I hate people who only release their App on flatpak

Flatpak seems to be the best choice for consistency and to have it working straight out of the box. I think Linux currently needs this because we're getting a lot less tech-savvy Linux users nowadays. Don't get me wrong; package managers should still be used, but how are we going to get people to change if they run into package conflicts or accidentally uninstall a wrong package?
- And universal compatability. One repo, for all distros. That's a big plus too!
  
  Until it doesn't work. There's a lot of subtlety, and at some point you'll have to match what the OS provide. Even containers are not "run absolutely anywhere" but "run mostly anywhere".
  That doesn't change the point, of course; software that are dependent on the actual kernel/low level library to provide something will be hard to get working in unexpected situations anyway, but the "silver bullet" argument irks me.
  
  That's called having just one distro.
  
  Great... Now, you just need to convince the big distros to do that... Easy!!!!111
- It is also nice to have independent packages. Consistent user experience means a lot.
- It's useful, but it isn't the best option for everyone, so other options should be available.
  
  Why would you want the app devs to make that? The whole problem with distro-specific packages is having to package for multiple formats and it's a painstaking process that really isn't worth any amount of time investment at all. If you're an app developer, you'd much rather just make a universal package and hope that some distro package maintainer packages your app for their distro. That's just basic common sense...
- I just what to install an app. I don't want to spend an evening figgering out how to get a PWA to install. I don't want to consult a form or your git repository to install some package I will use once and will be patched out in the next version.

Personally I do like the ideas behind Snap/Flatpak. I think the sandboxing is a huge deal and will improve security going forward.
- In a world where space is usually the cheapest and most available hardware on a PC, I tend to agree. That being said, it's the kind of solution that comes from engineers who put the onus on the hardware to make up for their shitty software. Engineers like me.
  
  Yeah. Someone has to put in the work for packaging an application if you want it as a .deb/.rpm etc. package and deal with any bugs that might come up, and it's not going to be me (speaking as a user, not a developer).
  That said, I also painted myself into a corner when it comes to harddrive space. LUKS can be complicated, man ...
  
  In a world where space is usually the cheapest and most available hardware on a PC
  I read this in the movie trailer guy's voice

You hate people who spend hundreds of ours of their free time developing software, who then release that software for free, under no obligation to you or anyone else, and your reasoning is because they provide it in a packaging solution you don't find ideal?
Maybe fuck off and write your own software.
- No, they hate flatpak, one of the many option to distribute software, which is not the only one even if you consider the "must run on many distro" restriction (which isn't 100% true, kinda like the Java write once run anywhere). There are other options, some more involved, some simpler, to do so.
  They didn't say they hate devs, that's on you, grabbing a febble occasion to tell someone that voiced his opinion to "fuck off".
  
  I hate people who only release on flatpak
  You could just read what OP said
  
  Then they should say they hate flatpak, or they are frustrated/disappointed when something they are interested in is only on flatpak.
  Instead of doing that, they said they hate people who only use flatpak. Words matter, and that kind of entitlement needs to be shut down. The devs don't owe them anything and they certainly don't deserve hatred for their packaging solution. There are many constructive ways OP could resolve the issue. Open a feature request issue on the bug tracker, build it locally, send an email, offer to maintain another packaging method, etc.

8GB SSD
There’s your problem. The last time 8GB was plenty was in 1998.
- Even cheap SD cards are larger these days. The smallest SSD you can buy in the UK right now is 250GB.
  
  Amazon sells 24 GB ones..
- Yup. Those 64 GB SSDs many retailers put into cheap laptops already come dangerously close to violating the Geneva Convention. 8GB is just stupid, even for a Linux system.
  
  If I ever have to use a laptop with 64GB of space, I'm following the Geneva Checklist :3
- No need to hate on someone for their hardware.
  
  Reading through the comments here, the Linux community slowly seems move away from "runs on about every piece of hardware you can think of" to "if you don't have at least the Nimbus 2000 that's on you, sucker!"
- Are they booting of an SD card? Mabey is a Pi or WiFi router?

Oh lmao, I decided to look into this. https://github.com/flathub/com.ktechpit.torrhunt/blob/master/com.ktechpit.torrhunt.yaml
Looks like it just downloads the .snap package (directly from Canonical's website) and extracts it. It's also, of course, completely closed source so who knows what it's doing when it's running.
- It's also, of course, completely closed source so who knows what it's doing when it's running.
  Ah, yes. The Pinnacle of security
- oh wow that's way worse than the crappy one he said in his actual post.. He said a totally different software. He's trying to run several things on this machine lol

Compile it yourself?
- Compile it yourself.
- Instructions unclear. Cmake ninja tool chain uses another 8gb and still get compile errors
- Use the flatpak and see if you like it, then compile it yourself.

did you see those little < in front of the download sizes? org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita, org.kdePlatform.Locale, org.kde.Platform and com.ktechpit.torrhunt won't be fully downloaded as those are possibly already installed and can be reused, so in the best case you only download org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-570-86-16 fully.
- There's also deduplication across the different files. So you could even end up with less overall size over time if you use Flatpaks for everything.

Flatpaks implement deduping, so they actually don't take that much space when installed.
I habe a PC with an 8gb SSD
I think I found your real problem.
- Didn't know about that, how exactly is that implemented?

I habe a PC with an 8gb SSD
Are you using a first gen eeePC?
I think I bought one of those for 40€, 12 years ago.
- Man I miss the netbooks! Loved my Mini 9
  
  In an alternate universe, phones with a fold-out hardware keyboard and full Linux OS are common.
  And you can just plug them into a docking station to get a full PC.
  
  I put OSX on mine. A $200 Macbook mini was a cool project and a neat conversation piece.
- Its a Fujitsu futro s920, got it off ebay

Yeah flatpak won't work on my Nokia 3310 either, what a shit software...
Edit: if you upvoted this comment, your kneecaps pop when you pick up things from the ground
- I'm too old to pick up stuff from the ground, I use one of them claws on a stick. Also, the 3210 was a nice phone while the 3310 was for the hip kids.
- Pff, they're already doing that for past few years =\

2TB?
I only see around 500mb
- Anger has a way of adding a few zeros.

Why the hell do you only have 8GB? Are you trying to install flatpaks on a smart fridge?
- Sort of, actually
  I was trying to build a PC just to play internet radio on using Shortwave, and a 30€ thin client with 4 1,5Ghz cores and no active cooling, 4 gigs of ram and an 8gb ssd were more than enough for that
  
  I didn't even know ssd's(nuts) that small existed
  
  For your use case, building from source might be more practical.
  
  look into NixOS! there might already be a package for it. and NixOS can be very good about not duplicating dependencies.
  
  this? https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Shortwave
  I think on a system like that you shouldn't even run a GUI or a window manager at most. What is the service that is actually using though, it links to this https://www.radio-browser.info/ I guess I see you can play stations directly from that. It seems it makes more sense to use like lynx browser or something to just browse that website directly.
  I've clicked like 10 of them they are all mp3 or aac. mpv or vlc can decode those on the command line and play it with using like 15-100mb of space on your storage. Like this random station for example https://stream-uk1.radioparadise.com/aac-320
  all in all your total install should be like 400mb

its barely legible but isnt that still less than a gb? where you you even get an 8gb ssd? why would you use one outside of some specialized embedded application that shouldn't even have a desktop interface? and even then why not something lighter than kde or gnome
- where you you even get an 8gb ssd
  I bought a Fujitsu thin client for 30€, and I decided to spend the 5€ extra to get one with a drive (making it 30€ total.
  why would you use one outside of some specialized embedded application that shouldn't even have a desktop interface?
  I have way too much free time
  I have no money
  Originally it should only have been a minimal void Linux install so it can connect to my local server via RDP. But I just realised that that futro s920 with 4 1,5ghz cores is actually way faster and more reliable than my 4th gen Intel i5 will ever be
  and even then why not something lighter than kde or gnome
  I ssh'd into the PC. It runs xfce4, and it is just made to display shortwave (an Internet radio player) in full screen on a cashier terminal screen that I ripped from the terminal assembly. I just needed the cheapest thing to run shortwave on so my father has an Internet radio, since the other 2 options were
  buy a big ass Antenna for his normal radio, or
  buy a used Internet radio for 200€ (this way it only cost about 90€), wait until its Server is shut down, and then somehow with a mix of wireshark, dns logging, and pure luck somehow locally rerout the domain that the radio tries to connects to, figure out what kind of json file I need to host on my local server in order to make it refresh it's database of Radios, and maintain these IPs forever.
  also, please note, the image is in no way connected to this project, it just reminded me of it
  
  Maybe get the cheapest micro sd card or usb drive you can find and install it on there? You could probably double your storage size for a couple of euros!

Hope you don't find out about Snaps
- Wait till he finds out about Claps
  
  Oh man I still remember the day I learned of the existence of Knaps and their shared libraries (Wrapz).
  
  Who the Fuck Casted ICE STORM???
  http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/WavingHands.html
  
  Claps those cheeks
  Lmao gotem
  
  Chad claps plebs back flaps.

Cut the crap. Flatpak uses hardlink from repo where file names are jash of the file itself. The chance of duplication is exactly same as that of duplicate files of same name in same directory.
Flatpak repo grows because we trade uncertainty over abi stability with installing all needed versions of libraries. For abi incompatible builds you could already do that in many distros (versioned soname) but to a lesser extent.
Also I usually do not install nvidia GL with flatpaks that I won't run on nvidia on hybrid gpu laptops anyway for energy reasons.
- Yeah, I'm not a fan of flatpak for my usage, but this isn't a great argument against it.
  I'd rather someone "only" release on flatpak if that's the simplest way they can support Linux compared to no support at all.

Yes absolutely true, but also no.
https://gitlab.com/TheEvilSkeleton/flatpak-dedup-checker
For me it is 32GB of data with deduplication, and only like 25GB with BTRFS compression.
So while still way too much, not really a problem if you have a reasonable 50mbits+ internet connection and a 200GB+ SSD
There should still be waay more force. There should only be one runtime (FDO) and KDE and GNOME being extensions to that. Not sure if these perfectly dedupe though
- Those figures are larger than the total storage usage on my work computer, with every tools installed and repositories cloned locally. I know that large storage are way more accessible, but it still sounds crazy to take so much space.
  The only way I can go over that is by installing npm dependencies in every source tree, which is also a thing that really should be improved.

There's very good reasons that app developers focus on flatpaks, which mostly revolves around how incredibly terrible the experience is creating native packages for each distro and each release version of those various distros.
Flatpak used to be problematic, but even a loud hater of Flatpak, Richard Brown of openSUSE, now lauds Flatpak as an excellent solution after his criticisms were addressed.
- Yes, I personally use flatpak because I want a reliable way to update packages that are not in the native repositories. Still, I would love if it would be like snaps in the sense that I can use the native libraries and only install the app as flatpak.
  Its just really frustrating to have to install the whole fricking gnome desktop again just so some flatpak can use it
  
  You..... prefer snaps?
  I guess we found the one person with that hot take.
  
  damn you got ubuntuwashed, not sure if that is worse than windowashed or not

"maybe a software being excessively bloated isn't a good thing"
"just buy more storage bro"
B*tch. i live in a third world country, with limited internet and data plan, and also is still a student. If i can just buy more storage and better hardware i will.
- This excuse is so dumb for many reasons. Provide me the source and I will make my own package if needed.
  The same excuse is used to make terribly performing video games.. Just buy a better graphics card if you want to run <any modern game> at over 60fps!
- Get a tape player jeeez

Lol kinda wild to me seeing flatpak hate as a new Linux user (running fedora with kde). Flatpaks have just worked for me and it's been fantastic
- If you're new to Linux, then your probably not familiar with the full Linux community yet. Much like in real life, online Linux spaces tend to have a very loud minority of conservatives who hate progress.
  Usually you'll see them hating on things like systemd, 64bit architectures, containers, new packaging systems (like Flatpak), immutable and experimental distros (like Nix), Wayland, "bloated" desktops like KDE or Gnome, and much more.
  And just like in real life, the antidote is to not take another person's word for it. Do your own homework/try things out yourself and arrive at your own conclusions.
- Flatpaks work great on my laptop, but they have can have issues if you use multiple hard-drives or partitions. Especially for gaming.
- whoa look at mr rich boy here with a drive that costs more than $2 on ebay

I'm coming back to Linux after a hiatus. I've spent most of my time with the Debian flavors. Not afraid of the command line, but not an expert either.
I'm trying out Bluefin right now, semi-immutable atomic os based on silverblue, based on Fedora.
On normal installs, I usually change and install enough stuff, that when it comes time to upgrade to the next os version, I'm sometimes not able to without introducing instability or it outright falling. The former more common than the latter.
Let's just say I got used to reinstalling and starting from scratch, especially if I experimented too hard and broke something big like my DE or drivers.
So with bluefin I'm hoping to leave everything that's core, alone. I'm trying to rely on flatpaks, app images, and distrobox for everything else.
So far so successful. I've only got a couple minor gripes, some limitations of flatpaks. But I've also only been at it for like a week, so we'll see.
I guess my point is, flatpaks have a place 🤷‍♂️
- This is where I'm at too. If I go crazy and start installing stuff natively to experiment I end up with extra stuff auto configured that's no longer needed and random problems I'm too lazy to figure out how to solve. Flatpak doesn't do that and I don't have to worry about that. I can install random stuff to play with and uninstall it cleanly. Some packages need more system access than flatpak gives natively and with those I'll make the decision of if I want to set it up and tear it down manually or not.
  Storage is cheap, my time not so much.

People bitching about Flatpaks don't understand that they have dedupe built in. You're literally not using any more space and it's easier for app developers to deploy.
Try using Snaps sometime, if you want something to actually bitch about.

No problem, just makr sure your system has the exact version of libraries the application needs. And oh, you will only update those dependencies when the application update updates the requirements.
Oh what's that? Another application you want to install uses the same lib but different version? Tough luck, chump!
Seriously it's either flatpaks or the multi-version dependency management that openSUSE has, and you're not saving much more space here either.
- or statically compiling literally everything then you got 50 copies of the same thing like windows & macos!

flatpak install/update <package name> --no-related
there problem solved

Just build from source

Then just unpack said flatpak, there are tools for that.

I actually like flatpak. The only issues I have are with GTK apps which I try not to use anymore.
- What after those issues?
  
  Not using the Breeze theme even when it is applied for GTK apps. The cursor being way too big on libadwaita apps. Supposedly that last one will be fixed very soon.
  
  For me trying to make GTK softwares to looks consistent with everything else is always a pain in the ass, and don't get me started on different GTK version themes aren't compatible with each other, so a GTK3 software doesn't even looks the same with another GTK software just because it use GTK4.

Alternatively though, if an app has KDE library dependencies for example, it's kinda nice to not have to install a whole other desktop system wide.

So maybe use Debian and compile the app yourself instead? The Dev made something free with their time, use your time to make it work for you.

I absolutely hate all this container shit, for my uses. That said, they make sense when you need to sandbox applications for whatever reason, but most of those uses seem like they would be better served with VMs.

I liked Snaps and Flatpaks fine when I first started using Linux, and the distro I was on treated them the same as software in the repo, but I eventually started to avoid them because of the space they take up, and because I got tired of constantly having to mess around with permissions to try to get things working. Now, if something isn't available in rpm, I use AppImage or a tarball, or compile it myself.
- rpm: signed payload and manifest with signatures in bill of materials that integrates and coordinates with system db and allows enterprise content review and validation at every step and/or easy back-out.
  flatpack/app image - none of these.
  Anyone interested in build, security, deployment, should have issue with that. But look at its corp champions and discover their motive.
  
  Very true! Good points.
  
  <cue X-Files theme song>

Build it from source them.

If it's only available as a flatpak I don't need it. 🤷
- Its your call
  However, Flatpak is growing in popularity so chances are that's going to be more and more the norm. Same thing with Wayland.
  
  Are there people who hate Wayland as well?

Flatpak is love, flatpak is life.

Storage is cheap, I don't care at all as long as I can easily install it without having to go online to search for missing dependencies in the correct version.
My only problem with Flatpak was when I tried to install an IDE and made it use Podman or Docker and the container thingy caused problems.
- "x is cheap" is not the greatest take imo. it's cheap until you just so happen to not be able to afford it. what now? better give me an income for the price in storage. not talking about flatpak specifically.
  
  This. Any many laptops use eMMC, meaning that you can't just increase the OS storage.

Another missed occasion to have taken a screenshot. There's gnome-screenshot, scrot, your DE's integrated tool and so many others to choose from, you can do it!
That sort of shit makes me hate the modern internet. (Also screenshots are cleaner and therefore compress better since you seem to care (rightfully) about storage space.)
- Yeah but if youre using a lemmy app on your phone its significantly faster to just use your phone camera rather than having to share/transfer the file over somehow, or sign into lemmy on your pc. Im not saying you're wrong, but i get why someone wouldn't care for a quick throwaway post. Also storage then isnt an issue on the PC at all because the image is only on the phone.
  
  Phones also have limited storage?
  Regardless, posting on the desktop is exactly as hard as typing in the name of your instance and your credentials...
  If you're gonna be editing a meme, typing comments and such, it's worth it very fast imo.
  And crucially, it's a really basic form of respect for your audience. Oh and also framing the shot correctly, we're missing part of the text...

btrfs compression and dedupe. Saves a lot of space

Skelly is rapidly approaching your location.
tl;dr: some applications (like Bottles) are designed to run only in sandboxed environments. Flatpak is a robust way to ensure that an application has the correct dependencies and conditions for proper functionality.

Ok dude, you should have looked at the minimum requirements for a linux install before buying that thin client. I checked debian and fedora and both had minimun requirements exceeding 8gb for graphical environments. Read the manual, stop bashing a tool you arent using right. Flatpak works great for almost every use case, especially if you learn how to tweak the sandbox.
- "you're holding it wrong"?

and 8gb ssd? at that size it's surely a removable 2242 ngff drive, it's like 10$ for a 64gb one. you're quite literally throttling your systems read/write speed, cause ssds want at least 20% free to manipulate files.
- he said it's a thin client so it is likely soldered on but almost all of them do have m.2 support. But many of them are actual sata m.2 so don't accidentally buy a nvme m.2. easy enough to check which yours supports

But it’s a delta.

I only use flatpack when I need the most up to date version of a software for whatever reason.

Or alternatively... crzyshrtct was not found on your host, but is required, daddy. Please install it to be able to use the software.

Everyone brazenly saying Flatpak is the best install package management system has stockholm syndrome.
- It is the best one for people that don't know a lot about linux. Many people are at a loss when they read basic errors like fatal error: <header>.h: No such file or directory or ld: cannot find -l<library>. Flatpak solves a lot of that by specifically including all of it in the installation.
  So ye, for non-power users, flatpak is the best package manager. It also has only one downside, which is the increased storage requirement for apps as they have to bring all of their dependencies themselves, which is okay these days as storage isn't that expensive anymore.
  And everything is better than fucking snap if we're honest for a second.
  
  I really don't understand the flatpak hate. Stuff doesn't magically work across distros, and app devs don't usually want to debug every major one. If you're running linux on a thinkpad from 2004, sure, it wouldn't be the best but most people can probably afford the overhead.
- Like much software, it's great - for some situations. And ugly for others.
- I miss the days when packages were only available as deb or tar.gz
  Edit: /s
  
  I don't : )
- Agreed. Snap is. It can do desktop and system components.
  
  And you get the glorious security of beingwatched over by a profit-focused company and protected by a closed to proprietary server.

you probably have thrice that in your yay/paru or emerge cache
i know what you are.

TONS OF SAME STUFF
every time:
downloads a different version of KDE from 2014

Lots of people seem to like it. I also use it for like 2 or 3 desktop apps, but it's alao littering my filesystem with gigabytes of runtimes. And I believe I can salely remove Skype now...
- Who likes having their hard drive space wasted?
  
  I like flatpaks when they come from the developer. They are often more stable, up-to-date and complete than those from OS repositories.
  What I don't like about them is when I have to fight the permissions. They're often too tight and make integration with the rest of the OS too hard.
  
  No one does, but people like it when you install an application and it just works. It makes it easier to install applications regardless of which distro you’re on as well.
  
  Technically it's empty space that's being wasted, if you fill it up it's being useful!
  
  The benefits easily outweighs the cost of some extra space use. We're not talking about a lot here, after all, with dedupping, shared runtimes and what have you.
  
  People who like having fine-grained security controls over their apps?
  
  Idk, probably all the people who downvoted OP and the majority of people here on Lemmy I met in discussions about Flatpak & Co. And If I look at the average size of a modern Windows installation, I'd say at least 70% of desktop users to begin with.
- Gigabytes?
  I have a bunch of apps installed and it is only a little over a gigabyte.
  
  Interesting. I have 4 tools installed as Flatpaks and that makes 4.4 GB

what kind of app only bundles a flatpak? Surely there's manual install instructions?
- Definitely, no way the git doesn't have info on how to build it from source or at least a Deb package download. I assume it's people who are annoyed their distro doesn't have that software in the repos but it's on flathub.

I see DLL Hell is still going strong...

Buy a thumbdrive lol
- Or a SSD
  Maybe even a MicroSD

1- Those locale and icon themes will be reused with other flatpacks. And it's less than half of a gigabyte, not the 2tb claimed in the overlay text.
2- Use docker container with prowlarr instead of torrhunt. And check https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy

Is it on the Arch User Repository?
- the software he is installing in his pic is a snap wrapper over a proprietary, closed source torrent thing. So don't even bother.

It's very efficient for what it does. and your programs will actually open.

Don't your filesystem deduplicate it on the fly anyway?
- I believe that's what ostree is for

Like many have said, can you build it yourself?
Flatpaks have their uses, and for many people they're a great system that solves a situation well enough and with great convenience. For other situations, flatpaks are an ugly hack. I think we just have to accept that devs will not always package or tailor their software for all situations (electron apps, anyone?!), but at least in the FOSS world you can usually compile yourself if you need to.

No source to compile it yourself?