What is being done to make Flatpaks better integrate into the system
What is being done to make Flatpaks better integrate into the system
For example, theming shouldnt have to be a 10 step process. Make Flatpaks use your themes correctly. Another thing is QT Theming, why is it outside of KDE you can't use the breeze style? It's the best and most consistent application style for QT apps. And the final point, when is the naming scheme of org.foo.bar going to be fixed to be the actual name of the package rather than the technical name. Flatpak remove and flatpak install both work without giving the full name, so why doesn't flatpak run? The naming is the only thing snaps have over flatpak. If nothing is been done how can I contribute?
The org.foo.bar thing is done so that multiple packages with the same name can coexist. It's a design choice, not something that gets fixed. It would be nice to be able to type in the name of the package and it looks for the package like in flatpak remove and install though.
The problem with "org" part. We'll never have org.gnome and com.gnome packages. Some apps have io.github.foo.bar. This entire thing is also case sensitive, so I have to guess is org.gnome.epiphany right name or org.gnome.Epiphany.
I just do flatpaks install something and it finds a few packages named something and let's me chose. What else do we need, besides flatpaks being more cli friendly?
flatpak run also doing that
Like -Ss in pacman/yay. It's so useful.
Yay is the best package manager I've ever used.
it's like, literally one step, I just gave it permission to one directory and the it themed my qt and gtk apps. I wish it was on by default from my distro
better documentation eg: of cli commands would be an essential first step.
I add
--helpto commands and it seems pretty good, what's missing?https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/sandbox-permissions.html
is a bit daunting. some context: im not personally complaining. im not even using linux right now.but back when i did uae flatpak.. i found digging in to the internals to be something more aimed at experienced developers or package maintainers. and maybe thats not such a bad thing. but.. modern linux systems are complicated when based on frameworks where things can break for obscure reasons.
On one of my (many) systems, I found that the theming was "different" from the others. Some flatpak applications looked broken, e.g. light-themed menu on dark-themed system, inconsistent fonts, and so on. After looking further, I noticed the Platform libraries (
org.kde.Platformandorg.gnome.Platform). After installing them, the the applications in question look normal.So I suggest checking with
flatpak listto see if you're missing them.I wrote a tool to convert appnames to easy run commands using alias.
https://github.com/trytomakeyouprivate/flatalias
That is already really useful, it is not tested though.
It takes the displayed appname, removes
-or_and makes everything lowercase.People used to tell me I have a flat a... oh... Alias.
Elementary has automatic theming iirc
Aliases for packages would be awesome, I don’t like typing out the full bundle id
, theming shouldnt have to be a 10 step process. Make Flatpaks use your themes correctly.
Finally someone shares my opinion, but be careful you'll get downvoted. Here's what I've said in the past:
All the current themes, versions and tweaks of GNOME are inconsistent (...) it is only on Linux that you launch an App and suddenly it doesn’t respect your theme and goes back to some basic thing because it runs on flatpak and there’s some bullshit about it. Or… your password management can’t communicate with the browser…
https://github.com/flathub/org.keepassxc.KeePassXC/issues/29#issuecomment-559476300 A password manger can’t community with a Browser as it is. This makes both useless and kills one of the best use cases for Flatpak.
I think you're getting downvoted because this doesn't make much sense.
[...] it is only on Linux that [...]
And which other platform is Flatpak available on? As far as I know it's just available on Linux. You are probably comparing two entirely different things.
A password manager can't communi[cate] with a Browser [...]
Flatpak is a utility for software distribution and sandboxing. And that is what it does. Sandboxes are a means of isolating software from the rest of the system and each other. By using Flatpak to install software you deliberately choose not to choose the version of the browser that would have been tied into the rest of the system... And now it isn't tied into the system...
I'm sorry if I sound a bit negative, but this is how it is. Lots of people use Flatpak because it is popular, but it is the wrong tool for many users. Some don't know how it works and why they should or shouldn't use it. I always recommend you install packages from your distro first, unless you have a valid reason not to... And then you need to pay attention to which tool you use and how to use it. Flatpak has means of connecting software and the feature to give more permissions to software or lessen the sandboxing. But since they do isolate software, it doesn't come with that as a default. Also there are other tools to distribute software you could choose. And I think this specific situation with the Firefox Flatpak has gotten better. I think they're slowly addressing stuff like that but it's probably not something they focus on. I don't really know the specifics of this situation, I installed Firefox or LibreWolf and the password manager from the package repository. It works and the themes also work.
(Edit: I'm not sure but imagine the 'flatpak run' issue might be a security measure. It might require less correctness to just download something, but it needs to be precise once you execute something on your system. This would be analoguous to how some browsers allow you to download executables from the internet, but require you to confirm you want to run them in a separate dialog that pops up. Or the additional 'chmod +x' on Linux. You often don't want to run random stuff by mistake. That could be probably implemented differently if this is the case.)
Flatpak is a utility for software distribution and sandboxing. And that is what it does. Sandboxes are a means of isolating software from the rest of the system and each other. By using Flatpak to install software you deliberately choose not to choose the version of the browser that would have been tied into the rest of the system… And now it isn’t tied into the system…
This is "only on Linux that" part once again. I wasn't comparing in the way you think, I'm comparing in the sense that cohesion and important details aren't usually a thing when it comes to the desktop Linux experience.
Apple also has sandboxing on both iOS and macOS and this situations weren't ever an issue because, back then in 2009, when they "developed" the technology they took their time to think about the implications and provide APIs and other ways to allow things to work. Flatpak is great, I use it and like it but it was also blunt "we just isolate things and fuck it" from the start.
Incorporate a protected boot bypass into the installer