this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2023
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

The isolation paragraph seems more like a gripe with Gnome Software Center rather than flatpak itself.

It most likely doesn't scale to have all developers keep track of all the dependencies of all their software.

Also not sure I agree much with this. When developers don't keep track of their application's dependencies, end users often end up having to do it and it's a much worse experience overall.

I do agree with that it ends up being more of a burden on developers to maintain dependencies in their package. It's not great knowing there are potentially patched issues sitting in older libraries that are shipped with a flatpak because a package maintainer hasn't had the bandwidth to update them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When I was packaging Flatpaks, the greatest downside is

No built in package manager

There is a repo with shared dependencies, but it is very few. So needs to package all the dependencies... So, I personally am not interested in packaging for flatpak other than in very rare occasions... Nix and Guix are definitely better solutions (except the isolation aspect, which is not a feature, you need to do it manually), and one can use at many distros; Nix even on MacOS!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

nix on MacOS doesn't even have Chromium. all my kekw

... :'(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well; darwin users, just as linux users, should also work on making packages available to their platforms as Nix is still in its adoption phase. There are many already. IIRC I, who never use MacOS, made some effort into making 1 or 2 packages (likely more) to build on darwin.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been installing all my software on Ubuntu using the flatpaks because they are mostly up to date. They definitely have there downsides. I keep trying to save renders in blender and exports from draktable in my /tmp/ folder but it doesn't work right because of the isolation. Also running those programs from the command line or trying to run scrips included with darktable is a real pain in the butt.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there any particular reason you use flatpaks rather than snaps? (Not that I’m suggesting using snaps, I myself prefer flatpak, just curious)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I said ubuntu but I'm actually mostly running pop-os and the pop shop installed them as flatpak. I've been switching between the two alot lately.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ah alright, that makes more sense. I ran Pop-OS for a while, and a few other distros since then, but keep coming back to Fedora

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

One huge thing I don't understand about Flatpak is how, like the article says, everything is shoved into GitHub. Why? What is the rationale behind making each application its own repository just to store a couple modules and a YAML file?

I do like Flatpak though. It works for what I use it for, and it does a good job at keeping the applications I install through it separate from my system, so I can be sure that my package manager isn't going to brick everything with an update (not like that has ever happened though).

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago

flatpack convert a well-design operating system linux to a sub-optimized system like our favorite microsoft window 😂

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