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
Yeah flatpak won’t work on my Nokia 3310 either, what a shit software…
Edit: if you upvoted this comment, your kneecaps pop when you pick up things from the ground
I hate it when people want to hate on something, yet get the platform or alternatively the proposition wrong. Because you will release stuff as a Flatpak and possibly on Flathub.
Flatpak is only useful in distros that lack few packages
Void Linux is the Definition of „lacks a few packages”
I agree
Yes absolutely true, but also no.
https://gitlab.com/TheEvilSkeleton/flatpak-dedup-checker
For me it is 32GB of data with deduplication, and only like 25GB with BTRFS compression.
So while still way too much, not really a problem if you have a reasonable 50mbits+ internet connection and a 200GB+ SSD
There should still be waay more force. There should only be one runtime (FDO) and KDE and GNOME being extensions to that. Not sure if these perfectly dedupe though
Those figures are larger than the total storage usage on my work computer, with every tools installed and repositories cloned locally. I know that large storage are way more accessible, but it still sounds crazy to take so much space.
The only way I can go over that is by installing npm dependencies in every source tree, which is also a thing that really should be improved.
I liked Snaps and Flatpaks fine when I first started using Linux, and the distro I was on treated them the same as software in the repo, but I eventually started to avoid them because of the space they take up, and because I got tired of constantly having to mess around with permissions to try to get things working. Now, if something isn’t available in rpm, I use AppImage or a tarball, or compile it myself.
- rpm: signed payload and manifest with signatures in bill of materials that integrates and coordinates with system db and allows enterprise content review and validation at every step and/or easy back-out.
- flatpack/app image - none of these.
Anyone interested in build, security, deployment, should have issue with that. But look at its corp champions and discover their motive.
Very true! Good points.
Build it from source them.
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?
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.
If I ever have to use a laptop with 64GB of space, I’m following the Geneva Checklist :3
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!”
Gotta run FFMMLXIV at 94fps and 173hz @3890x2669 resolution otherwise you’re betraying the “Linux is the best gaming OS” movement we’ve all sworn fealty to.
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…
Oh really? Wow! Still 3x more than 8GB though :)
Yeah, TinyCore Linux needs 16GB I think. 8GB you might run BusyBox or something
flatpak install/update <package name> --no-relatedthere problem solved
you probably have thrice that in your yay/paru or emerge cache
i know what you are.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Compile it yourself?
Instructions unclear. Cmake ninja tool chain uses another 8gb and still get compile errors
Compile it yourself.
Why the hell do you only have 8GB? Are you trying to install flatpaks on a smart fridge?
Sort of, actually
I was trying to build a PC just to play internet radio on using Shortwave, and a 30€ thin client with 4 1,5Ghz cores and no active cooling, 4 gigs of ram and an 8gb ssd were more than enough for that
I didn’t even know ssd’s(nuts) that small existed
I just want you to know, I appreciated your deez nuts joke.
It was subtle. It was well-done. Roasted, even.
Maybe it’s an eMMC chip on an embedded device?
For your use case, building from source might be more practical.
look into NixOS! there might already be a package for it. and NixOS can be very good about not duplicating dependencies.
I had a 200 gb ssd on my laptop and kept running out of space because all the old generations from nixos,
nix collect-garbage, comrade! there’s also another command to clean up older generations. if you’re using git to version your nix config, you only really need to keep two generations: the current, and your last successful boot, since you can recover by git checkout.
TONS OF SAME STUFF
every time:
downloads a different version of KDE from 2014
Personally I do like the ideas behind Snap/Flatpak. I think the sandboxing is a huge deal and will improve security going forward.
In a world where space is usually the cheapest and most available hardware on a PC, I tend to agree. That being said, it’s the kind of solution that comes from engineers who put the onus on the hardware to make up for their shitty software. Engineers like me.
Yeah. Someone has to put in the work for packaging an application if you want it as a .deb/.rpm etc. package and deal with any bugs that might come up, and it’s not going to be me (speaking as a user, not a developer).
That said, I also painted myself into a corner when it comes to harddrive space. LUKS can be complicated, man …
In a world where space is usually the cheapest and most available hardware on a PC
I read this in the movie trailer guy’s voice
Lots of people seem to like it. I also use it for like 2 or 3 desktop apps, but it’s alao littering my filesystem with gigabytes of runtimes. And I believe I can salely remove Skype now…
Who likes having their hard drive space wasted?
People who like having fine-grained security controls over their apps?
And the only possible way to have that is to burn through disk space?
As far as I know, yes. You tell me the alternative if you’ve got it.
If all you’ve got against Flatpak is it uses more storage, then I don’t know what to tell you. I have a 1TB drive that cost $80 and my GNOME system with 106 flatpaks uses just under 7%. The original post claiming 2TB is absurd.
I like flatpaks when they come from the developer. They are often more stable, up-to-date and complete than those from OS repositories.
What I don’t like about them is when I have to fight the permissions. They’re often too tight and make integration with the rest of the OS too hard.
Here’s a rarely known secret of the Linux world. Almost no software in a Linux system came from the developer.
Every single distro, package manager or repository is handled by people who did not develop the software being packaged. The few exceptions are the software who distributes their own .deb/.rpm, appimage, flatpak or their own repository. But the bulk of tools, utilities and apps were handled by the people managing the distribution or the distro main repository. No sane developer has the team or the time to config, compile, package, and test their software to every single Linux distro that exists. Hence why Dev distributed versions are usually targeted to single channels and to specific distros and versions. Packages compatibility is a literal hell.
Gigabytes?
I have a bunch of apps installed and it is only a little over a gigabyte.
Interesting. I have 4 tools installed as Flatpaks and that makes 4.4 GB
What tools?
Rnote, Skype, Teams and Televido (Live TV stream). Since they’re not in the repo or I needed sandboxing. I mean I don’t need any help or anything. That laptop has enough storage and a beginner distro on it.
