this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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I still run everything I can as .rpm through dnf on my Fedora and .deb through apt on my Debian servers.
I only install a flatpak as last resort.
From a dev viewpoint I can understand the gains of flatpak but from a user viewpoint I prefer a "real" install.
It's funny, I do almost the exact opposite--whenever there is a flatpak version, I prefer it over a built-in apt package. The flatpak is almost always more up-to-date and often has the features and bug fixes I need.
Examples:
.
I don't think it's fair to expect the distro maintainers to be up to date with every software out there--the universe of software has grown and grown, and we just can't expect them to wrap/manage/test every new release and version bump.
Using EndeavourOS ( Arch ) and all four of those are the same versions in the regular repositories.
I agree that Flatpak is a solution to outdated packages. My preference is to use a distribution that does not have that problem to begin with.
Is it true flatpaks take up a lot more space due to bundling in dependencies etc?
The short answer is "yes, but only as much as it needs to". Flatpak had to make a decision between "do we guarantee the app will work, even with system upgrades" or "do we minimize space" and they chose the former. The minimum necessary dependencies will be installed (and shared) amongst flatpaks.
Have you had the unfortunate experience of a utility or program losing its packaged status? It's happened to me before--for example fslint. I don't think this can happen with flatpak.
Space usage under flatpak is highly overstated. It only takes a noticeable amount of storage if you only use a couple of flatpaks, cause all the dependencies are used for a single package, once you start using flatpaks as the main mean of installing "applications", the space required start to decrease because the dependencies are shared between multiple apps
I enjoy that extra stability and separation between system and apps, especially as I use a rolling distro as a gamer. Hearing talk about Flatpak I disliked it for the same reasons, but I decided to try it out after Steam Native bugged due to a system library update. I enjoy it now also because it feels good that installing apps don't get a root password and scatter files everywhere they please in the system.
On servers it's different ofcourse, Flatpak is basically for desktop apps. Snap is also designed for text mode stuff, servers and IoT devices but there's the problem with it being controlled by one company.
It depends on the distro I am on, if I use Debian or a derivative I usually prefer the Flatpak but on Fedora I only go with the Flatpak if I run into issues or the rare outdated package because I don't need them, I would certainly miss Flatpaks if they didn't exist tho!