A magnetised needle and a steady hand is a better package format.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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Let the hate of the crowd wash over me, but I don't even like Flatpak, and I've got love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with AppImage as well.
Just give me a system package or a zipped tarball.
In recent years, have had to just get used to needing to build most projects from source.
Why the hate part of AppImage?
For me it is the "Windowsy" feeling of downloading an executable from some website. I prefer having all my packages managed in one place.
Makes sense, I kinda like it from a distributor standpoint. Flatpak is my favorite though.
For simple "apps" it is fine, but my computer is not a phone and I don't use it like one. I mostly don't want simple apps that have their own little sandbox to play in.
I want full-scale applications that are so big they have to use system libraries to keep their disk size down. I also don't want them in a sandbox. I want them to have full access to the system to do everything they need to do, I want them to integrate with far-flung parts of the system and other applications too. I only use applications I trust and don't want them constantly pestering me about configuring permissions and access in just the right ways and opening all the right doors and ports and directories to make them work, I trust them by installing them, they have permission, and the easier they make it to access everything I will inevitably be asking them to access, the happier I am.
My practical concern with distribution methods like AppImage and Flatpak is that now I have to do a lot of extra thinking every time I'm installing anything. To pick how I'm going to install something, I have to solve the matrix of "what kind of distribution method do I prefer for this type of software" combined with "what distribution methods are available for this software" and "what versions are the available distribution methods for this software" and "what distribution method provides the best way for this software to get updates".
In the olden days, when the distro's package manager was the only choice, all I had to care about was "is it available in my distro" and the decision tree was complete. I appreciate all the availability of choice that things like AppImage provide, but it doesn't actually make it easier for me, it just makes it easier for the packager of the software. They're doing less, but making more work for me, as a user. Distro packages are a lot of work for the maintainer precisely because they at least make an effort to solve many of these issues for the user. The value-add that maintainers provide is real.
It doesn't sound like they're making more work for you. It sounds like you're making more work for yourself, and it sounds exhausting.
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Flatpak and SystemD Portable services are actually pretty good.
That's the direction I see Linux going. I personally use NixOS because I am sad.
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Are there enough watermarks on this meme? At least we got reddit covered.
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Nix is just across the street sipping tea because it understands what it is and is at peace with the chaotic world around it.
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Tar is not a package manager, it is just a packaging format. AppImage has the same problem.
Flatpak is a bit of a crappy package manager but at least it is one. And, due to its use of container technology, it allows the same packages to run on any Linux kernel (any Linux distro). That is pretty useful.
Of the other package managers, apk 3 is my favourite but the only distro that uses it is Chimera Linux. Pacman is good. dnf / RPM is ok. apt / deb is in last place for me. The recent Ubuntu 25.04 launch snafu illustrates some of the problems with apt. The first Linus Tech Tips Linux challenge really highlighted the dangers of apt.
I only used snap briefly but instantly hated it. Fstab was a mess. It was slow. It was proprietary. I fled before I could form an educated opinion.
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A stab at my personal ranking: .deb > appimage > flatpack > curling a shell script
I can't help but love a .deb file (even when not via repo), I've almost exclusively used Debian and it derivatives since the late 90s. And snap isn't on the list because it got stored in a loopback device I removed.
I just recently de-snapped yet another ubuntu system. Couldn't agree more. I use debian standard for all of my stuff, and I agree with your ranking.
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It's not about the package management method that we use. It's about the friends and enemies we made along the way (while arguing about package management.)
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AppImage is the no-nonsense universal package format.
AppImages have a lot of problems
Like not updating or shared dependencies duplicated for every single app image
Just use flatpak
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If flatpak didn't make me put the entirety of KDE onto my system (thats an exaggeration but you know what I mean) I'd gladly crown it king of the package managers.
Plus make it hell on earth to a) access drives other than the one flatpak is installed on, b) interoperate with non-flatpak applications, and c) retain any amount of free space on my drives (exaggeration for effect).
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I just want to point out the dependencies of Konsole (arguably a small and simple application in concept): glibc gcc-libs icu kbookmarks kcolorscheme kconfig kconfigwidgets kcoreaddons kcrash kdbusaddons kglobalaccel kguiaddons ki18n kiconthemes kio knewstuff knotifications knotifyconfig kparts kpty kservice ktextwidgets kwidgetsaddons kwindowsystem kxmlgui qt6-5compat qt6-base qt6-multimedia sh.
Psst .. the first KDE app you installed via your package manager also put "the entirety of KDE" onto your system.
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my issue with snaps is honestly just that they are controlled too much by just one entity (canonical) and there is no reason for them to exist because flatpak already does everything they do.
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Still don't know how I'm supposed to add dictionaries to FF on snap. So many little issues like this with snaps.
I have really started to like AppImage. You just download a single file make it executable and it just works.
I use Cursor for coding, and it has an appimage that replaces itself when it updates.
That's cool and all but it would be even cooler if you could just install and keep it updated through your package manager
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I tried a snap package on my pop-os system once & it poo'ed folders all over my system, then didn't actually uninstall when I uninstalled it.
No thank you.
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A rusty bucket riddled with holes and the stick part of a shovel is better than snap for running software.
Haha, I break snap a lot less than the others, and it took a bit to figure out the differences. Appimages are annoying af. Flatpaks are my favourite when there isn't a good old .deb. I recently broke Flatpak though so it's on my naughty list. Snap still chugging along for some reason, I just wish the permissions weren't so crazy strict (Nextcloud).
Speaking of all this, I realised I've accidentally installed some things twice. Is there a good way to list all the different package managers together to see what is duplicated?
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