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The flatpak hate gang strikes again. Seriously, more bugs than Wine? For the first time we have a cross-distro packaging system, and I still hear people complai

The flatpak hate gang strikes again. Seriously, more bugs than Wine? For the first time we have a cross-distro packaging system, and I still hear people complaining that the olden days were better. Are you kidding me? Honestly, I don't even care to entertain this discussion, as for the FIRST TIME in Linux history there is people packaging an application and it works exactly the same everywhere, and some can only meet this achievement by unpaid volunteers with _snark_ because it's not "perfect". It's tiring to see any effort to make the Linux desktop a reality met with unconstructive opposition from daily Linux desktop users. /rant

grozzle 5y ago
no-one here said the olden days were better. it is possible for something to be generally in the right direction, but still in great need of improvements. dismissing anything not as positive as you'd like as unconstructive is itself unconstructive.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Ah, because saying that flatpak has more issues than Wine _is_ constructive. It is not even close to being true. Yes, I flew off the handle a bit there, but I'm quite done with the useless snark from some commenters, especially since it's pretty common on this forum regarding certain technologies, and in my eyes, completely unwarranted. Nowhere in my comment I said Flatpak is perfect and doesn't need more work to be really good, and I certainly didn't resort to hyperbole to discredit the work of other people, that's for sure. I should probably take a walk and not angrily comment on the Internet, I agree...
  - rimiform 5y ago
    I think you're looking for this behaviour? Try using * instead of _ and that's what you'll get. Use two for bold, if you want.
    - 1_player 5y ago
      Thanks, I didn't know that. But using underscores as emphasis is very common on plain text communications (Linus Torvalds uses them often)
michaelmrose 5y ago
Flatpak is only exciting Redhat who wants to easily provide up to date software on a very old stable base and to be the Google of linux software distribution and to prospective developers who don't at present already have a method of getting debs and rpms to end users easily. This is a small group. For end users its meant slower startup, apps that ignore user themes, concern that a rogue developer will poison the well with outright malware, concern that a legit developer will get hacked and instantly disseminate malware to all users with their flatpak installed, flatpak only bugs, permissions issues, and additional complexity in managing software. For developers who already have their software widely available via traditional packaging its something else they have to do in addition to traditional packaging not an alternative because its not universal. In fact last year only a single digit percentage said they used it. If your prospective users aren't excited about your product perhaps one needs to reconsider if its the users fault for not being excited.
- MayeulC 5y ago
  I am excited about flatpak for multiple reasons, which boils down to sandboxing: 1. Proprietary software: most proprietary software authors do not play well with packagers. Moreover, I want any proprietary software properly sandboxed 2. Software that you need sandboxed for various reasons: I've been running flatpak nightlies of stuff I otherwise have installed on my system 3. Installing a program without installing a whole bunch of dependencies, hard to clean up after 4. Cleaning up my home directory Sandboxing (I know most flathub packages have leaky sandboxes, but that's a start) limits the effect of compromising one flatpak. To be clear: I treat any piece of proprietary software as a possible RCE by the author. User themes issues are probably fixable. Slower startup as well, to an extent. Unfortunately, developers are pretty bad at packaging generally, and don't have distro maintainers watching over their CVEs and upgrading dependencies with the flatpak model... Although users could still dig in and fix these by themselves, and sandboxing still gives a few protections.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    The protection offered by sandboxing is like using a garbage bag as a bulletproof vest.
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grozzle 5y ago

no-one here said the olden days were better. it is possible for something to be generally in the right direction, but still in great need of improvements. dismissing anything not as positive as you'd like as unconstructive is itself unconstructive.

1_player 5y ago
Ah, because saying that flatpak has more issues than Wine _is_ constructive. It is not even close to being true. Yes, I flew off the handle a bit there, but I'm quite done with the useless snark from some commenters, especially since it's pretty common on this forum regarding certain technologies, and in my eyes, completely unwarranted. Nowhere in my comment I said Flatpak is perfect and doesn't need more work to be really good, and I certainly didn't resort to hyperbole to discredit the work of other people, that's for sure. I should probably take a walk and not angrily comment on the Internet, I agree...
- rimiform 5y ago
  I think you're looking for this behaviour? Try using * instead of _ and that's what you'll get. Use two for bold, if you want.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know that. But using underscores as emphasis is very common on plain text communications (Linus Torvalds uses them often)

michaelmrose 5y ago

Flatpak is only exciting Redhat who wants to easily provide up to date software on a very old stable base and to be the Google of linux software distribution and to prospective developers who don't at present already have a method of getting debs and rpms to end users easily. This is a small group. For end users its meant slower startup, apps that ignore user themes, concern that a rogue developer will poison the well with outright malware, concern that a legit developer will get hacked and instantly disseminate malware to all users with their flatpak installed, flatpak only bugs, permissions issues, and additional complexity in managing software. For developers who already have their software widely available via traditional packaging its something else they have to do in addition to traditional packaging not an alternative because its not universal. In fact last year only a single digit percentage said they used it. If your prospective users aren't excited about your product perhaps one needs to reconsider if its the users fault for not being excited.

MayeulC 5y ago
I am excited about flatpak for multiple reasons, which boils down to sandboxing: 1. Proprietary software: most proprietary software authors do not play well with packagers. Moreover, I want any proprietary software properly sandboxed 2. Software that you need sandboxed for various reasons: I've been running flatpak nightlies of stuff I otherwise have installed on my system 3. Installing a program without installing a whole bunch of dependencies, hard to clean up after 4. Cleaning up my home directory Sandboxing (I know most flathub packages have leaky sandboxes, but that's a start) limits the effect of compromising one flatpak. To be clear: I treat any piece of proprietary software as a possible RCE by the author. User themes issues are probably fixable. Slower startup as well, to an extent. Unfortunately, developers are pretty bad at packaging generally, and don't have distro maintainers watching over their CVEs and upgrading dependencies with the flatpak model... Although users could still dig in and fix these by themselves, and sandboxing still gives a few protections.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  The protection offered by sandboxing is like using a garbage bag as a bulletproof vest.

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