Flatpaks are really outrageous in size...I have tried to use flatpaks for the past months but man o man....hundreds of MB for each package, takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection. The idea is great, but this is such a huge downside that I cannot see how it is going to make the flatpaks easier to use than normal packaging.
probably really depends on your usecase. For my slow internet connection, I really love how Flatpaks are an exception to the "partial upgrades are not supported" problem. Just because I need to install discord it does not mean that I want to do a 2,3GB update to my system, my friend is waiting for me.
I like these containerized apps but they are pain in the ass sometimes, really. However, this is future. Like it or not; Ubuntu is moving away from *.deb, more and more distros will act similarly. Just hope that Flatpak will win this fight and not Snap, and it will be fine...
@florke64 Why do you think native packages are going away? Especially when flatpaks has all these downsides like taking too much space and not respecting the user's theme or integrating well with the system. Flatpak is there as an option but you don't need to use it if you don't want to, I personally never use it and I'm fine..... 🤷 I'm not sure about Ubuntu tho 'cause I'm on Arch, but I'd be surprised if Debian ever gets rid of native packaging.
@futureisfoss @florke64 easy of use. Flatpaks are much easier to use for the average 'new to linux' user. Plus they actually have a proper permission system (flatseal) unlike native packages.
@thibaultmol @florke64 I'm not sure about ease of use because most GUI distros have a software center these days for installing native and flatpak apps - so both are easy now. The permission system is interesting and could have some privacy/security improvements, but this containerization can also create issues with theming and such. A friend of mine recently had issues with playing games on Bottles because of flatpak's sandboxing - so in certain situations it can get in your way.
@futureisfoss Interesting points. Inconveniences like theming are going to improve over time. Transition will happen gradually. I don't see Debian dropping *.deb support. However, I can imagine Debian shipping Flatpak applications.
There is a blog post doing the rounds asserting that Flatpak Is Not The Future. The post is really long, and it seems unlikely that I and the author will ever agree on this topic, so I’m only going to talk about a couple of paragraphs about disk usage and sharing of runtimes between apps which caught my eye. This is highly relevant to my day job because all apps on Endless OS are Flatpaks—for example, the English downloadable version has 58 Flatpak apps pre-installed, and 13 runtimes—and I’ve had and answered some of the same questions discussed in the post.
They claim that they deduplicate runtimes. I question how much can really be shared between different branches when everything is recompiled.
This question is really easy to answer using du, which does not double-count files which are hardlinked together. Let’s compare the 20.08 and 21.08 versions of the freedesktop runtime: wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08674M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08498M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08 /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08674M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08385M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08wjt@camille:~$ echo $(( 498 - 385 )) 113 113 MB (out of 498 MB for the smaller, more up-to-date 21.08 runtime) is shared between these two runtimes.
How about the GNOME 41 runtime, which is derived from the 21.08 freedesktop runtime? wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08 498M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41 715M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41wjt@camille:~$ du -sh /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08 /var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41498M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08327M/var/lib/flatpak/runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41wjt@camille:~$ echo $(( 715 - 327 )) 388 388 MB (out of 715 MB) of the GNOME 41 runtime is shared with the 21.08 runtime.
I can’t imagine what system updates will be like in the future when you have a few dozen apps storing tens of gigabytes of runtimes that all want to be kept up to date.
There is no need to imagine! I have 163 Flatpak apps on my Endless OS system. Let’s see how many runtimes I have, how big they are, and how many apps use each one: wjt@camille:~$ flatpak list --app --columns=runtime | sort | uniq -c | wc -l18wjt@camille:~$ flatpak list --app --columns=runtime | sort | uniq -c | sort -n 1 com.endlessm.apps.Platform/x86_64/6 1 org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/18.08 1 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.34 1 org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/41 1 org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.14 2 com.endlessm.Platform/x86_64/eos3.2 2 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.28 3 org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08 3 org.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/21.08 3 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.38 3 org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15-21.08 5 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.36 9 org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15 10 org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08 24 com.endlessm.apps.Platform/x86_64/5 28 org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08 30 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/40 36 org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41wjt@camille:~$ cd /var/lib/flatpak/runtime; flatpak list --app --columns=runtime | sort | uniq | xargs du -sh --total918Mcom.endlessm.apps.Platform/x86_64/5907Mcom.endlessm.apps.Platform/x86_64/62.0Gcom.endlessm.Platform/x86_64/eos3.2632Morg.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/18.08211Morg.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/19.08569Morg.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/20.08385Morg.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/21.08782Morg.freedesktop.Sdk/x86_64/21.0826Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.28329Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.34264Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.36263Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.38198Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/40277Morg.gnome.Platform/x86_64/41264Morg.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/41436Morg.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.14231Morg.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15215Morg.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.15-21.088.7Gtotal I have 18 runtimes, totalling 8.7 GB of storage (deduplicated), not “tens of gigabytes”. The top 5 most-used runtimes on my system cover 128 of the 163 apps. (I am ignoring the .Locale extensions of each runtime: the English and French translations of the 21.08 runtime total 17 MB, compared to 498 MB for the runtime itself, so I think this is a reasonable simplification for rough numbers.) As for updates? GNOME Software applies them automatically and silently. I don’t think about them at all.
People may disagree about whether the numbers above are large or small, compared to the upsides that Flatpak does or does not bring. But the numbers themselves are readily accessible, as is much of the past and ongoing work that has gone into making them as small/large as they are.
Personally, I think the trade-off is absolutely worth it for me and for Endless OS users, particularly since going all-in on Flatpak means that the base, immutable Endless OS install is just 4.2 GB. Of course there is room for improvement, and years ago I wrote a quick hack to help study exactly which files would ideally be shared between two runtimes but are not. At the time, the primary cause was non-reproducible builds. Since then, the Flatpak ecosystem has moved over to Buildstream which should help a lot, though I haven’t rerun the experiments except for what you see above. Automated statistics about apps using obsolete runtimes might be useful for the Flathub community, as might automated runtime updates, and some further work on understanding if and how the derived runtimes (GNOME & KDE) could share more with the freedesktop runtime version they are based on. And, would widespread use of filesystems that support block-level deduplication (like btrfs) help?
A lot of those sizes are a worse case scenario. If you have shared requirements with other installed apps, flatpak will deduplacate requirement and save space.
Sometimes it is just bad packagers not cleaning up the builds. I package with flatpak, mainly legacy applications, and mine never usually get that explosive in size. Chromium is about 350MB installed with apt.
I don't understand what is the point of releasing an IDE via #flatpak, when that flatpak doesn't include all the necessary dev tools, and it can't access the ones outside its sandboxing. Honestly. What's the point? I'm looking at you, #Geany.
Personally, I can't stand flatpaks or #snap. #Appimage is nicer just because it's just one delete away from within the file manager and doesn't leave crumbs everywhere. But overall, I prefer #apt, and #dnf.
FYI each Flatpak app is like a Git repo and an update just downloads the files that actually changed. The files of all installed apps are stored together in a content-addressable storage, then hardlinked one or more times to form each app.
OSTree-based host OSs like Fedora Atomic work in the same way and hopefully in the future the files will be shared between the host OS and Flatpak apps too.
When you install a Flatpak, it will need runtimes (GNOME, KDE, Freedesktop...). These are the ones that really take up disk space. But the good news is that it looks big if you install just one Flatpak application, but the more you install, the more they'll use the same runtimes already installed, and the less disk space they'll occupy.
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...
How come on my system it had to download 4-5GB? And yes I use many flatpaks but that didn't seem to help. And this is not the first time am seeing these massive downloads.
And if your package manager doesn't do it automatically, you can also use this command to uninstall old runtimes you no longer need: flatpak uninstall --unused
@0xd9a flatpak had to install most system libraries because it uses nothing from the host system (even the nvidia driver libs), but once it's installed, when an update is required it only update the files that changed since previous version, most update are very small compared to regular packages.
flatpak also provides some sandboxing (most of the time, this depends on the program and how it was packaged), which is great from a security point of view
"takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection"? huh?... you're on gigabit internet and it's taking forever? honestly that's not possible... Are you sure you have gigabit internet? or do you mean that your lan port is a gigabit port?..
I use flatpaks and it's really not that big of a deal (plus it happens in the background anyone, so most people will pretty never notice it)
Yes I know very well what connection I have but since it has to download around 4-5 GB in that case, it takes a long long time. It depends the server where it is pulling these updates from I guess.... Maybe that particular package is worse than other flatpaks, but I have noticed this issue with long download times and huge download sizes on multiple computers and multiple flatpaks.
definitely it's outrageous. it's that way by design. personal example: i don't run KDE but wanted to try okular, and ran the heck away and removed it when i saw it had installed 48,954 files at a cost of 820MB. this is just ridiculous...for a friggin' PDF reader?
Although I don't use Plasma, I use XFCE with TROMjaro, I congratulate KDE for this release and the work they've done over the years. XFCE, KDE, and the like, are not competitors, but diversity in choices. That's how we should operate as a society, do not compete, but collaborate and create diversity. So I like to use XFCE, but others prefer KDE, and some others Gnome, and so forth. Nice! We are all happy! #opensource #foss #kde #plasma #linux
Plasma 6.0 has been released. Check out the new overview, improved colour management, a cleaner theme, more effects, better overall performance, and much more.
KDE is an open community of friendly people who want to create a world in which everyone has control over their digital life and enjoys freedom and privacy.
100% agree, brother! I personally like #Plasma the most out of all DE's, but as you said, it is just a matter of choice, but I actually embrace that all the projects may provide something unique and pleasing to everyone and that should not be a matter for the competition at all.
I also admire #KDE as a community of Humans with a pure drive to deliver not only completely free desktop environment, but a huge pack of outstanding #free-software (which is a #KDEGear and a part of that #MegaRelease6), including #Krita, #kdenlive, #Gwenview and many many others.. And all of that is completely free to use, awesomeness ☺️
If, whoever is reading this, you are already using #kde-software or just share the cause, you may consider helping the community by becoming a member with a donation or, if you like, just join and contribute to the software, report bugs, translate documentation and many more!
@esh ...after over 3 decades of psychological stress from broken and inflexible 🪟s, we switched last year to #linux on all our machines, pcs, laptops and servers. And since then we came across the #kde #plasma experience and still ask how we didn't do it sooner! Definitely 👍 to the KDE Plasma team for such wonderful and beautifully constructed OS environment!
Btw, guys are throwing parties all around the world to celebrate 🥳 A lot of contributors are actually from Spain, so there's a Barcelona gig as well 😜 Stop by if you want to meet some decent Humans 😌
We know each other and we are like brothers :). Thanks for defending me, in a way, but just so you know @Roma and I are very good friends. And to be honest I would not be offended at all if anyone would call me a she or whatever. In the end we are all humans and that's what it matters.
I've actually never heard of TROM-Jaro, but it looks fairly interesting! Particularly the bit about automatic backups, which gives me #opensuse #tumbleweed vibes
Well in fact TROMjaro is a distro I started and currently maintain together with a few friends like @Roma and @Rokosun - it is based on Manjaro but has many tweaks added to it to make it stable, reliable, and easier to use. Like we enable the chaotic aur + flatpaks from the get-go. That together with Manjaro's repos and AUR, means that you get access to all of the Linux applications from one single place.
We have our own Layout and Theme switcher apps, and a lot more. See the website https://www.tromjaro.com/
A Trade-Free operating system based on Manjaro Linux Designed for your brain, but you can install it on a computer.No more ads and trackers consuming you, no ‘free’ trials, noContinue readingHOME
A Trade-Free operating system based on Manjaro Linux Designed for your brain, but you can install it on a computer.No more ads and trackers consuming you, no ‘free’ trials, no …
Non taken! Was not my intention of course to insult you or anyone, rather than show an agreement with my good friend. I am actually very happy to see that women are also using #Linux / #foss ☺️
The competition to FLOSS desktop projects will always be proprietary desktop providers. The creators of Windows and macOS, who seek to abuse users, lock them inside walled gardens and pollute their environment with forced hardware upgrades and deliberately faulty and inefficient software.
Even as a long time Plasma user, I cannot but admire #XFCE and its developers who strive to pack all those features into the lightest desktop possible.
TROMjaro Layout Switcher revamp In this release we are bringing the new TROMjaro Layout Switcher. @rokosun rewrote the entire application in the Nim programming language with use of owlkettle library for GTK.
Is there a way to force a system upgrade to the current ISO version? sudo pamac upgrade gave me the updated Layout Switcher, but nothing else covered in your article.
This is a rolling release so no need to upgrade to any new version, you'll get the right updates directly to your system. The other changes are not that important I'd say and can be easily done by anyone who reads the release notes. Like in this release we replaced some default apps and I linked to the ones that we replaced so you can simply install them. But that's all.
So I replaced SMplayer with Celluloid, Gnome Usage with Resources, GUV with Cameractrls, and qTox with Jami. It is very very rare that we replace our default apps. So no, you do not have to do anything other than keeping your system updated and install whatever apps you want form the ones we replaced.
Zaphod Beeblebrox :verifiedbi:
in reply to Tio • • •Florke×64 🏴☠️
in reply to Tio • • •Rokosun
in reply to Florke×64 🏴☠️ • • •Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
in reply to Rokosun • • •Rokosun
in reply to Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝 • • •Florke×64 🏴☠️
in reply to Rokosun • • •Rokosun
in reply to Florke×64 🏴☠️ • • •Okki
in reply to Tio • • •https://blogs.gnome.org/wjjt/2021/11/24/on-flatpak-disk-usage-and-deduplication/
Will Thompson
2021-11-24 12:20:05
https://blogs.gnome.org/wjjt/2021/11/24/on-flatpak-disk-usage-and-deduplication/
Will Thompson
2021-11-24 12:20:05
Hydrian
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Hydrian • •Hydrian
in reply to Tio • • •Karl R
in reply to Hydrian • • •@hydrian That's a neat theory, but in practice Murphy's law applies and every version of a given library eventually gets pulled in.
Talking with the Flatpak faithful feels similar to talking with crypto bros.
crypto -> "We have a complete record of transactions that will solve all monetary problems!"
flatpak -> "We have a complete graph of dependencies that will solve all software deployment problems!"
Here's a thread with some more numbers of how bad this is:
https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/112140041371297026
@hydrian That's a neat theory, but in practice Murphy's law applies and every version of a given library eventually gets pulled in.
Talking with the Flatpak faithful feels similar to talking with crypto bros.
crypto -> "We have a complete record of transactions that will solve all monetary problems!"
flatpak -> "We have a complete graph of dependencies that will solve all software deployment problems!"
Here's a thread with some more numbers of how bad this is:
https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/112140041371297026
Eugenia L
2024-03-22 15:27:16
Hydrian
in reply to Karl R • • •Alex L 🕊 🇵🇸
in reply to Tio • • •FYI each Flatpak app is like a Git repo and an update just downloads the files that actually changed. The files of all installed apps are stored together in a content-addressable storage, then hardlinked one or more times to form each app.
OSTree-based host OSs like Fedora Atomic work in the same way and hopefully in the future the files will be shared between the host OS and Flatpak apps too.
Okki
in reply to Tio • • •When you install a Flatpak, it will need runtimes (GNOME, KDE, Freedesktop...). These are the ones that really take up disk space. But the good news is that it looks big if you install just one Flatpak application, but the more you install, the more they'll use the same runtimes already installed, and the less disk space they'll occupy.
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...
Tio
in reply to Okki • •How come on my system it had to download 4-5GB? And yes I use many flatpaks but that didn't seem to help. And this is not the first time am seeing these massive downloads.
Okki
in reply to Tio • • •Tio likes this.
Okki
in reply to Okki • • •Tio likes this.
0xd9a 🏴☠️️
in reply to Tio • • •This local cache thing by @solene can help a lot, if you have multiple computers that use Flatpak :)
https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2023-04-05-lan-cache-flatpak.html
Solene'% : How to setup a local network cache for Flatpak
Solene's Percent %Solène :flan_hacker:
in reply to 0xd9a 🏴☠️️ • • •@0xd9a flatpak had to install most system libraries because it uses nothing from the host system (even the nvidia driver libs), but once it's installed, when an update is required it only update the files that changed since previous version, most update are very small compared to regular packages.
flatpak also provides some sandboxing (most of the time, this depends on the program and how it was packaged), which is great from a security point of view
Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
in reply to Tio • • •"takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection"? huh?... you're on gigabit internet and it's taking forever? honestly that's not possible... Are you sure you have gigabit internet? or do you mean that your lan port is a gigabit port?..
I use flatpaks and it's really not that big of a deal (plus it happens in the background anyone, so most people will pretty never notice it)
Tio
in reply to Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝 • •lerudd
in reply to Tio • • •