Flatpak 0.8 Released, The Start Of An LTS Stable Branch

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Flatpak 0.8 Released, The Start Of An LTS Stable Branch

Flatpak, formerly XDG-App, is starting to mature and is looking good for 2017. As a sign of the times, lead Flatpak developer Alexander Larsson at Red Hat announced version 0.8 this week and it will be a long-term supported stable branch...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Flatpak-0.8-Released

[Anvil]

Still wonder if this will be a flop . Redhat do create flops

[mike4]

I prefer Ubuntu over Fedora, because the workflow is in my opinion smoother. Hence I probably will use more:

https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy

but hey maybe those new packagers manage to cooperate?

[Tomin]

Still wonder if this will be a flop . Redhat do create flops

I think you are confusing them with Canonical. (joking)

Seriously though, I don't think Red Hat has done much bad software. I know that systemd is criticised, but please let's not go into that fight again.

I hope Flatpak will be successful, since it is something that Linux will need on desktop to be successful alternative for Windows and macOS. Yes, sure it's not the only thing that has been missing, but it'll be a step forward anyway.

[Nille]

I think you are confusing them with Canonical. (joking)

[skierpage]

It's working well for me, I'm running development GIMP and latest LibreOffice as Flatpak on Fedora 25. I think it will really take off when its isolation prevents some Linux exploit that causes havoc... RedHat should commission one :-)

[tmpdir]

Although (still) an ubuntu user (debian wasn't it for me), I don't care which integration system will be it, but I so hoped red hat and canonical joined efforst on this.... :S

I'm just that naief.

[bregma]

I prefer Ubuntu over Fedora, because the workflow is in my opinion smoother. Hence I probably will use more:

https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy

but hey maybe those new packagers manage to cooperate?

Flatpack works fine on Ubuntu (he even mentions the PPA where you can grab 0.8 in the blog) just as Snapcraft works well on Fedora. You can even have them both on the same machine. The two projects solve slightly different problems in different ways, and the choice between them is mostly based what problems you're trying to solve. Of course, anything can be an excuse for the frenetik fanbois to publicly expose their fully-engorged hate-ons for some organization or other, so watch this space.

[Danniello]

Installation howto looks complicated and I’m a little confused… For example:

LibreOffice howto from http://flatpak.org/apps.html
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/gnome.flatpakrepo
wget http://download.documentfoundation.o...Office.flatpak
flatpak install --bundle LibreOffice.flatpak

LibreOffice howto from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/flatpak/ looks different:
wget https://sdk.gnome.org/keys/gnome-sdk.gpg
flatpak remote-add --user --gpg-import=gnome-sdk.gpg gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/repo/
flatpak install --user gnome org.gnome.Platform 3.20
flatpak install --user gnome org.gnome.Platform.Locale 3.20
flatpak install --user --bundle LibreOffice.flatpak
flatpak run org.libreoffice.LibreOffice

These commands looks for me too much complicated for "average user" that wants just install application. Even for me (almost "PowerUser" - How should I now that before install LibreOffice.flatpak I need add "gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/gnome.flatpakrepo" and then install "gnome org.gnome.Platform 3.20"? Why 3.20? It will work if I choose for example 3.22?

If flatpak apps installation requires reading howtos - it is not good approach...
I hope that in the future it will work much simpler - for example like now it is with rpm packages (in theory - click in browser and accept installation (with assumption that chosen rpm is prepared for my distribution and dependences are OK

[marciosr]

Flatpak is working very well on Arch Linux. I use it for a lot of nightly OSS apps, that stay updated very fast and using much less internet band. I use it for programs like Spotify and Telegram that i don't want them mixed with the base system.
Now is lacking a nice GUI to help averages users to manage their repos and apps in a more friendly and powerful manner.