Flatpak's New Repo Format For Greater Flathub Scalability, More Architectures To Come

[Volta]

I mostly use Ubuntu, but at work I use Windows 10.
I like both Ubuntu and Windows 10, I know there are lots of fundamentalists here hates Windows and insists that it is bad, but I like Windows 10 and think it is an great operating system. I also like Linux.

We can't have opinions, because we're fundamentalists now? It's a great spying tool, that's for sure. Enforcement 'updates' etc. Simply amazing.. /s

When comes to flatpaks vs snaps I tried installing Eclipse in Ubuntu. Packet manager displayed some error and there were no way to install it this way. The error meant it's insecure or something and I had to install it from console. It installed, but didn't work. This is my experience with snaps.

[anarki2]

Conceptually, Flatpak still is just as awful as any other glorified alternative package manager.

https://twitter.com/noobient/status/1322880845200371713

It's just a different kind of dependency hell.

[oiaohm]

Yeah, which is great if all your apps are Flatpak apps, but if you got no Flatpak apps on your system then just want one app on Flatpak, then its not so fun when it needs to get runtime for just that one app.

Also I think there runtime for Python, Rust, etc. But I don't know about that. So its many different runtimes.

You really do need to look under the hood of windows into the SXS system.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/clean-up-the-winsxs-folder

The reality is you have hundreds of different runtime installed under Windows 10 and you don't notice them. Flathub really does not have that many run-times.

Next is how flatpak behaves with related runtime due to being ostree based. Ostree is auto deduplicating this means you don't download any part again that is in the ostree. So lets say two runtimes contain the same library(when I say the same I mean exactly binary the same) when you install the first runtime that library is downloaded when you install the second runtime the first downloaded version is used. This does cause flatpak disk usage not to be linear growth but logistic growth to number of applications and runtimes installed.

Clue to flatpak difference is it tell you X will require Y amount of stuff then does not download Y amount of stuff once you have a few applications installed because of deduplication.

Oh, that is great! This is something that has bothered me for some time now, and I actually thought they intentionally designed it that way to push proprietary software in our faces.

This is because you don't know history.

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/wiki/Flatpak's-History

The lead developer of flatpak has a long history working on this to get to this point. He started all the way back in 2007. It starts with users wanting new gnome applications and not being able to install them due to distribution differences.

[oiaohm]

Conceptually, Flatpak still is just as awful as any other glorified alternative package manager.

https://twitter.com/noobient/status/1322880845200371713

It's just a different kind of dependency hell.

No this is miss usage of the term dependency hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_hell

Dependency Hell is when you install one application it changes a dependancy and another applications breaks. Yes when you fix the application that broken you just broke the one you installed. This is a rock and hard place problem. Flatpak does in fact solve dependency hell.

Dependency Bloat is a problem flatpak kind of has but this is mitigated to some extend by ostree de-duplication.

Having a slightly confusing interface to understand what the heck os going on flatpak absolute has that. <size stuff is the value is the worst possible case the download is most likely going to be less due to ostree de-duplication.

[ID Branch Op Remote Download
1. [✓] org.kde.Platform.Locale 5.15 u flathub 17.5 kB / 341.3 MB
2. [✓] org.kde.Platform 5.15 u flathub 5.5 MB / 384.2 MB

This is one of my recent updates. Yes before the download it was saying I would need < 341.3 MB and < 384.2 MB then it goes and downloads less than 6 megs.

Its really easy to screen shot flatpak and get a total miss understanding of what is going on resulting in person thinking its using way more disk space than it really does. Its also really simple to miss measure the flatpak install directories due to ostree using hardlinks. I am not saying flatpak repositories are always small like mine here is really 29G but there are quite a few large footprint applications in it like libreoffice help file is 1.5G so mine is more application than runtime it does curve over as more applications get installed.

You do need to run "flatpak uninstall --unused" every so often that on in the tweet most likely has not due to having duplicate Nvidia drivers installed. So yes just like Windows SXS flatpak needs a little maintenance now and again to remove old parts to save you some downloads. Normally its not a large saving on downloads due to the deduplication feature.

[andre30correia]

We can't have opinions, because we're fundamentalists now? It's a great spying tool, that's for sure. Enforcement 'updates' etc. Simply amazing.. /s

When comes to flatpaks vs snaps I tried installing Eclipse in Ubuntu. Packet manager displayed some error and there were no way to install it this way. The error meant it's insecure or something and I had to install it from console. It installed, but didn't work. This is my experience with snaps.

maybe your pc have problems I have the sanp eclipse working in mine.

[uid313]

We can't have opinions, because we're fundamentalists now? It's a great spying tool, that's for sure. Enforcement 'updates' etc. Simply amazing.. /s

Sure, but many people in the Linux community are zealots they will hate relentlessly on Windows and accuse all people who use Windows to be heretics.

Windows is a great operating system. Sure, updates are forced, not everyone likes that, and yeah it does have built-in telemetry, and some people do not like that, but it doesn't make it a spying tool.
Even if Windows does have some undesirable behavior that I can understand people do dislike, overall it is a very good operating system, it works great, performs well, is very stable, has lots of features, good usability, etc.

I wish GNOME was as stable as Windows, and that Linux had the Win+G gaming tools.

Next is how flatpak behaves with related runtime due to being ostree based. Ostree is auto deduplicating this means you don't download any part again that is in the ostree. So lets say two runtimes contain the same library(when I say the same I mean exactly binary the same) when you install the first runtime that library is downloaded when you install the second runtime the first downloaded version is used. This does cause flatpak disk usage not to be linear growth but logistic growth to number of applications and runtimes installed.

Thanks for the explanation. This is pretty cool.

[Mez']

Unless you mix and max Flatpaks from a ton of different repos all relying on their own runtimes and whatnot.

Which is very likely to happen on the long run. Different repos, less often updated apps relying on older libraries, ... Within a year or two (which is only a part of the lifetime of your current OS install), I bet it'll be duplicated all over.

I mostly use Ubuntu, but at work I use Windows 10.
I like both Ubuntu and Windows 10, I know there are lots of fundamentalists here hates Windows and insists that it is bad, but I like Windows 10 and think it is an great operating system. I also like Linux.

No choice either but to use W10 for work.
Both laptops are next to each other during corona homeworking. I'm always ending up browsing for work or doing personal stuff on the Linux laptop (and not for privacy or tracking reasons). I don't hate Windows, I just feel less comfortable and less efficient with it.

[uid313]

Both laptops are next to each other during corona homeworking. I'm always ending up browsing for work or doing personal stuff on the Linux laptop (and not for privacy or tracking reasons). I don't hate Windows, I just feel less comfortable and less efficient with it.

I can't really say I prefer either one over the other. There some things in Windows 10 that I like more, and there are some things on Linux that I like more. Overall, they're pretty much both the same to me, and most of the time I spent in the web browser anyway, so its the same. I like both, but don't strongly favor either.

[RahulSundaram]

Which is very likely to happen on the long run. Different repos, less often updated apps relying on older libraries, ... Within a year or two (which is only a part of the lifetime of your current OS install), I bet it'll be duplicated all over.

No because there is a file level deduplication built-in for ostree which is what Flatpak uses.

[Mez']

No because there is a file level deduplication built-in for ostree which is what Flatpak uses.

Only when libraries have the same versions. Which is unlikely over time.