Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#31

Post by wongarsu » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:21 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #13

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

What you are really saying is you want all software developers to publish Debian packages (no such thing as "apt" packages) compatible with your particular Debian distribution, even though they might be using a different Debian based distribution, a completely different altogether, maybe even a different architecture, even though that compatibility isn't their primary concern.

The original model is that software developers don't package their software for distributions at all, at best they provide helper scripts that the distribution maintainers can use to do that. That's why distributions are typically either giant volunteer-run organizations like Debian or companies like RedHat or Canonical.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#32

Post by YawningAngel » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

colonwqbang wrote: post #26

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

Building apt packages isn't the issue, libraries is. Debian ships very old libraries, forcing applications to run in docker. Or bring their own copies of system libraries. Look at Arch Linux, we just write a short AUR script and the package is integrated. Once the script is written, everyone can use it. This is possible because Arch always ships recent libraries.

Conversely, `pacman -Syyuu` doesn't complete reliably without user intervention, which is far from ideal. I say this as an Arch user - the expectation that I'm going to manually attend to package upgrades in practice leads to me using outdated packages

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#33

Post by londons_explore » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #13

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

What you are really saying is you want all software developers to publish Debian packages (no such thing as "apt" packages) compatible with your particular Debian distribution, even though they might be using a different Debian based distribution, a completely different altogether, maybe even a different architecture, even though that compatibility isn't their primary concern.

There are plenty of projects to semi-automatically produce packages for a large number of distributions starting from just a git repo of the software to package.

Sure, packaging software is a bit of a thankless task, but with enough automation, packaging thousands of bits of software on every git commit should be doable by just a few volunteers.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#34

Post by creshal » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

colonwqbang wrote: post #26

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

Building apt packages isn't the issue, libraries is. Debian ships very old libraries, forcing applications to run in docker. Or bring their own copies of system libraries. Look at Arch Linux, we just write a short AUR script and the package is integrated. Once the script is written, everyone can use it. This is possible because Arch always ships recent libraries.

Ubuntu has a much more aggressive 6 months release cycle, it's not nearly as outdated as Debian sometimes can be.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#35

Post by qbasic_forever » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

They don't work fine when they're months and sometimes years behind the current versions. It's a huge maintenance burden for everyone--debian package maintainers, upstream maintainers fielding tons of confused user questions, etc.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#36

Post by YawningAngel » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

notRobot wrote: post #22

vesinisa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would've appreciated some background how this differs from the next Linux distro, and what's the relation to Ubuntu removing Flatpak?

Beautiful UI and themes, based on Ubuntu, built-in support for Windows software through PlayOnLinux and Wine, software store supports apt, snap and flatpak, you can use whichever method you like. https://help.zorin.com/docs/apps-games/install-apps/

I'm not sure which major distro doesn't have "built-in support for Windows software through PlayOnLinux and Wine"

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#37

Post by creshal » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

petepete wrote: post #9

Mir, Unity, now Snap. Ubuntu has a track record of wanting to go it alone. But, I'm all for competition, long may it continue. The only real negative here is that some apps will only release Snaps, others will only release Flatpaks and people will end up having to just revert to copr/AUR like before. Choosing a distro is basically choosing a DE and package manager these days anyway - a single unified packaging format…

> Choosing a distro is basically choosing a DE and package manager these days anyway

What distribution doesn't support at least half a dozen desktop environments these days?

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#38

Post by sergiosgc » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #15

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Can we go back to just shipping apt packages? They worked fine, and I don't feel like having multiple types of containers and update methods and mounted image file systems really made anyone's life better.

This puts too much unnecessary burden on developers and maintainers. It doesn't make sense to adapt software to tens of distributions (and then to different OS like FreeBSD). Apt should be used only for system software (like init system, system libraries) but not for applications. Also apt allows to run scripts as root during installation and this is not secure.

There's a Pareto effort, of course. If you release Debian and Redhat packages, you cover 80% of the user base. It's not hard to maintain, if you compare to building msi installers. Further, the process of generating packages for derivatives of debian or redhat can be mostly automated, so user coverage is bound to grow if your package is popular.

As for root requirements, what you are asking for are (non privileged) user installable packages. Packages that install only to the user account. This feature doesn't exist, but it'd be a much saner approach than snap/flatpak.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#39

Post by georgyo » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

What I really want is for Nix or something like Nix to become standard.

We can very easily mimic flatpak and snap by wrapping a nix closure in bwrap.

You can have the choice to sandbox it or not with Nix. And you can easily compose it with other software.

Re: Ubuntu stops shipping Flatpak by default

#40

Post by qbasic_forever » Wed, Mar 29, 2023, 10:25 AM UTC

quaintdev wrote: post #11

Moved to Fedora for the mess around snaps and I'm not going to look back.

I've been setting up the new Fedora 38 sway spin (Wayland + sway wm out of the box) and am really impressed. I've been an Ubuntu derivative user for a long time but Fedora is great so far.