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submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[-] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 173 points 5 months ago

The tone here is surprisingly negative. Personally I'm happy with the efforts of the Flathub team 🤷

[-] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 73 points 5 months ago

As a newer Linux user I really like flatpaks.

I don't use them for most things I install but proprietary apps I want sandboxed or programs that have weird issues with dependencies I grab the flatpak.

[-] ayaya 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

For me on Arch, Flatpaks are kinda useless. I can maybe see the appeal for other distros but Arch already has up-to-date versions of everything and anything that's missing from the main repos is in the AUR.

I also don't like how it's a separate package manager, they take up more space, and to run things from the CLI it's flatpak run com.website.Something instead of just something. It's super cumbersome compared to using normal packages.

[-] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 19 points 5 months ago

I also prefer to get my software from the distro's repos, but for software from third parties, flatpak adds a security layer, making it more secure when compared, for example, to aur.

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[-] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 months ago

Lemmy (and phoronix) people are generally extremely repelled by new stuff in the Linux world

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[-] priapus@sh.itjust.works 13 points 5 months ago

Agreed, flatpaks are great for desktop apps. I use Nix for the majority of my packages, but I use flatpak for proprietary for the sandboxing.

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[-] lemmynparty@lemmings.world 50 points 5 months ago

Lol, what a pointless map.
It’s impossible to tell at a glance which countries have more or less downloads, other than a couple of countries with a slightly lighter colour.

[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 months ago

Yeah, they could have applied a logarithm or something.

[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 12 points 5 months ago

And included a legend, such as a colour bar

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[-] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 45 points 5 months ago

North Korea: 316 downloads

Interesting...

In all seriousness, in both my home country and the country I live in, the number of downloads surpasses the population numbers which is kinda insane.

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 37 points 5 months ago

I think they count every download of every package, every version, every time. It's not the number of unique users or even packages.

If you install 3 apps you might need to download 3 versions of graphics driver, 3 versions of desktop environment libraries and so on, It won't count as one user installing 3 apps, it will show up as 10 -20 downloads. And that's just the initial install, every time you update them it counts another 10-20.

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It could be simple download requests, rather than MAC or IP address downloads.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago

It is per download not per person.

[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 39 points 5 months ago

Oh wow, a lot of people use it in countries with a lot of people!

[-] gigachad@sh.itjust.works 26 points 5 months ago
[-] jwt@programming.dev 7 points 5 months ago

Except that the download numbers don't correspond at all with the population numbers.

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[-] jsomae@lemmy.ml 36 points 5 months ago

I'd prefer to see downloads per country per capita.

[-] luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 35 points 5 months ago

Right? "Oh look, country with huge population has more downloads than country with small population!"

[-] biribiri11@lemmy.ml 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

To everyone saying you can’t mirror a flatpak repo… you’re absolutely right. There should be a far easier way to set up your own mirror without needing to build everything from scratch. That being said, if you wanted to try to make your own repo with every one of flathub’s apps, here you go:

https://github.com/flathub

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/hosting-a-repository.html

Edit: Some did get a flathub mirror working. The issue is that a. Fastly works good enough and b. There is no concept of “packages” on the server side. It’s just one big addressed content store because of ostree, and syncing is apparently difficult? Idk, not being able to sync the state of content is like the entire point of ostree…

https://github.com/flathub/flathub/issues/813

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[-] JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 5 months ago

Sorry to ask, I'm not really familiar with Linux desktop nowadays: I've seen Flatpak and Flathub talked about a lot lately and it seems to be kinda a controversial topic. Anyone wanna fill me in what's all the noice about? It's some kind of cross-distro "app store" thingy?

[-] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 77 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Flatpak is a universal application packaging standard for Linux. It allows devs to create a single application that gets bundled with all necessary dependencies including versioning.

These apps run in their own semi-isolated "container" which makes immutable distros possible. (Distros like Fedora Silverblue that are effectively impossible to break by installing or removing critical system files.)

This means that a Linux app doesn't have to have a .deb version, an .rpm version, or be pre-compiled for any other distros. A user can simply go to Flathub, (the main repository for Flatpak apps), download the flatpak, and install it on their distro of choice.

It's quickly becoming the most popular way for users to install apps on Linux because it's so easy and quick. But there are a few downsides like size on disk, first party verification, per-distro optimizations, and the centralization of application sources. That's why some users aren't fully endorsing or embracing how popular they are becoming.

[-] JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Cool, thanks for the explanation.

a single application that gets bundled with all necessary dependencies including versioning

Does that mean that if I were to install Application A and Application B that both have dependency to package C version 1.2.3 I then would have package C (and all of its possible sub dependencies) twice on my disk? I don't know how much external dependencies applications on Linux usually have but doesn't that have the potential to waste huge amounts of disk space?

[-] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 31 points 5 months ago

Essentially yes, if you start using lots if older applications or mixing applications that use many different dependency versions, you will start to use lots of extra disk space because the different apps have to use their own separate dependency trees and so forth.

This doesn't mean it will be like 2x-3x the size as traditional packages, but from what I've seen, it could definitely be 10-20% larger on disk. Not a huge deal for most people, but if you have limited disk space for one reason or another, it could be a problem.

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[-] sir_pronoun@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

What about those apps using out of date libraries? Wouldn't that become a security issue - since containers usually aren't that secure, right? And all app developers would have to update their container libraries separately, instead of just updating the system libraries?

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[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 months ago

Was controversial when it was new and full of problems. Now it is mostly the standard for apps.

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[-] eveninghere@beehaw.org 25 points 5 months ago

As a professor I have to say... the site admin skipped the class that taught them to include always the color bar.

[-] mlg@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago

I'm gonna be honest I've never had a flatpak version of something ever work properly.

There was even one popular media player that only came in flatpak form or otherwise build from source.

So obviously, for no reason at all, it barely functioned compared to other applications I had already tried.

Congrats to you people put there somehow running things like Steam with no problems lmao.

I have like 20 flatpak software products running without any problem for 2 years now.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 14 points 5 months ago

Your system might be messed up

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[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Does that count for when an OS is wiped and reinstalled or a nerd has like 3 computers and keeps OS flipping?

[-] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago

In that case you should use user-install flatpaks and separating and reusing your /home partition

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[-] ssm@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 5 months ago

Flatpak's usecase for me is Alpine Linux and other distributions that use musl or other libc implementations. I don't love it, I think its cli interface and the way you add flatpak servers to be obtuse and annoying, but it is useful for getting glibc dependent software.

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[-] TCB13@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

Still no proper way to mirror the thing and have it working offline / on internal networks. Great job self-hosters and sovereign citizens ;)

[-] KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Offline/internal network installs can be handled with flatpak create-usb - https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/usb-drives.html

One can distribute flatpaks along with their dependencies on USB drives (or network shares, etc.) which is especially helpful in situations where Internet access is limited or non-existent.

Cache/mirroring would be great for those who need it.

Edit:

Thinking about it, I wonder if there's enough "core features" with 'create-usb' that its just matter of scripting something together to intercept requests, auto-create-usb what's being requested and then serve the package locally? If a whole mirror is required, it may be possible to iterate over all flathub packages and 'create-usb' the entire repo to have a local cache/mirror? Just thinking "out loud".

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this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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