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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

#91

Post by rhaway84773 »

mesebrec wrote: post #15
mastazi wrote: 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.

Honest question; why do you still use Ubuntu then? By now, Snap is such a fundamental part of Ubuntu that it begs the question whether Ubuntu is right for you if you want to avoid it. Why not use a derivative or upstream that makes different choices?

I use Ubuntu and it’s worked fine for years. I have no reason to switch, but I couldn’t really tolerate Snaps anymore.

Unless I have another reason to reinstall Linux, it’s far easier to uninstall Firefox and the other handful of Snap apps and just use Flathub/flatpak exclusively. I just need to be careful I don’t pick the default store app when searching for software.

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

#92

Post by Gigachad »

c-hendricks wrote: post #26
Gigachad wrote: 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.

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.

Traditional package managers like dnf and apt are probably not even the best way to update the kernel and OS these days. Immutable images like what’s used in Fedora Silverblue (as well as android and iOS) are much more reliable and probably the way distros will move

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

#93

Post by sirsinsalot »

jchw wrote: post #47
jdoss wrote: post #34

I used to think Flatpaks were a huge pain the butt, but over the last few years, I moved to using them for all third party software that I run on my Fedora Linux workstation. Zoom, Slack, Spotify, Steam, Discord, Obsidian all run without issues and they get consistent updates. I am convinced now that they are one of the best ways to ship commercial software on to Linux desktop. Flatpak has been a key part of me becom…

One big tricky thing is plugins, such as for OBS. ABI incompatibility and sandboxing can make it tricky and confusing for end users. Flatpak itself could theoretically provide answers here.

I feel like you'd end up going full circle back to apt and npm and ...

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

#95

Post by Gigachad »

Entinel wrote: post #74
jdoss wrote: post #34

I used to think Flatpaks were a huge pain the butt, but over the last few years, I moved to using them for all third party software that I run on my Fedora Linux workstation. Zoom, Slack, Spotify, Steam, Discord, Obsidian all run without issues and they get consistent updates. I am convinced now that they are one of the best ways to ship commercial software on to Linux desktop. Flatpak has been a key part of me becom…

I use Fedora and this is how I use Flatpak as well. Some software does have some problems when used through Flatpak. I vaguely recall Blender's Flatpak version having some issues. I would also like to see more transparency with who is publishing the Flatpak on Flathub. Maybe I'm just dumb but it is not immediately obvious to me who the publisher is and whether or not this is an officially supported Flatpak applicatio…

A whole lot of the flatpaks currently are packaged by 3rd parties and they have all kinds of quirks especially around filesystem access. When the projects officially package a flatpak it's generally all working.

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

#96

Post by zozbot234 »

Liquix wrote: post #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, talent…

There's nothing wrong with Mate, Cinnamon or even LXDE. Especially since desktop environments these days are mostly different frontends built on a fairly unified infrastructure, largely provided by freedesktop.org. We still see divergence between Qt-based and GTK+ based desktops, and other minor differences exist, but the "one definitive" user environment is basically here.

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

#98

Post by ohazi »

XorNot wrote: post #51
cld8483 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is an African word which means "Afraid of Debian" Seriously though, just install Debian. It's not hard, the netinstaller may be text-mode but it walks you through the simple steps one by one just like Ubuntu's GUI installer. Anybody who's comfortable using Ubuntu in the first place should be able to get through the Debian installer just fine.

Ubuntu packages get updated on a much faster cadence then Debian in my experience.

Ubuntu is cut from Debian testing, not Debian stable. If you want to move upstream, you should be looking at testing, not stable.

In my experience, the stability concerns are overblown, and it makes for a really nice rolling release system. I've had individual systems run for over a decade on a Debian testing install with rolling updates, and it's generally been far less of a headache than Ubuntu releases.

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

#99

Post by mastazi »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #91
mesebrec wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question; why do you still use Ubuntu then? By now, Snap is such a fundamental part of Ubuntu that it begs the question whether Ubuntu is right for you if you want to avoid it. Why not use a derivative or upstream that makes different choices?

I use Ubuntu and it’s worked fine for years. I have no reason to switch, but I couldn’t really tolerate Snaps anymore. Unless I have another reason to reinstall Linux, it’s far easier to uninstall Firefox and the other handful of Snap apps and just use Flathub/flatpak exclusively. I just need to be careful I don’t pick the default store app when searching for software.

> I just need to be careful I don’t pick the default store app when searching for software.

In my experience Ubuntu's default store app can be safely uninstalled once you have Flatpack's store app. In fact I recommend doing that as their functionality overlaps quite a bit (e.g. you will get duplicated update notifications if you have both stores installed).

(The above assumes that you got rid of Snap. Otherwise you may still need the default one)

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

#100

Post by bandrami »

yamtaddle wrote: post #56
jdoss wrote: post #34

I used to think Flatpaks were a huge pain the butt, but over the last few years, I moved to using them for all third party software that I run on my Fedora Linux workstation. Zoom, Slack, Spotify, Steam, Discord, Obsidian all run without issues and they get consistent updates. I am convinced now that they are one of the best ways to ship commercial software on to Linux desktop. Flatpak has been a key part of me becom…

Last I tried all three of the semi-popular formats like this, AppImage was the only one that didn't feel fundamentally wrong (though what I gather was the closest thing to an official repository for them looked sketchy as hell—somehow they copied the exact CSS vibe as a content-scraped StackOverflow spam site). But that was a couple years ago. I know Snaps still suck, but haven't messed with Flatpacks since then, so…

How many different versions of OpenSSL are running on my laptop right now? Who can say? That's the beauty of flatpak: if you sweep the problems of software management under a big enough rug, they go away and never bother you again.
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