Actually, the better question is: When will they replace most desktop Linux programs?
I want both. Flatpak has saved me some heartburn a couple of times, but the distro I’m using dramatically reduces the need for it. I like native applications running with the shared libraries present on my system. I use flatpak as an escape hatch for when that breaks, meaning I’ve used it twice.
Kinoite user here, the majority of my desktop apps are in flatpaks already. I have a couple of things in toolbox/distrobox containers
I’ve also been on immutable Fedora for a while, and the biggest complaint I have is that I need to reboot after removing software from the base system. Otherwise I quite like Flatpak for the ability to set granular permissions per app. KDE even has Flatseal built into the settings app now, which is super nice.
No, and it is better no. I want to have control and freedom on how I install and use Apps. Not to mention both of Flatpak and Snap is not storage efficient (compared to native). So for me who uses low end laptop with small ssd, native apps with their shared library is the way to go. I hope even when Flatpak and Snap goes popular, distro which stick with native apps also exist and usable.
As someone from a developing country, I still prefer most of my software from standard packages, in order to take less space.
And before someone comes to tell about how cheap storage is nowadays, it can be cheap for you, but it isn’t for me and for a lot of other people.
God I hope not. Especially not snap, it’s so painful and slow. AppImage works fine enough I guess. I don’t want an ecosystem where more and more developers go with these only and neglect being able to install at a system level.
That is unfortunately the future because maintaining packages for a million different distros is painful to say the least. The best you can hope for is native packages for the top 10 distros. Everyone else will have to deal with flatpak.
Doesn’t that just depend on whether or not the people maintaining are happy with the flatpak experience? If they’re not, they’d probably keep maintaining their packages.
The problem here is that most packages aren’t maintained by developers, but rather by independent package maintainers from respective distributions.
In my eyes, this adds another potential point of failure outside the control of the developer of a given tool.
In my eyes, this adds another potential point of failure outside the control of the developer of a given tool.
On the contrary. The Fedora maintainers saved all their Audacity users when audacity introduced a spyware in their build. The flatpak had the spyware for months while the Fedora release of audacity was made secure by the maintainers. I value this, if you remove the people doing it then you remove value for everyone. It all comes down to how much you value your privacy.
Windows has a fantastic model where every software just work. It’s great! The result is an abomination of devs stealing your data or doing whatever mess on your computer. “Free software” was synonymous of red alerts and we used programs like Adaware or whatever cleaner software. Each months there was another new cleaner utility. When was the last time you cleaned your distro?
Try to expand the scale of flatpak and you’ll see that you will hit the same problems that any other distro.
I don’t really see Fedora maintainting a patched version of audacity as a fault of Flatpak, though.
Flathub is designed to allow developers to publish their own software in the way they intended. So Flathub and Flatpak are doing exactly what they’re designed to do
Well, I can’t give you a better example of the effect of auditing softwares for your desktop. One source, Fedora, had the app patched, while the other, official on flathub, published the flawed version on purpose.
You’d prefer to run the flatpak version of audacity with the spyware on? I don’t buy that.
Flathub is designed to allow developers to publish their own software in the way they intended. So Flathub and Flatpak are doing exactly what they’re designed to do
Okay, so it’s another way to phrase that you really preferred the version of flatpak with the spyware, since it’s the version intended by Audacity. With flatpak and flathub you are alone.
Fedora and their maintainers offer you a layer of no-nonsense, you should think twice before writing it off. I don’t think that you fully realize the quality of what you have right now in your hands in term of desktop. Popularity has a price and Windows users paid the price for it.
