Flatpak 1.3 Brings Support For Multiple NVIDIA GPUs, Sandboxed DConf

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Flatpak 1.3 Brings Support For Multiple NVIDIA GPUs, Sandboxed DConf

The Flatpak 1.3 unstable series has kicked off starting the latest round of feature work to this leading Linux sandboxing / app distribution technology...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...k-1.3-Released

[Serafean]

Why does a package manager have to explicitly support "multiple devices from $VENDOR"?
Yes, I'm just too lazy to look it up myself...

[the_scx]

Why does a package manager have to explicitly support "multiple devices from $VENDOR"?
Yes, I'm just too lazy to look it up myself...

This is because of forced isolation. You need to have access to the particular host files (/dev/nvidia*: /dev/nvidia0, /dev/nvidia1, etc.).
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/c...88d743fd07f3ff

But it is not everything! Because of forbidden hardlinking (by NVIDIA license), you have to keep flatpak runtime up to date to keep support for GPU acceleration. That means that you can forgot about 3D acceleration on unsupported runtimes, i.e Freedesktop 1.4 (2016).
Moreover, no one here cares about legacy drivers, so they are constantly broken. Not even mention other proprietary drivers.
This is one of the reasons why flatpak is not appreciated by game developers. And believe me, there is much more...

[-MacNuke-]

This is one of the reasons why flatpak is not appreciated by game developers. And believe me, there is much more...

Well it is not like Linux support is good altogether. Half of my native Linux games in my Steam library are just broken. Developers say "we only support Ubuntu 14.x"... maybe "Ubuntu 16.x"... you are using something else? ... well no support sorry.

It goes that far that Steam allowed Steam Play / WINE usage even when there is a native Linux version because of all these broken Linux versions out there.

[Candy]

Half of my native Linux games in my Steam library are just broken. Developers say "we only support Ubuntu 14.x"... maybe "Ubuntu 16.x"... you are using something else? ... well no support sorry.

I am not sure whether you are holding it wrong. But I have plenty of games from Steam, that have Ubuntu labeled somwhere, that run just perfectly on Fedora.

If the game vendors support Ubuntu only, then you should consider asking yourself about the *why*. It's not because Ubuntu is so great. It's because developers on the Red Hat side are re-inventing one packaging format after another within a short period of time. How quick was it ? PackageKit, Gnome-Store, now Flatpak-Store and so on. No wonder developers are upset because there is no real standard for anything. Rather than staying with what has been proven best, there is yet another so called *standard* created.

[RahulSundaram]

If the game vendors support Ubuntu only, then you should consider asking yourself about the *why*. It's not because Ubuntu is so great. It's because developers on the Red Hat side are re-inventing one packaging format after another within a short period of time. How quick was it ? PackageKit, Gnome-Store, now Flatpak-Store and so on

Nope. PackageKit is an API and GNOME Software is a UI. Neither are new packaging formats. Flatpak is targeted mostly at desktop apps. None of these are reasons for game developers to target a distribution. The real reason is that Ubuntu has historically focused on the desktop use cases and marketing more. That's pretty much it.

[-MacNuke-]

I am not sure whether you are holding it wrong.

No, its the game developer who fails to package the game correctly. Ignoring the Steam runtime, linking against specific packages from a specific distribution or delivering way too much libraries with the games (like libgcc, libc, openal, fontconfig ...)

This has nothing to do with "how distributions do it" that are just plain out errors. When a game runs in Ubuntu 14.x and fails on Ubuntu 16.x or 18.x it is pretty obvious. Do developers care? No. I tried enough to talk to them.

And if you are on an older LTS distribution... maybe most games are working. But trust me, they will fail in the future.

[Candy]

No, its the game developer who fails to package the game correctly.

Game developers are packaing their programs for the distribution of choice that is best known for not being a playground like e.g. Fedora - which by the way is known for heavy and drastic changes from one version to another.

[zoomblab]

Why does a package manager have to explicitly support "multiple devices from $VENDOR"?
Yes, I'm just too lazy to look it up myself...

My thoughts exactly. And I know there is no explanation that can justify it to me.

[RahulSundaram]

My thoughts exactly. And I know there is no explanation that can justify it to me.

How about reading the code?

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/c...88d743fd07f3ff

Specifically, this has nothing to do with the "package manager" and everything to do with the bubblewrap sandboxing feature. Sandboxing blacklists devices and this is essentially a minor bugfix.