For context: I habe a PC with an 8gb SSD and I somehow need to get an app on there that only has a flatpak release
btrfs compression and dedupe. Saves a lot of space
Compile it yourself?
Instructions unclear. Cmake ninja tool chain uses another 8gb and still get compile errors
Compile it yourself.
It works for the programs you already know, but compiling something just to look if it is what you need – a pleasure far below the median.
Use the flatpak and see if you like it, then compile it yourself.
I habe a PC with an 8gb SSD
Are you using a first gen eeePC?
I think I bought one of those for 40€, 12 years ago.Man I miss the netbooks! Loved my Mini 9
I put OSX on mine. A $200 Macbook mini was a cool project and a neat conversation piece.
Are you me? I hackintoshed mine too for a while! Was still alternating between OSX and Linux at the time.
Thirded on the hackentosh.
I can neither confirm nor deny I got my hands on one years later and flipped it on fleBay with the Mac OS on it.
I wish I had moved to Linux sooner. I was in IT at the time and only saw windows and OSX in the wild. Servers were all windows except for one xserve. I still to this day have no idea what that server did for that customer. My only real experience with Linux at that time was FreePBX when setting up phone systems for offices.
In an alternate universe, phones with a fold-out hardware keyboard and full Linux OS are common.
And you can just plug them into a docking station to get a full PC.That alternate universe is this one in 2009… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900
Its a Fujitsu futro s920, got it off ebay
Skelly is rapidly approaching your location.
tl;dr: some applications (like Bottles) are designed to run only in sandboxed environments. Flatpak is a robust way to ensure that an application has the correct dependencies and conditions for proper functionality.
I actually like flatpak. The only issues I have are with GTK apps which I try not to use anymore.
What after those issues?
For me trying to make GTK softwares to looks consistent with everything else is always a pain in the ass, and don’t get me started on different GTK version themes aren’t compatible with each other, so a GTK3 software doesn’t even looks the same with another GTK software just because it use GTK4.
Not using the Breeze theme even when it is applied for GTK apps. The cursor being way too big on libadwaita apps. Supposedly that last one will be fixed very soon.
Just build from source
Flatpak is only useful in distros that lack few packages
Storage is cheap, I don’t care at all as long as I can easily install it without having to go online to search for missing dependencies in the correct version.
My only problem with Flatpak was when I tried to install an IDE and made it use Podman or Docker and the container thingy caused problems.
“x is cheap” is not the greatest take imo. it’s cheap until you just so happen to not be able to afford it. what now? better give me an income for the price in storage. not talking about flatpak specifically.
flatpak install/update <package name> --no-relatedthere problem solved
8GB SSD
There’s your problem. The last time 8GB was plenty was in 1998.
Are they booting of an SD card? Mabey is a Pi or WiFi router?
Even cheap SD cards are larger these days. The smallest SSD you can buy in the UK right now is 250GB.
Amazon sells 24 GB ones…
No need to hate on someone for their hardware.
Reading through the comments here, the Linux community slowly seems move away from “runs on about every piece of hardware you can think of” to “if you don’t have at least the Nimbus 2000 that’s on you, sucker!”
Yup. Those 64 GB SSDs many retailers put into cheap laptops already come dangerously close to violating the Geneva Convention. 8GB is just stupid, even for a Linux system.
Yeah flatpak won’t work on my Nokia 3310 either, what a shit software…
Or alternatively… crzyshrtct was not found on your host, but is required, daddy. Please install it to be able to use the software.
Everyone brazenly saying Flatpak is the best install package management system has stockholm syndrome.
Agreed. Snap is. It can do desktop and system components.
I miss the days when packages were only available as deb or tar.gz
I don’t : )
Me neither, I really like the usability of flatpak
It is the best one for people that don’t know a lot about linux. Many people are at a loss when they read basic errors like
fatal error: <header>.h: No such file or directoryorld: cannot find -l<library>. Flatpak solves a lot of that by specifically including all of it in the installation.So ye, for non-power users, flatpak is the best package manager. It also has only one downside, which is the increased storage requirement for apps as they have to bring all of their dependencies themselves, which is okay these days as storage isn’t that expensive anymore.
And everything is better than fucking snap if we’re honest for a second.
I really don’t understand the flatpak hate. Stuff doesn’t magically work across distros, and app devs don’t usually want to debug every major one. If you’re running linux on a thinkpad from 2004, sure, it wouldn’t be the best but most people can probably afford the overhead.
Linux people tend to have very strong opinions lol. I don’t get the hate either, but I do understand why people dislike the thought of having the same library lying around multiple times. I am one of those “purists”, but that’s why I compile most things from source
People bitching about Flatpaks don’t understand that they have dedupe built in. You’re literally not using any more space and it’s easier for app developers to deploy.
Try using Snaps sometime, if you want something to actually bitch about.
Like many have said, can you build it yourself?
Flatpaks have their uses, and for many people they’re a great system that solves a situation well enough and with great convenience. For other situations, flatpaks are an ugly hack. I think we just have to accept that devs will not always package or tailor their software for all situations (electron apps, anyone?!), but at least in the FOSS world you can usually compile yourself if you need to.
