this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
708 points (92.5% liked)

Linux

58775 readers
950 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] spookedintownsville@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago (9 children)

The issue I have with flatpaks is the size for most applications. It just doesn't make sense for me. Not that it's not useful and has it's purposes.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago (4 children)

IDK why you're being so rage baity. Its easy to avoid flatpaks if you dont like them. Only thing I've ever found as an obstacle was adding the binaries to my PATH so I can launch it with dmenu_run. Otherwise my package manager works well enough.

Bonus points: Write a PKGBUILD that installs flatpaks to /opt and symlink out binaries as needed.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Enter the calm and quiet room

Pass out torches and pitchforks, guns and knives

“Snaps exist”

War erupts.

[–] sudo@programming.dev 7 points 3 months ago
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

I'm not a huge fan of Flatpaks, they're a lot harder to distribute offline versus something like AppImage. Seriously, you have to like create an offline repository, then create a bundle, and it's like 6 or 7 steps, it's honestly kind of ridiculous lol but other than that they seem fine, and they're easy enough to update (but so are apt packages)

I know some people may say "oh why do you need that", but Linux has taught me that my computer is my own, and I should be able to use it the way I want to. I shouldn't have to fight with my package manager to get it to do what I want. So I guess you could say, no I'm not really a fan of Flatpaks.

Personally, I didn't mind Snaps, but I'm getting kind of really fed up with especially for-profit companies etc so I don't like Snap that much now either.

Apt packages are nice, but the more of them you have installed, especially if you're using Ubuntu-based distros and have lots of PPAs, the more annoying upgrading your distro version can be because of all the dependencies and cross-dependencies.

AppImage tends to just work for me, as long as it's not compiled with a newer libc-bin version than the distro I'm currently using has, and I really enjoy that it's just one file I can copy and run pretty much anywhere.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] The_Walkening@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I like the idea of them because I don't like dealing with dependencies changing and breaking stuff and I don't really care too much about disk space in the context of non-game desktop apps, as I don't tend to install lots of them.

That being said I absolutely hate that permissions are all over the place and flatpak doesn't ship a GUI to manage them by default, nor do you get any indication as to what permissions a program has until you try some functionality (like filesystem or camera access) only to find out it doesn't work out of the box.

[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

Cursed solution to a cursed problem 🤷

[–] MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

There was a few years where I pretty much only used Flatpaks because I was scared of the terminal. But now that I've learned how to use the terminal, it's so much more convenient because I can quickly update all my applications all in one place without having to open a separate app. Plus, some Flatpaks can fall really behind on software updates.

There might be a Linux userbase someday where no one other than developers actually knows how to use the terminal, because users can run everything they want without a command line, but maybe that's actually a good thing because it'll drive up how many people use a Linux distro.

With Windows and Mac, there's a shareholder incentive to enshittify. With Linux, if a distro goes bad and gets commercialized, there's always another distro people can move to, not to mention there's no financial incentive. The more people get on Linux, the less power these tech companies have. Personally, that and privacy are what drew me to Linux much more so than being able to tinker or fine-tune my experience.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ztwhixsemhwldvka@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I use SystemD binary Gentoo with Flatpaks. Sue me.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I need OBS on this new computer!

Let's install the flatpack!

V4l problems

Plugins Problems

Wayland Problems

I'm just going back to the .deb, thanks.

[–] csolisr@hub.azkware.net 10 points 3 months ago

Flatpak being securely sandboxed by default is both its biggest strength and its worst point of contention. The XDG is still scrambling to replicate the permission requests paradigm from Android on the Linux desktop.

[–] limelight79@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

I "grew up" with Slackware, so I definitely understand the dependency issue.

I like flatpaks (and similar) for certain "atomic" pieces of software, like makemkv. For more "basic" software, like, say, KDE, I want it installed natively.

[–] SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's a neat concept. The distro-agnostic aspect is definitely a plus for some people but I still distro-specific installation methods. The only time I would seek out the Flatpak version of a particular software is when it's the only version available.

[–] The_Grinch@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago

I don't like how so many distros ship with discover configured to install flatpaks by default. It's a huge newbie trap when you click "open file" and uh where are all my files?? You should only install a flatpak if the program is not available for your OS, or if the native version doesn't work for some reason.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›