I use flatpak and app images for different uses.
App images are like portable exe files for onetime use apps. Like Rufus
Flatpaks are like installable exes from the devs website. Used for apps I want to used and use again on my machine.
i dont believe a single person in this post
Good for you?
AppImages are completely different thing versus Flatpak and Snap.
I use Appimage and flatpack, but not snaps.
I’m not sure why you reply this to me directly.
Do tell… genuine question, what would you consider 2 significant differeces?
Flatpak is a central repository where an application is installed in a sandbox and cached. It can be updated from that central repository.
Snap is a mounted filesystem containing a repository and is stored locally. It is not sandboxed. It cannot be updated in part but is overwritten in whole. It is distributed by individual app maintainers, not a centralized repository.
I prefer appimages, it feels much more “open” than flatpak ever will.
Flatpak: install flatpost and flatseal.
Appimage: Download appimaged appimage to ~\Applications and run once.
then
Flatpak: Go to site for cool software I heard of, see it’s flatpak with a link on the page. Click link, wait for flatpost to open, wait for flatpost to update repos, get cool software and possibly another copy of mesa and gnome compat stuff, then head to flatseal to fix drive/device permissions as needed.
Appimage: Go to site for cool software I heard of, see it’s an appimage, download said appimage to ~\Applications, appimaged automatically loads in a desktop entry and we’re done.
As far as updates, all the appimages that are in active development that I use, offer auto-updating when I open them, plus I’m not reliant on a centrally-controlled repo of the packages (which if it dies, takes all updates with it).
I feel appimage would be an easier adoption for people fresh to linux, as it follows the same model as windows or macos (download executable, install app), even for the initial setup of appimaged.
And either way, there’s no “winner” here, if we’re playing that game, native installs still win. Every distro supports (and uses) those by default, except for ubuntu, who has money on pushing snaps.
native install wins
If you’re not using Arch, native install typically means outdated version.
For example all Ubuntu 24.04 based distros like PopOS and Mint ship neovim 0.9 from 2023! 0.11 is the current version. What’s the reason to keep a package that’s not part of the core functionality of the operating system on such an ancient version?
Snaps are kind of the right idea. Provide a stable base system with current version user apps. It’s just not well implemented.
Turns out I came here to say the same thing as everyone.
AppImages are not in the same competition.
They have different uses and you would mostly not find out how many people are using them due to their nature of being very useful offline.I used to hate AppImages until I had Snap forced on me. Then i thought AppImages weren’t so bad and I fled Snap by running straight into the arms of Flatpak
We heavily prefer flat earthers aks but app images aren’t that bad, like someone else said they’re like portable programs
app images need to not be called app images. first time seeing it it sounds like some macos thing. but even still I don’t see why they get compared so much to flatpak and snap when they are completely different.
They serve the same purpose: Install software, that’s not in your distro‘s repository.
As a professional nix shill, I can proudly tell you every flatpak I ever wanted to use is packaged in nixpkgs
Agreed, much prefer running apps via nix. Although I did have to fall back to flatpak install the
bottles, but that is a bit of a special case where the software explicitly requires itself to be sandboxed or behaves less as expected otherwise.
hard disagree I much prefer appimages over flatpaks.
Is this @pizzalovingnerd ? He looks just like him
Long time linux user and I have a hard time keeping track of the differences between these 3 tech. This comparison did not help much. I can only imagine how lost people with less experience must feel.
Doesn’t Ubuntu still ship with Snap? I don’t think Flatpak trumps that yet. It’s hard to say one of the other formats won when Canonical (or Fedora derivatives in the case of Flatpak) still mainline something else.
Cool… if they won, is there now some money to invest in infrastructure or personal to prevent flatpak fuckups?
In light of recent events I’m referencing bullshit like just uninstalling nvidia drivers as part of a messed up upgrade. And the fact that they finally solved it yesterday resulting in download speeds of ~5kb/s for a 100+mb file because everyone and their grandma tried to finally fix their systems at the same time.
But what about ubuntu servers, where snaps actually make sense?
That sounds even worse. snapd will just randomly “upgrade” and break shit. That’s a headache on a desktop, but a total disaster on a server.
All three are ridiculous. In what world should every application take two gigabytes of disk?
In a world where two gigabytes are cheap and software and dependencies complicated