5 ms·

That's not what bothers me. My problem with Flatpak is how huge are the downloads, especially when on a metered connection. Last month I installed Kdenlive, a

That's not what bothers me. My problem with Flatpak is how huge are the downloads, especially when on a metered connection. Last month I installed Kdenlive, and the size of the downloaded files was around 3 gb, to which the app itself contributed around 40 mb. (I use Ubuntu.) A week later, I wanted to install another app (I forgot which one), but again, it was 3 gb download for 30ish mb app. And then this week I ran `Flatpak update`, and it needed yet another 3 gb to download just because there was a new Kdenlive version (again, around 40 mb)! How on earth does it make sense to have to download 10 gb worth of data just for apps that only total 100 mb?

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
The goal of these things is not to write software that works but to write software that works4me. Flatpack, snap, docker they all exist to ship your computer to someone else.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
  I use Snap frequently, and yes, apps that would only take 10 mb as a .deb can balloon to 200 mb. But I can live with that; it's a reasonable price to pay for separating apps update cycles from that of the OS. I also use Docker. But even then, my Django app — complete with pytorch, numpy and several other "heavy" deps on top of python itself — is a little more than 400 mb. Flatpak is on another level by itself!
marcodiego 3y ago
Interesting bottleneck. Considering that flatpaks are basically small filesystems themselves, there's probably some redundancy to remove. I wonder if a simple de-duplication strategy at file level may be enough to fix that.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
  I genuinely can't understand how a 40 mb app can turn into a 3 gb monstrosity. I won't be able to do so even if I wanted to!
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    Easy: Like most other containers, it starts by bundling an entire general purpose distro. Though I grant it is surprising that the sizes are quite that bad; perhaps there were suboptimal choices made in an attempt to make the layers more reusable but it didn't work out?
- brennoflavio 3y ago
  In Flatpak you define the dependencies as runtimes, and they are shared between apps. So for example when you install Kdenlive it will download the entire kde framework that is huge but when you install the next kde app it won't download it again
unnervingduck 3y ago
Agree, I feel like there must be a better way to achieve what Flatpak does. I love it because it's the only major app platform on Linux that offers some form of sandboxing, but the download sizes get ridiculously large.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
  > it's the only major app platform on Linux that offers some form of sandboxing What about Snap? I use it all the time on my Ubuntu machines and works perfectly fine. Even files sizes are waay more sane than Flatpack's.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  There's always x11docker, which AFAICT is actually quite good about sandboxing/isolating the app from the system.
juujian 3y ago
And then by default everything is downloaded to /root rather then into user space, clogging up the partition. Not ideal for a partition that you would not expect to hold 20+GB worth of programs.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
  I was genuinely shocked the first time I tried to use Flatpak and thought something was wrong.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

The goal of these things is not to write software that works but to write software that works4me. Flatpack, snap, docker they all exist to ship your computer to someone else.

ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
I use Snap frequently, and yes, apps that would only take 10 mb as a .deb can balloon to 200 mb. But I can live with that; it's a reasonable price to pay for separating apps update cycles from that of the OS. I also use Docker. But even then, my Django app — complete with pytorch, numpy and several other "heavy" deps on top of python itself — is a little more than 400 mb. Flatpak is on another level by itself!

marcodiego 3y ago

Interesting bottleneck. Considering that flatpaks are basically small filesystems themselves, there's probably some redundancy to remove. I wonder if a simple de-duplication strategy at file level may be enough to fix that.

ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
I genuinely can't understand how a 40 mb app can turn into a 3 gb monstrosity. I won't be able to do so even if I wanted to!
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Easy: Like most other containers, it starts by bundling an entire general purpose distro. Though I grant it is surprising that the sizes are quite that bad; perhaps there were suboptimal choices made in an attempt to make the layers more reusable but it didn't work out?
brennoflavio 3y ago
In Flatpak you define the dependencies as runtimes, and they are shared between apps. So for example when you install Kdenlive it will download the entire kde framework that is huge but when you install the next kde app it won't download it again

unnervingduck 3y ago

Agree, I feel like there must be a better way to achieve what Flatpak does. I love it because it's the only major app platform on Linux that offers some form of sandboxing, but the download sizes get ridiculously large.

ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
> it's the only major app platform on Linux that offers some form of sandboxing What about Snap? I use it all the time on my Ubuntu machines and works perfectly fine. Even files sizes are waay more sane than Flatpack's.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
There's always x11docker, which AFAICT is actually quite good about sandboxing/isolating the app from the system.

juujian 3y ago

And then by default everything is downloaded to /root rather then into user space, clogging up the partition. Not ideal for a partition that you would not expect to hold 20+GB worth of programs.

ahmedfromtunis 3y ago
I was genuinely shocked the first time I tried to use Flatpak and thought something was wrong.