Flatpak 1.8 Released For This Leading Linux App Sandboxing / Distribution Tech

[stargazer]

Indeed, this obsessant complaining over the betterment of software they don't even use. People like stargazer seems to think that just because their tiny brains can't fathom the advantages of this enormously popular package management tool, that automatically it's useless to everyone. This isn't specific to software development though, you see this shitty attitude in every comment section on the internet.

Before you complain about other people's intelligence, you might want to actually read the thread. The original poster complained about the additional space flatpacked packages took up and I was pointing out this is miniscule compared to modern system resources. In other words I was defending Flatpak, which I rather like. But if you would rather waste your time being derogatory about people's intelligence rather than actually spend a few seconds developing comprehension, well that is your choice.

[moonlite]

Yeah, 11.8 MB after you installed all the runtimes and dependencies. If you had a clean system, then installed that it would pull down the half a gigabyte of runtimes.

What is a clean system? A totally zeroed out hard drive? If not, the size of that hypothetical Hello World would have to account for all its dependencies as well.

[emblemparade]

Yeah, 11.8 MB after you installed all the runtimes and dependencies. If you had a clean system, then installed that it would pull down the half a gigabyte of runtimes.

If you install only one Flatpak, then you are right that it is wasteful. But the idea is that you would have many Flatpaks installed using the same set of runtimes. Think of a system like Fedora Silverblue where almost all your user applications are Flatpaks, and suddenly this isn't such a bad deal.

Is there still some cost to it? Of course. However the advantages are not just portability, but also isolation and security, which also leads to reliability. Silverblue lets you install install the applications you need without changing the locked-down operating system. This means a lot less chance for things to go wrong. Indeed, you don't even need root access. And you get phone-like security per app, where you can decide that an app from a less trusted source won't get risky privileges.

In the end Flatpak can lead to a better user experience: safe and easy access to the latest versions of apps.

[Jabberwocky]

You write a Hello World program and it is 45 bytes, then you package it with Snap or Flatpak and then it is half a gigabyte.

I'd be surprised if tinygo's helloworld flatpak image is greater than 10mb. Have you tried packaging a small statically compiled binary?

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

It's time to light the phoronix sky signal, what will be a fair dance off in flatpak vs old static binary ?
Minetest has flat/snap/ deb.

[andyprough]

appimages actually work. Flatpak normally gives me an app with broken functions.

[RealNC]

I like AppImage. I tried flatpaking a Qt application of mine that also uses libvlc and indeed it ends up huge. I then did an AppImage instead, which includes Qt, its plugins, libVLC, its deps and plugins, ffmpeg, SDL, flac, vorbis, X11 deps, etc, etc, etc.

End result: 35MB

Meanwhile in flatpak land, I have only two apps installed in it (Discord and RetroArch.) This is the result:

$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/
6.7G /var/lib/flatpak/

[andyprough]

I like AppImage. I tried flatpaking a Qt application of mine that also uses libvlc and indeed it ends up huge. I then did an AppImage instead, which includes Qt, its plugins, libVLC, its deps and plugins, ffmpeg, SDL, flac, vorbis, X11 deps, etc, etc, etc.

End result: 35MB

Meanwhile in flatpak land, I have only two apps installed in it (Discord and RetroArch.) This is the result:

$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/
6.7G /var/lib/flatpak/

Yes, I tried installing a flatpak of some new video conferencing Zoom-alternative today called "qTox" and flathub wanted to install about 900mb of runtimes for about a 30mb app. The appimage is 87mb and completely self-contained.

[Sesivany]

The appimage is 87mb and completely self-contained.

Are you sure about it? Self-contained to the very last dependency? Because AppImages I have seen relied on arbitrary libraries on the host. That works well... until it doesn't.

[Vistaus]

appimages actually work. Flatpak normally gives me an app with broken functions.

Funny. I have the exact opposite experience.