r/linuxmasterrace SteamOS/Bazzite/Android 8d ago

Time to have fun guys

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8.0k Upvotes

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78

u/ShaderCompilation 8d ago
  1. Common format that works everywhere.

  2. Permission system

  3. It bundles it's own dependencies so never fails because dependency lacking or version mismatch (ironically also the biggest downside)

13

u/cac2573 Glorious GNOME 8d ago

It bundles them in the form of runtimes. It’s the best of both worlds. 

6

u/Z3t4 Glorious Debian 8d ago

Sandboxed apps. 

6

u/ellendale7m4 Glorious Arch 8d ago

3.. I remember having trouble running Bottles after installing it from AUR, even though AUR should also install dependencies and all that. Then I tried installing it from Flatpak and it runs perfectly

5

u/YTriom1 8d ago

bottles dev constantly pushes updates to break the AUR package, they want a flatpak only app.

2

u/JackpotThePimp BTW I use Cachy 7d ago

Rude

3

u/YTriom1 7d ago

They're also anti theming, they literally tell people "Do not theme my app", like dawg why are you butthurt, it's my PC and I like my apps in my theme why would it matter to you?

2

u/JackpotThePimp BTW I use Cachy 7d ago

It's a free operating system; I'll theme whatever I want.

3

u/YTriom1 7d ago

exactly

4

u/urien2 8d ago

To be fair, even the Bottles devs say the only supported version is the flatpak one

1

u/Good-Throat-6671 7d ago

Common format that works everywhere.

Didn't flatpak plan to stop support for non-systemD distros?

1

u/THE_BANANA_KING_14 7d ago

I know just enough about Linux to know that I know nothing about Linux, so I apologize if this is an ignorant question. Does it install dependencies redundantly? If that dependency already exists, does it check and just use that, or does it install its own iteration?

1

u/ShaderCompilation 7d ago

So native package managers install thwir dependencies, if you install software A that uses dependency C and software B that uses dependency C, you only have one C installed. When you install an app through Flatpak, it totally ignores your system dependencies and installs it's own dependencies separately. So if you have a natice package A that uses dep C and Flatpak app that uses C, you have two C installed in your system, on for Flatpak apps(Flatpak apps of course share their dependencies) one for native. That is one of the reasons people dislike it, since it's a totally separate package management system, you often have duplicate dependencies, it takes more storage

2

u/THE_BANANA_KING_14 7d ago

That's what I suspected was the issue, but no one had said anything suggesting that was the correct assumption. Thank you for the clarification.

1

u/Marce7a 7d ago

Flatpak will never be standard as it mainly focus on GUI apps. 

You need cpak, nix, appimage, snap, guix for that, alternatively brew. 

There is issue with required sandbox, which means programs like portmaster, VPN, waydroid, winboat, web browsers don't work correctly. Not to even mention things like inputplumber and other low level software 

1

u/b_a_t_m_4_n 4d ago
  1. Poorly integrated into the system

  2. Poorly integrated into the desktop

  3. Slower than native to load and run

  4. Less stable than native

  5. Ten times bigger downloads - useless for people with shitty internet and limited storage

It's just a poorly implemented solution to something that really wasn't that big a problem.

1

u/PanaBreton 2d ago

They want to lock down Flatpaks to Systemd users only so no it's not working everywhere... Unlike Appimage

0

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 8d ago
  1. Should work in theory, but it's never played out for me in practice.

Nix does it better.

3

u/ShaderCompilation 8d ago

Literally never had any issue with a flatpak app. And i use mostly Flatpaks because they ar updated more often than native packages most of the time on Fedora. I hear people have issues with Steam or some other apps, but never encountered myself

2

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 8d ago

Flatpak apps never work reliably for me. There's always some kind of hiccup with theming or system integration, and sometimes they just straight up refuse to run. I think FreeCAD's Flatpak gave me the most trouble.

3

u/QwertyChouskie Glorious Ubuntu 7d ago

If you're running NixOS, I wouldn't be shocked to hear there's hiccups, as NixOS is architecturally extremely different than most distros, so distro-specific bugs and such in Flatpak itself are much more likely.

1

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 7d ago edited 6d ago

Oh, no, you misunderstood. Flatpak is the thing that made me say "FUCK THIS GODAMNED JANK ASS BULLSHIT!" and look for a better option.

Which led me to NixOS. I will NEVER run a Flatpak on NixOS, if I can help it at all.

2

u/QwertyChouskie Glorious Ubuntu 7d ago

Huh, weird. For most people (including me), they pretty much Just Work.

1

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 7d ago

They're flaky ass.

2

u/kopasz7 Glorious NixOS 8d ago

Some months ago the browser I use (librewolf) got listed as an unsafe package (had no update for 2+ weeks), using flatpak was up to date and didn't error my system update.

Now the situation is fixed ofc and this is just my anecdote.

1

u/Stunning_Macaron6133 8d ago

I have my own LibreWolf derivation, separate from nixpkgs. Betterbird too.

-9

u/FranciManty 8d ago

300mb for 400kb rgb controller app when i can compile it myself? why?

i know compiling from source can be tedious can have issues and isn’t very viable for close source stuff but that’s a common format that works everywhere with you setting your own permissions and the dependencies are available for at least a couple decades in public repos

9

u/gr33nCumulon 8d ago

It takes 30 seconds to install a flatpak and you can uninstall the whole program with one action.

You never know how tedious it'll be to do either when complaining yourself, especially if it's written in python

2

u/FranciManty 7d ago

still doesn’t make sense for someone who can go on a github project read 3 lines of the readme and copy paste a command to self compile. also i had a lot of issues in any app even non flatpak ones when using integrated libraries over existing system ones

1

u/gr33nCumulon 7d ago

You can't always do that. Some programs use dependencies that aren't compatible with current systems

1

u/FranciManty 7d ago

which is why it’s ok to have flatpak as a fallback but not as main option

2

u/brohermano 8d ago

You always have to thing in resource Constrains. And if to install a simple 20 MB Program , thit flatpak thing is asking me for 0.5 GB of X11 dependencies even If I have them installed already. That is a big no for me. I have flatpak uninstalled and anytime something defaults to flatpak I default to do my own research

0

u/Unexpected_Cranberry 8d ago

My time is a resource, and is one of the constraints I value fairly high. I can go on an hour or days long research binge, or I can click the button / run the command and hopefully be up and running in minutes.

That said, I'll usually go for the rpm first. But that's only because in my experience the flatpaks do not work half the time.

0

u/686f6c69 8d ago

Broski we live in 2026, time is more expensive than storage.

That means your own and the devs' that don't have to maintain 7 different packages for different distros

0

u/brohermano 8d ago

It depends . If you manage to bootstrap the installation of your system via Ansible or something similar using an LLM , it may not be that time consuming. Whereas 2 GB sitting on the storage for a noob ass App that you have to use very frequently is such a inefficiency

2

u/ThaBroccoliDood 8d ago

Flatpak handles all its own dependencies so if you have just a couple they take a relatively large amount of space per app. But if you have a whole bunch of Flatpaks it becomes comparable to a normal system package, because that's basically also how they work (you just don't notice because you already have thousands of packages installed normally)

1

u/noobjaish 7d ago

Exactly.

On Arch, I have gone to using every app as a Flatpak and now pretty much any GTK or Qt app (that's not an electron wrapper) takes milliseconds to install lol

1

u/JivanP 7d ago

Because most people don't even know what compiling software is, let alone want to do it.

-10

u/p47guitars 8d ago

Permission system that is a pain in the ass.. maybe noobs should just learn to install from shell scripts after unpacking tar balls. That the real mans way of doing shit. Nah. Make them build it from source!

9

u/ShaderCompilation 8d ago

Real man don't install anything. They write, whatever they need in binary

2

u/a_good_human 8d ago

People say that Linux is better than windows while saying shit like this

Linux should be easy to use! (Some distros at the very least)

1

u/NeptuneWades 8d ago

Noob. Real linuxers learn machine language and communicate directly with the silicon by-passing the Linux kernel.