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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

#371

Post by goodpoint »

bandrami wrote: post #335
goodpoint wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you sweep the problems of software management under a big enough rug, they go away and never bother you again. ...until attackers find a vulnerability in some library, then you are really in trouble. Just like docker, the bundling of tons of software into opaque blobs is terrible for security.

Yeah I didn't realize people would take the joke there seriously. It's basically looking at package management and saying "this is hard so we won't try".

FWIW personally I detected your sarcasm but I replied knowing that the security risk would fly over people's heads here.

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

#372

Post by tmtvl »

kuschku wrote: post #352
tmtvl wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but as an early adopter of Plasma 5 (granted, maybe a bit too early), it was terribly broken for a couple of months. I took refuge in Awesome until things stabilized.

Plasma 5 was so broken for me, I've been on Budgie while waiting for KDE to return to its glory days.

I can see that. For me personally about a year~ish ago Plasma Wayland reached the point where it's good enough for me to use as a daily driver...

...though I do lament the loss of Desktop Cube.

Of course, coming from Awesome I am often annoyed at how Plasma doesn't have per-screen (X11 monitor, if I'm not mistaken) tags and per-X11-display workspaces don't really work that well.

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

#373

Post by goodpoint »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #362
goodpoint wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is NixOS a cult? Rather than being a cult in itself, there's a crowd of very vocal fanboys similar to the RIIR stike force. Pestering people with "why don't you use $thing" is not good advocacy.

Point of order: I didn't say "you should use nix", I said "oi, nix is actively doing that thing you said was impossible", and suggested that they should do that themselves.

I didn't say "you are acting like a fanboy", I said "some vocal minorities are fanboying" and suggested that they should not do it.

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

#374

Post by uncletaco »

deadly_syn wrote: post #325
sph wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is NixOS a cult? Every time someone posts about Linux packaging, there's a "you should just use NixOS" comment. Although it provides its own solution to the Linux packaging problem, it's a single solution that comes with a whole load of baggage with it. It is not the panacea its proponents wants us to believe it is.

I have a quote I like throwing around about nix/nixos "the nix ecosystem is like a cult. Not because it tries to be, but because the ideas are so good you cannot deny them."

This is something charismatic youth pastor would say in a weird denomination that encourages getting tattoos.

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

#375

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #238
yamtaddle wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AppImage has no sandboxing. A properly packaged (unfortunately, still a big qualifier) Flatpak is safer to run.

The quality of the flatpak's sandbox has been rightfully questioned many times. The most atrocious thing about it is that it's the app publisher who decides what the permissions should be. Little wonder that if you go to flatpak.org, you won't even see the words "sandbox", "safe", or "secure".

Nor is their FAQ describing their sandboxing as a security feature, more like (limited) isolation technique.

But this isn't stopping flatpak zealots who just won't shut up about the "sandbox == secure" falsehood.

I don't know, I'd rather prefer a technology which is upfront about its lack of security than one which has glaring hole in what they call (a false sense of) "security". I treat flatpaks and appimages as mostly equal things and use them to keep and run proprietary stuff so that I know it won't be shitting its guts all over the host system.

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

#376

Post by goodpoint »

Gigachad wrote: post #123
bandrami wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would I care? Ok Spotify has an old package with some vulnerabilities in it. But flatpak has it sandboxed so the worst you could do is maybe steal my Spotify session token. That's more a problem for Spotify than it is for me. They will go and fix their package and I will reset my sessions. Meanwhile we have distros lagging behind for years to provide a new package because they can't break all the things depending…

> But flatpak has it sandboxed so the worst you could do is maybe steal my Spotify session token

You are cherry-picking the spotify session token while many other applications have valuable personal data.

Also sandboxing is also implemented by the OS. It is not an advantage of flatpak.

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

#377

Post by panick21_ »

POPOSYS wrote: post #306
panick21_ wrote: post #244

I feel like one thing that is still holding Linux Desktop and any initiative like this back is that we don't have really high quality linux laptops on the market. We have some people like System76 doing great things, but not in Europe and for all their great work its not the highest quality stuff from China with some serious limitations. For all the things the European Union funds, from chip manufacture, HPC and many…

What is the base data for your analysis? Is this data available? And how did you come to the conclusion that "missing high quality linux desktops" are the thing "holding back" Linux? Is this based on some statistical work you did? If we talk about feelings - did you ever have the feeling that corruption, lobbying and blackmailing could play a role? BTW - why do you think Linux is missing high quality desktops? I am w…

I'm not seeking funding, I'm not writing a scientific paper. This is a public forum and I stated an opinion.

> If we talk about feelings - did you ever have the feeling that corruption, lobbying and blackmailing could play a role?

If you want to make the argument make it, I will listen.

I working with Linux desktop for decades and like it. My point is that the hardware is the bigger issue.

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

#378

Post by panick21_ »

Nasreddin_Hodja wrote: post #332
panick21_ wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AppImage has issues. The guy from Suse who does MicroOS, Richard Brown, a few years ago was literally walking around giving talk about how bad Flatpak was and how everybody should use AppImage. In his most recent talk he basically said, he was wrong, the Flatpak people did address most of the issue he had and AppImage was no viable. https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/containerised_apps/

AppImage still just works, just like tarball bundles without dependency on 3rd party infrastructure and overengineered solutions like snap and flatpak.

The talk I linked suggest this isn't the case.

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

#379

Post by UltimateEdge »

gavmor wrote: post #239
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…

Obsidian without git plugin is pretty much a non-starter for me. What's the point in a folder full of markdown files that can't be checked into git? Only works out of the box for the AppImage, for now. I can't remember why. I suppose I am missing out on 0-click updates of some kind.

I started using Obsidian a few months ago, and my git repo is initialised on the file system outside the Obsidian vault. I'm now realising that I'm not using any of Obsidian's special features other than being a markdown editor with support for tags.

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

#380

Post by JohnFen »

yathaid wrote: post #242
JohnFen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand that. That is orthogonal to my opinion of app stores, though.

Are the margins on this website too small to note down your objections? :)

App stores are gatekeepers, and while they certainly can make things more convenient, they also encourage habits that I think are harmful. Such as thinking that app stores are the only way to install applications. I think that it has been a bad thing that users are conditioned to think that if it didn't come from an app store, it's dangerous or wrong somehow.

It forces developers to use the app stores. I understand that many may not see this as a problem, but many developers (including myself) would very much prefer not to have to do that. So it's a disincentive to make software for others, at least for some.

In the case of this one, I also am very nervous about the incorporation of a payment system. I fear that will discourage the creation of quality free software, and I think quality free software is a huge benefit.

In short, I fear that this app store will resemble the Android Play store, or Apple's app store, and encourage the same problems and adverse impacts they have had.

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