Flathub has passed 2 billion downloads

As a newer Linux user I really like flatpaks.

I don't use them for most things I install but proprietary apps I want sandboxed or programs that have weird issues with dependencies I grab the flatpak.

For me on Arch, Flatpaks are kinda useless. I can maybe see the appeal for other distros but Arch already has up-to-date versions of everything and anything that's missing from the main repos is in the AUR.

I also don't like how it's a separate package manager, they take up more space, and to run things from the CLI it's flatpak run com.website.Something instead of just something. It's super cumbersome compared to using normal packages.

Lemmy (and phoronix) people are generally extremely repelled by new stuff in the Linux world

Agreed, flatpaks are great for desktop apps. I use Nix for the majority of my packages, but I use flatpak for proprietary for the sandboxing.

Yeah, they could have applied a logarithm or something.

I think they count every download of every package, every version, every time. It's not the number of unique users or even packages.

If you install 3 apps you might need to download 3 versions of graphics driver, 3 versions of desktop environment libraries and so on, It won't count as one user installing 3 apps, it will show up as 10 -20 downloads. And that's just the initial install, every time you update them it counts another 10-20.

It could be simple download requests, rather than MAC or IP address downloads.

It is per download not per person.

relevant xkcd

https://xkcd.com/1138/

looks at India and China

I'm not seeing it.

Honestly I would prefer to just donate

Right? "Oh look, country with huge population has more downloads than country with small population!"

Flatpak is a universal application packaging standard for Linux. It allows devs to create a single application that gets bundled with all necessary dependencies including versioning.

These apps run in their own semi-isolated "container" which makes immutable distros possible. (Distros like Fedora Silverblue that are effectively impossible to break by installing or removing critical system files.)

This means that a Linux app doesn't have to have a .deb version, an .rpm version, or be pre-compiled for any other distros. A user can simply go to Flathub, (the main repository for Flatpak apps), download the flatpak, and install it on their distro of choice.

It's quickly becoming the most popular way for users to install apps on Linux because it's so easy and quick. But there are a few downsides like size on disk, first party verification, per-distro optimizations, and the centralization of application sources. That's why some users aren't fully endorsing or embracing how popular they are becoming.

Was controversial when it was new and full of problems. Now it is mostly the standard for apps.

Most of the issue is that they're unreliable. Sometimes the app will work. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you have to fiddle blindly with flatseal settings, which ones? Who knows? Guessing is part of the fun.

It'd be a great thing if it just worked.

I don't hate flatpaks, but flatpaks require more disk space than the same apps from traditional repositories, and they only support a handful of the most common default themes. Since I only ever use older and slower computers, my disk space is limited, and I like to rice my desktop, I personally avoid them. But your use-case may differ.

yes it's cross distro, it's controversial becaune some people don't want to install apps with their own libraries or dependecies, and some apps are not oficial so they break with the flatpak sandbox

Flatpak is the best - thats all you need to know!!!!

But seriously, apart from obvious things other people have said, I would like to add that the HUGE advantage of flatpak is that each app is using its own dependencies, this way you can avoid dependency hell, which is mostly time-consuming and hard to fix.

I have like 20 flatpak software products running without any problem for 2 years now.

Your system might be messed up

Here only the core OS and the basic part of the DE is from the Linux repository. The rest are all flatpaks.

I’m gonna be honest I’ve never had a flatpak version of something ever work properly.

As someone once involved with OS Security, I beg you not to use FlatPaks.

In that case you should use user-install flatpaks and separating and reusing your /home partition

I'm sorry

Another alternative is distrobox and bedrock linux.

Offline/internal network installs can be handled with flatpak create-usb - https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/usb-drives.html

One can distribute flatpaks along with their dependencies on USB drives (or network shares, etc.) which is especially helpful in situations where Internet access is limited or non-existent.

Cache/mirroring would be great for those who need it.

Edit:

Thinking about it, I wonder if there's enough "core features" with 'create-usb' that its just matter of scripting something together to intercept requests, auto-create-usb what's being requested and then serve the package locally? If a whole mirror is required, it may be possible to iterate over all flathub packages and 'create-usb' the entire repo to have a local cache/mirror? Just thinking "out loud".

Flatpaks are not centralized, Flathub is. You can have your own repo.

You absolutely can as Flatpak can run completely local. You can create a custom repo if you want.

Flatpak "containerizes" the program, which makes it more secure and less able to accidentally mess up other programs. Fuck if I know how it works.

Also you don't have to type in your password every time you want to update the program, so that's nice.

Honestly, you don't have to worry about what others say, you should use what works best for you. Personally I find them to be nice and comfortable to use, myself 😅

I'll add upon what others have said here, for me the main downside is the size they take on disk since they don't really share dependencies (they do but not as efficiently as native or nix packages) so they take a lot of room and take a while to update. Otherwise they're amazing IMO and you should use them! :)

Thing is, if your flatpak software needs something not in its container, it gets a little complicated, because first you have to realise what exactly the problem is and secondly you have to use something like flatseal to give it access to wathever it needs to work (no real help there)

So this was what took me back to pacman (or better said yay)

Good is relative tbf. I've had issues installing something natively while installing flatpak just worked

Sure yeah but its what we have. I'm personally rooting for nixpkgs but they might be too complicated to setup for the average Joe.

Why don't you open an feature request on their git if you have an issue with volunteer work.

It's funny thinking this guy uses a distro package manager potentially with unofficial patches applied to the package.

I mean it is still miles ahead of snaps and the snap store

You could say that with any program distribution. At least flatpaks are containerised.

I imagine the largest mobile phone operating system on the planet has a few more downloads than one of the several available package managers for the comparatively very small desktop Linux audience, yeah. This is the Linux community, not the Android or Google community, so I'm not sure what you're yapping away about or why.

edit: i wanted to know how many devices run android and according to this it's three billion so you're wrong anyway lmao

Flathub is not the entirety of Free World, just a little small slice of the pie. You can say Flathub is quite centralized. But our Free World have so much more. Every country will have a certain focus of what is freely available. It's an optional server and package format. You are free to install it or use another free package. Nothing crazy here.

Touche. Centralized and un-mirrorable.