I’ve been involved with Linux for a long time, and Flatpak almost seems too good to be true:
Just install any app on any distro, isolated from the base system and with granular rights management. I’ve just set up my first flatpak-centric system and didn’t notice any issues with it at all, apart from a 1-second waiting time before an app is launched.
What’s your long-term experience?
Notice any annoying bugs or instabilities? Do apps crash a lot? Disappear from Flathub or are unmaintained? Do you often have issues with apps that don’t integrate well with your native system? Are important apps missing?
I don’t like it. Updating dependencies in case of security problems is impossible, I have to wait for the developer to release an update. Also, it wastes a lot of space. Pollutes
df
output. App startup is slooow.Just use the native packaging system! There is no reason software can’t be released using that.
Wdym by
df
pollution? That’s the case with snap, not flatpakThere’s a pretty simple reason. It’s that developers don’t have to spend the time to package for every single distro. I know I wouldn’t, I’d just focus on packaging for the distro that I use and flatpak. Having flatpak also means that some less known distros start with a big amount of apps available from the get go with flatpak.