flatpak positive sides are way more relevant then the downsides

  • lemmyng@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    The biggest downside is that it’s only for distributing applications with a graphical user interface. Command line utilities still need another method of distribution.

        • aberrate_junior_beatnik (he/him)@midwest.socialEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Yep. But,

          sudo tee /usr/local/bin/nvim <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
flatpak run io.neovim.nvim "$@"
EOF
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/nvim

          (I haven’t tested this, that I use similar code for a different program)

          It sure would be nice if flatpak bundled some functionality to do this for you, though.

          @oldfart@lemm.ee

          • oldfart@lemm.ee
            0·
            1 year ago

            I don’t need to do it with native-installed programs. And they are properly integrated with the OS, if you install them:

            1. You get a menu entry in gui
            2. You get a binary or a wrapper in /usr/bin
  • TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca
    0·
    1 year ago

    I don’t use Flatpak much, but I rarely see issues. Sometimes I see minor things like themes not quite being right, but its never been bad enough for me to spend the time to fix it.

    I suppose another downside is the need to have the base runtime packages, so it could take more disk space if each app uses a different one. In practice apps will share runtimes though.

  • aberrate_junior_beatnik (he/him)@midwest.socialEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I think its biggest weakness is also its biggest strength: isolation. Sometimes desktop integration doesn’t work quite right. For instance, the 1password browser extension can’t integrate with the desktop app when you use flatpak firefox.

  • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    It is the default on atomic distros. And many people who got to know flatpaks use it as a default on traditional installs as well.

    But there are still bugs and quirks with some apps. Not all apps have all the functionality as a traditional install. E.g. dolphin or terminals.

    It is up and coming and gradually replacing traditional installs. You rarely find an app that you can’t install via flathub.

    There are theming issues with older flatpaks.

    • YamiYuki@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Some developers don’t want to deal with building an app for multiple versions. Sure some DEBs can work without needing to deal with that, but some don’t.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      Flatpak is a distro on its own, but with original dev support. Its like a Linux Distro replacing others.

      So it adds complexity but with the potential to remove it from the OS. For example Libreoffice, Browsers, Thunderbird etc are huge and its a good approach to use official versions here.

      • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
        0·
        1 year ago

        Then what’s the point in having different distros lol we don’t have duplication for the sake of duplication there are reasons why there are different distros, philosophies and packaging method. I see this mistake from many usually newer Linux users, there are different distros because there is a point in packaging the OS differently.

        Flatpak for example completely abandons makig apps use patched system libraries. Or having different packages for different init systems. Or , god forbid, supporting BSDs

  • ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    If you have an unusual setup, it can be annoying trying to give programs permissions and sometimes it just outright doesn’t work. For example, I mainly game on a laptop which has a pretty small hard drive, so I tend to put most of my games on an external hard drive. Flatpak really doesn’t play well with that.

  • kixik@lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 year ago

    Bloated and unnecessary if freeSW or openSW. That’s what system shared libraries are for. If sandboxing is a thing, then firejail is availble, which can be combined with apparmor if looking for extra MAC security.

      • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        1 year ago

        Using flatpak on low end devices (like Linux phones), I can tell you from experience, the speed liss is noticeable. Specially for application startup. As is the resource overhead.

        • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          That’s a fairly good point. On mobile startup can be crucial because sessions are short in comparison to desktop where you have linger sessions and startup time is negligable (even the slow startup times of snaps could be ignored for e.g. a video editing session)

          Low specs shouldn’t keep the community from moving into newer technology.

          • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            1 year ago

            Precisely. I’ve been playing with Mobian on a One Plus 6 (works great) and while I really like the idea of using mostly sandboxed app much like things work on Android, right now it certainly negatively impacts the experience.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
        0·
        1 year ago

        One thing I always wondered is whether libraries in memory would be duplicated or not. I have seen a lot of people talking about storage space which is cheap and shouldn’t really be the focus for desktops. But I haven’t seen anything about in memory usage.

  • arthurpizza@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    There’s still a few edge cases that Flatpak is not great for. The Flatpak version of Kdenlive video editor can’t see Whisper, which it uses to generate subtitles. The Appimage and native builds work flawlessly.

    I’m assuming these problems will be addressed eventually but it takes time.

    • exception4289@lemmy.world
      0·
      1 year ago

      I ran into an issue with flatpak version of Kdenlive that it would render only the topmost V track if it was a simple still image.
      Preview worked fine.
      Luckily, someone in Kdenlive’s Matrix suggested that I use an appimage. I used my distro’s version and the final render was fine.

      Other than that I had positive experience with flatpaks in general.