App Images do suck, but I don't think flatpak is much better. It's more of a lesser of two evils situation. Snap isn't even in the conversation.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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AppImages as a universal packaging format seem fun in that I've had loads of issues getting them to run properly on different systems. I'm sure they're handy for some stuff but haven't personally enjoyed them.
Feather Wallet is a great example of AppImages done right
Needed to have zulip to talk about a bug, the AUR package was a pain to debug, the appimage in ~/.local/bin just works™.
Why do I hear the argument about no .desktop entries in every thread like this? Creating a .desktop file is a requirement for the appimage creation tools to work, and appimaged installs it in the system menu immediately. It's seamless.
I think appimages are this popular because of tauri
Flatpak is bloated monster that has no idea how much it has to download to update. I'll take AppImage over flatpak if I can.
Eh, I've always felt these solutions are complementary, or supplementary, rather than a "versus". Each one, in particular cases, covers gaps the others can't cover. The only one that's unneeded is Snap.
For example, I like Flatpak. I like that I can get software from an authorized hub, much like with a package manager. I like that the releases of the apps in the hub are mostly well documented.
But no matter how nice Flatpak seems to be, its overreliance on "portals" and "buses" and "seals" comes associated with trying to over-engineerize my system too much for its own good. Every app I have ever tried on Flatpak, for example, doesn't support audio, apparently because I have the godly, eternal, battle-tested ALSA and not the manchild's crap that is PulseAudio. But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way to do audio on Linux, I'm ~~supposed~~ expected to have it. What's next? systemd-flatpakd?
OTOH, I picked up the AppImage for Freetube and not only do I get audio but it loads and runs noticeably faster than the Flatpak version. And since it's an official release I know where can I trustably get an update from. Literally no downsides!
But I sure as hell am not going to go for an AppImage for an app from which I expect more integration with my desktop activity, such as say a code editor or an advanced image / model viewer. Not if I can help it. Because I am going to be expecting to be able to stuff like drag and drop, have a correct tray icon, etc.
So that means I have to keep an eye on both solutions.
Hey, at least I'm avoiding Snap!
~~Now if there's an AppImage for Steam somewhere.... maybe...~~
You got me in the first part XD
No joking, apart from that
But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way
I think I understand your point.
Pulseaudio is outdated, Pipewire AND Pulseaudio are now needed. Maybe also just Pipewire, and you can somehow fake Pulseaudio?
I never used a system without Pulseaudio, and Fedora has both (?) Or just Pipewire.
Pulseaudio is the old stuff that apps want to use, pipewire is the new cool stuff (I recommend qpwgraph) which allows like everything.
Aaand it is not overcomplicated, it isolated apps and introduces a permission system. Privileged programs that channel the requests and permissions, and sometimes need user interaction. Its actually less chaotic, the problem simply is that Flatpak ALSO tries to run all apps everywhere. And apps are mostly not up to date, so Flatpaks have randomly poked holes everywhere.
Today I worked on hardening configs for my apps. I maintain a list of recommended ones here. I will just put my overrides in my (currently still private) dotfiles, will upload them some day.
I am for example now Wayland only. Not all apps want to, but with the correct env vars (which I just globally set for all flatpaks, hoping it will not mess with anything), all apps use it.
This makes the system way faster, and applying different vars on the apps is very easy with Flatpak.
Literally no downsides!
Not true. It still has no updating mechanism, the binary may be official, but the rest are random libraries that may not be well versioned or controlled, etc etc.
The post is specifically about upstream supported Appimages, while Flathub is mainly maintained by the same 4 peolple (it is crazy). The request is for upstream devs to maintain Flatpaks.
But for sure not everything is nice. Runtimes are too huge, outdated apps cause huge library garbage, downloads are inefficient, ...