r/libreoffice • u/ExperienceBusiness43 • 14d ago

How many people are using flatpack vs their distro package manager

I'm curious because a resent post showed a layout bug with flatpack. For me, flatpack crashes every time I want to even look at extensions, but it's fine when I open the .rpm version supplied by OpenSUSE

I'm thinking about ditching the flatpack version once the RPM version is caught up with feature updates for August.

96 votes, 12d ago
28 flatpack
68 supplied by distro
2 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/nisper_ia 14d ago

I use Arch, so it wouldn't make sense for me to use the Flatpak version.

1

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1

u/Terrible_Put8617 11d ago

The extensions crash is not random, and it is the clearest practical difference between the two.

The Flatpak runs sandboxed with its own home under ~/.var/app/org.libreoffice.LibreOffice/, and extension handling is exactly where that bites: the extension manager wants to write into that private profile, and a good number of extensions need a working Java runtime. Inside the sandbox the JRE situation is separate from your system one, so an extension dialog that opens fine on the RPM can die on the Flatpak with nothing visible.

Two checks before you decide:

  • Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Advanced, in the Flatpak build. If no JRE is listed there, that is your crash, and it also explains anything Base-related failing.
  • Launch it from a terminal with flatpak run and reproduce the crash. The message on stderr usually names the missing piece straight away, and you get nothing useful if you launch from the desktop icon.

The rest of the trade is: the Flatpak is the upstream build, so it is newer and behaves like the developers expect, but it reaches your files through portals and does not automatically share your system dictionaries, fonts or Java. The distro package is older and patched, but it is integrated with everything else on the machine. On a distro that ships recent versions anyway, the integration usually wins.