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View Poll Results: Do you use Appimage, Flatpak, and/or Snaps?
> With that in mind: I have no idea why snap and flatpack (which aren't really
> cross-distribution) even exist.
IMO since both Red Hat and Canonical feel they get something through them.
By the way I disagree with the other statement; since I remember klik,
AppImage most definitely wants to make software installation easier.
That was the old selling point of klik; not sure what happened with it
but I think KDE uses something like that today ... I forgot what they
use though. Some store?
> In Linux distros with graphical package managers, software installs are drop dead simple.
Not true either. It is hard for many distributions to offer recent versions. Debian in
particular (including SID by the way). I mean, if debian would have done a better job,
we'd never see ubuntu become a success, right? So somehow ubuntu fit a niche that people
liked. (I am not really among these guys; I am still a tinker-dude, even though I tinker
less than I used to. If I'd have to pick my single most favourite of all time, it is
still GoboLinux, simply due to the philosophy. Although nowadays, a mixture of GoboLinux
and NixOS, just without nix, would be neat. And more focus on the GUI side, like how
linuxmint does it out of the box. I don't need the GUIs, but they are nice to impress
people with!)
AppImage most definitely wants to make software installation easier.
AppImages aren't actually installed. That's not just an academic distinction: you save a single file to your drive, a launcher, with *everything* it needs to run the application. You can't update most AppImages; if you want a newer version (or an older one), you download it, and can keep as many versions on your drive as you want.
The project positions itself that way. From their website, "AppImage format is ideal for upstream packaging" and "AppImages can be downloaded and run without installation".
I've tried them all (and 0install once.) As a user, I could live without them, but I use one AppImage because that's the only package format the application comes in on Linux, and a few Snaps because Ubuntu has forced their use ex. Chromium. Yes, I know you can still work around that, but I spend my time on other things instead.
> In Linux distros with graphical package managers, software installs are drop dead simple.
Not true either. It is hard for many distributions to offer recent versions. Debian in
particular (including SID by the way).
Um.
Compared to "Find an app on the wild web, download the installer, run the installer and pray that your antivirus works" it is dead simple on Linux, or most GNU/Linux distros, to be precise. It's just different, which seems the biggest argument for snaps, flatpak etc.: they are more familiar, like Windows installers.
:SMH:
And the recent versions argument has been debunked several times in this thread alone (Debian in particular).
Keywords:
security updates - I have subscribed to the notification mailing list, and it's beautiful to watch how quickly they come in, sometimes even before I read the corresponding news article
I currently only use snaps, but voted for any that I can.
While using as few as I can I've come to appreciate the bonuses of keeping my system clean in regards to not using external repositories or manually compiled stuff with make / make install.
I don't like snaps because I can't see what's in them as easily of course. I do however accept that there will eventually come some type of universal packaging, and I don't let philosophical reasoning block me from using what works. Philosophical reasoning is not a good reason to not have the software or versions I need. If I can use it and keep it isolated, I'm good.
I've also made a move toward Docker recently so I may elimate snaps save the docker snap because I don't want to add their external repository. This applies only to my server though.
In the case of my desktops as they are LTSP pxe booted I can't use snaps in them anyway as far as I know. Haven't figured how to install them in a chroot yet. I do use external repositories such as google chrome, but the booted image is read only as I understand it so it's a non issue.
Last edited by jmgibson1981; 12-23-2020 at 09:19 AM.
Distribution: openSUSE, Raspbian, Slackware. Previous: MacOS, Red Hat, Coherent, Consensys SVR4.2, Tru64, Solaris
Posts: 2,803
Rep:
Snap... Once
I've only ever used a Snap for the CertBot installation (and I wish they'd gone with more traditional packing methods for that). In general, I'll use a distribution-specific package, a source tar archive (and configure/make), or a tar archive with a binary/binaries (seldom).
Distribution: openSUSE, Raspbian, Slackware. Previous: MacOS, Red Hat, Coherent, Consensys SVR4.2, Tru64, Solaris
Posts: 2,803
Rep:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgibson1981
While using as few as I can I've come to appreciate the bonuses of keeping my system clean in regards to not using external repositories or manually compiled stuff with make / make install.
You don't have to "pollute" your distribution's basic installation when compiling from sources. When you run "configure/make/make install" it, by default, produces the binaries/libraries/etc outside the OS's normal /bin and /usr/bin locations", anyway, and the distribution's update process won't interfere with or be confused by the things you've compiled. (Or you could go with "--prefix=/opt". Placing non-OS applications under "/opt" was the original intent of the "/opt" tree anyway.) Having "/usr/local" (or "/opt") set up as a separate filesystem helps, too.
You don't have to "pollute" your distribution's basic installation when compiling from sources. When you run "configure/make/make install" it, by default, produces the binaries/libraries/etc outside the OS's normal /bin and /usr/bin locations", anyway, and the distribution's update process won't interfere with or be confused by the things you've compiled. (Or you could go with "--prefix=/opt". Placing non-OS applications under "/opt" was the original intent of the "/opt" tree anyway.) Having "/usr/local" (or "/opt") set up as a separate filesystem helps, too.
Cheers...
I may look into it then. I haven't messed with compiling at all so I had no idea I could prefix it to wherever I wanted. This makes some things potentially easier for me. Thank you much.
Flatpak doesn't have good support for adding binaries or scripts to the PATH. That obviously a huge problem.
I run Fedora, and there's nothing I can get as a Flatpak that isn't also in Fedora's repos. If I were running a more "stable" distro, I would likely treat Flatpak as a safer alternative to using unofficial repositories, PPAs, etc.
On my Fedora installation, with "Kstatusnotifieritem/appindicator support" installed and active, I've noticed that Discord's system tray icon doesn't work (as in you don't get one) if you install Discord from rpmfusion. But it does work if you install it from FlatHub.
As I have recently made the switch to Debian Stable I find myself using both snaps and flatpaks.
Yes I could compile from source, but why bother when I can simply install snap/flatpak.
Never heard of Appimage. I will have to look into it.
Didn't realize this thread was here, it has been quite a while since I was on LQ.
$ flatpak list
Name Application ID Version Branch Installation
Bitwarden com.bitwarden.desktop 1.7.0 stable system
Freedesktop Platform org.freedesktop.Platform 18.08.39 18.08 system
Freedesktop Platform org.freedesktop.Platform 20.08.4 20.08 system
default org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default 20.08 system
html5-codecs org.freedesktop.Platform.html5-codecs 18.08 system
LibreOffice org.libreoffice.LibreOffice 7.1.0.3 stable system
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