4 ms·

While I kind of get the problem flathub is trying to solve. I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package (in your distributions pa

While I kind of get the problem flathub is trying to solve. I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package (in your distributions package manager) for the software you want. I personally use debian (now in qubes os). And for all the software I want there is either a package in the debian repositories, or there is a ppa, or a single sad package on the devs site.

bkor 6y ago
> I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package Often enough if you don't use Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora. Similarly, the package might be out of date. That eventually more of the software can be sandboxed is nice as well.
jraph 6y ago
Debian kind of spoils you in this regard though. Go out of Debian and Ubuntu, and you are probably going to miss some package at some point. On Debian, Flatpak can still be useful to get the latest version of some apps too. I'm not a big fan however. At work, I'm using the Kate Flatpak package on Debian Buster (to have syntax highlighting for the programming language I use), but the open and save dialogs are a bit buggy and you cannot open another file in a new tab from the terminal or the file manager (it will open a new window). Integration is not great, I often just use the native Kate and do without the syntax highlight.
maeln 6y ago
> I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package (in your distributions package manager) for the software you want. Very often. Or I just want a updated version. There is a lot of small/obscure open-source tool available on github (for example) to do X or Y. Most of them don't have a package, and if they have, it is often not really maintained and very outdated. The same apply if you need to use closed-source / not entirely open-source software. I remember all the time I had to figure out what kind of build system the app was using, running cmake/make/some weird build sys, only to figure out that I was missing some lib, and that the repo version was not compatible so I had to also deal with dependency manually, and then figure out the different build option, ...
dylan-m 6y ago
As a developer who wants to build an app from source: all the bloody time. Especially problematic if I'm using a distro with an immutable root file system, like Fedora Silverblue, but let's be honest, sorting through peoples' bizarre build requirements and consolidating that with the distro you're running can be a full time job. Flatpak means your app has a manifest file that describes all of its dependencies precisely. This integrates really well with GNOME Builder[1]. If you're interested: install and run Builder, clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus, make a change if you'd like, (make sure Builder is using the `org.gnome.Nautilus.json` build configuration), wait for it to fetch dependencies, and run the thing. There's a bit of tedium in fetching bits you might already have[2], but the tedium is reproducible. And as a developer who wants to release software myself instead of dealing with distros, this is also a vastly better experience. It fits smoothly into a development workflow, and I can just release my thing and have binaries for people to install right away, in a place I control. Distros can still package the thing if they want to for some reason (and Flatpak does a good job encouraging you to use a real build system), but as the developer of the app I get to provide a one click install that actually works (and gets updates, and doesn't pollute your sources.list or give me root access to your system via postinstall scripts). [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder [2] Flatpak deduplicates things quite well, but it doesn't care if you already have a particular library on the host, and it treats version 1.0.4 of something as completely, entirely different from version 1.0.3, so if you look really closely you'll notice both are on your disk somewhere. But this is the price we pay for reproducible builds, and they're definitely worth it. (See also, Buildstream: https://www.buildstream.build/ https://www.buildstream.build/).
didibus 6y ago
It happens oftentimes that you want a newer version and your distro doesn't have it yet. Also, you have to think from the distributor as well, if you want to make an app for linux, how do you go about having it packaged and distributed for all distros? You need to manage so many different package manager, its a lot of overhead.

bkor 6y ago

> I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package Often enough if you don't use Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora. Similarly, the package might be out of date. That eventually more of the software can be sandboxed is nice as well.

jraph 6y ago

Debian kind of spoils you in this regard though. Go out of Debian and Ubuntu, and you are probably going to miss some package at some point. On Debian, Flatpak can still be useful to get the latest version of some apps too. I'm not a big fan however. At work, I'm using the Kate Flatpak package on Debian Buster (to have syntax highlighting for the programming language I use), but the open and save dialogs are a bit buggy and you cannot open another file in a new tab from the terminal or the file manager (it will open a new window). Integration is not great, I often just use the native Kate and do without the syntax highlight.

maeln 6y ago

> I have to ask how often have you guys found yourself unable find a package (in your distributions package manager) for the software you want. Very often. Or I just want a updated version. There is a lot of small/obscure open-source tool available on github (for example) to do X or Y. Most of them don't have a package, and if they have, it is often not really maintained and very outdated. The same apply if you need to use closed-source / not entirely open-source software. I remember all the time I had to figure out what kind of build system the app was using, running cmake/make/some weird build sys, only to figure out that I was missing some lib, and that the repo version was not compatible so I had to also deal with dependency manually, and then figure out the different build option, ...

dylan-m 6y ago

As a developer who wants to build an app from source: all the bloody time. Especially problematic if I'm using a distro with an immutable root file system, like Fedora Silverblue, but let's be honest, sorting through peoples' bizarre build requirements and consolidating that with the distro you're running can be a full time job. Flatpak means your app has a manifest file that describes all of its dependencies precisely. This integrates really well with GNOME Builder[1]. If you're interested: install and run Builder, clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus, make a change if you'd like, (make sure Builder is using the `org.gnome.Nautilus.json` build configuration), wait for it to fetch dependencies, and run the thing. There's a bit of tedium in fetching bits you might already have[2], but the tedium is reproducible. And as a developer who wants to release software myself instead of dealing with distros, this is also a vastly better experience. It fits smoothly into a development workflow, and I can just release my thing and have binaries for people to install right away, in a place I control. Distros can still package the thing if they want to for some reason (and Flatpak does a good job encouraging you to use a real build system), but as the developer of the app I get to provide a one click install that actually works (and gets updates, and doesn't pollute your sources.list or give me root access to your system via postinstall scripts). [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Builder [2] Flatpak deduplicates things quite well, but it doesn't care if you already have a particular library on the host, and it treats version 1.0.4 of something as completely, entirely different from version 1.0.3, so if you look really closely you'll notice both are on your disk somewhere. But this is the price we pay for reproducible builds, and they're definitely worth it. (See also, Buildstream: https://www.buildstream.build/ https://www.buildstream.build/).

didibus 6y ago

It happens oftentimes that you want a newer version and your distro doesn't have it yet. Also, you have to think from the distributor as well, if you want to make an app for linux, how do you go about having it packaged and distributed for all distros? You need to manage so many different package manager, its a lot of overhead.