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KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

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Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#22
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>relevant xkcd comic on standards inserted here

I agree that it is "yet another standard", but I gotta say that Flatpak is pretty sweet, and does actually do a good job of making "one package manager to rule them all". I think part of the problem with a lot of "selling stuff on Linux" has been mucking around with different dependencies for the thousand different versions of Linux. Historically, this has led to a couple solutions: either a) Just officially support…

> and I think it actually has a shot of being an equivalent to the Mac App Store.

This I agree with, but not this:

> and does actually do a good job of making "one package manager to rule them all".

That's not its goal. There are no terminal apps in it, so everyone that wants to run custom packages from a terminal is still going to need something like apt/dnf/homebrew.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#23
post #14

Why the hell do you need store when you have pacman/AUR

The OP answers that question pretty throughly. Because pacman is niche and distro-specific and largely distro-controlled, and has no ability to incentivize developers who need to get paid for their work. This leads to Linux desktop having far fewer applications available to them compared to windows and mac.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#24
post #14

Why the hell do you need store when you have pacman/AUR

How do I sell my software on pacman?

I’m not sure people will ever want to sell apps on a 3rd party store. Especially a Linux one. The entire industry has moved away from buying things directly on a single marketplace and moved to tying a payment or subscription to an account which works across OSs and store platforms.

I’d be happy to pay for Linux software but there is no way I’d want to be tied to a particular distro/repo/storefront.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#25
I had to use flatpack to install Bottles, I'm on Porteus because it's the only distrib I found that would fit on a 15 year old 512MB USB stick and then in the RAM directly... Let just say it wasn't a seamless experience but I'm glad I managed to run Cinema4D R20 or MPC Software with Bottles without too many bugs. Anyway Bottles is just fantastic, I tried Wine before but it never worked properly, but having to install a package manager (flatpack) on top of another one (slackpkg) just felt absurd...

What about appimage instead, like Krita? To me it's sounds like the best way to distribute a linux app in 202X...

Managing to make things run on Linux gives a sense of accomplissement, at the same time, I can understand why most people won't move to Linux anytime soon given all the complexity involved... or it's just me and there was an easier way to install flatpack at first place?

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#26
post #5
post #4

$100,000 to build up a system that totally ignores the system package manager? Sounds great!

Good. The “system package manager” is good for updating the OS, it’s not good for packaging desktop applications, especially proprietary ones. If you use the gnome Software app, it merges flatpak, dnf, and the firmware updater in one “updates” page with a single button to update it all.

I don't even know what I get out of the system package manager these days. Apps are mostly flatpak / appimages, dev tools I'm using Homebrew.

I guess it's mostly the kernel and my DE these days.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#27
Opinions on Flatpaks/snaps notwithstanding, it's encouraging to see KDE and GNOME collaborating on projects like this. IMO desktop GNU/Linux has benefited greatly from moving away from offering LXDE/LXQT/Mate/Enlightenment/Cinammon flavors and towards a more digestible subset (GNOME only, GNOME/KDE/XFCE, etc) of polished desktop environments. Pipe dream, but it would be incredible to see all of the passionate, talented folks working together on one definitive GNU/Linux DE.

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#28
post #9

I'm an Ubuntu user and the first thing I always do in a new system is removing the Ubuntu Store, completely removing snapd, and installing the Flathub Store.

I get where you are coming from, but my first attempt at setting up nextcloud was with a snap and it made the experience a lot less challenging to a newbie ( though these days, I would likely not do it that way ). What is the benefit of flathub over ubuntu store?

The fact that Flatpak supports multiple repositories whereas Snap only works with Canonical's store. This is because the open-source Snap utility on your Ubuntu install doesn't support adding other repositories; and the server it talks to is closed-source and undocumented. (Oh, and don't get brilliant ideas with DNS redirection in your head, there's digital signing, which means the only way to get Snap to accept other Stores is with a full recompile.)

As for Flathub itself, it's like the Snap Store... but you aren't locked in, and the backend is open-source, and it's not directly owned by a distribution maker (even though it is definitely closer-in-kindred with the Fedora Project), which makes it far more palatable to people with even a modicum of understanding of the Linux and FOSS philosophy.

I harassed them nearly 6 years ago about this. https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/external-repositories/1760

Re: KDE and GNOME seeks $100k to turn Flathub into a Store for the Linux desktop

#30
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The “system package manager” is good for updating the OS, it’s not good for packaging desktop applications, especially proprietary ones. If you use the gnome Software app, it merges flatpak, dnf, and the firmware updater in one “updates” page with a single button to update it all.

That very incoherence is probably why it rarely works.

I completely know what you are talking about, I’m used to the Software app virtually never working, although I came back a few months ago and it all seemed to be working perfectly fine. So perhaps there have been some major improvements in this space. At any rate, the problem is not unsolvable, it was mostly just bad UX where underlying errors were not surfaced and the app would get stuck in an endless loading spinner.
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