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Flatpaks are really outrageous in size...I have tried to use flatpaks for the past months but man o man....hundreds of MB for each package, takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection. The idea is great, but this is such a huge downside that I cannot see how it is going to make the flatpaks easier to use than normal packaging.

Look at this for ungoogled chromium:

Had to download around 4-5 GB....insane!

#linux #flatpak

#Linux #flatpak
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Tio

Crowley :verifiedbi:
Crowley :verifiedbi:
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probably really depends on your usecase. For my slow internet connection, I really love how Flatpaks are an exception to the "partial upgrades are not supported" problem. Just because I need to install discord it does not mean that I want to do a 2,3GB update to my system, my friend is waiting for me.
in reply to Tio

Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
• •
I like these containerized apps but they are pain in the ass sometimes, really. However, this is future. Like it or not; Ubuntu is moving away from *.deb, more and more distros will act similarly. Just hope that Flatpak will win this fight and not Snap, and it will be fine...
in reply to Florke×64 🏴‍☠️

Rokosun
Rokosun
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@florke64 Why do you think native packages are going away? Especially when flatpaks has all these downsides like taking too much space and not respecting the user's theme or integrating well with the system. Flatpak is there as an option but you don't need to use it if you don't want to, I personally never use it and I'm fine..... 🤷 I'm not sure about Ubuntu tho 'cause I'm on Arch, but I'd be surprised if Debian ever gets rid of native packaging.
@Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Rokosun

Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
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@futureisfoss @florke64 easy of use. Flatpaks are much easier to use for the average 'new to linux' user. Plus they actually have a proper permission system (flatseal) unlike native packages.
@Rokosun @Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝

Rokosun
Rokosun
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@thibaultmol @florke64 I'm not sure about ease of use because most GUI distros have a software center these days for installing native and flatpak apps - so both are easy now. The permission system is interesting and could have some privacy/security improvements, but this containerization can also create issues with theming and such. A friend of mine recently had issues with playing games on Bottles because of flatpak's sandboxing - so in certain situations it can get in your way.
@Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝 @Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Rokosun

Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
• •
@futureisfoss Interesting points. Inconveniences like theming are going to improve over time. Transition will happen gradually. I don't see Debian dropping *.deb support. However, I can imagine Debian shipping Flatpak applications.
@Rokosun
in reply to Florke×64 🏴‍☠️

Rokosun
Rokosun
• •
@florke64 Yeah I think the most likely scenario is native packaging and Flatpaks coexisting - which is already the case for most distros now.
@Florke×64 🏴‍☠️
in reply to Tio

Hydrian
Hydrian
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A lot of those sizes are a worse case scenario. If you have shared requirements with other installed apps, flatpak will deduplacate requirement and save space.
in reply to Hydrian

Tio
Tio
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I understand....but to take 4-5GB to update ungoogled chromium it is insane....
in reply to Tio

Hydrian
Hydrian
• •
Sometimes it is just bad packagers not cleaning up the builds. I package with flatpak, mainly legacy applications, and mine never usually get that explosive in size. Chromium is about 350MB installed with apt.
in reply to Hydrian

Karl R
Karl R
• •

@hydrian That's a neat theory, but in practice Murphy's law applies and every version of a given library eventually gets pulled in.

Talking with the Flatpak faithful feels similar to talking with crypto bros.

crypto -> "We have a complete record of transactions that will solve all monetary problems!"

flatpak -> "We have a complete graph of dependencies that will solve all software deployment problems!"

Here's a thread with some more numbers of how bad this is:
https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/112140041371297026

Eugenia L (@eugenialoli@mastodon.social)

I don't understand what is the point of releasing an IDE via #flatpak, when that flatpak doesn't include all the necessary dev tools, and it can't access the ones outside its sandboxing. Honestly. What's the point? I'm looking at you, #Geany.
Mastodon
@Hydrian
in reply to Karl R

Hydrian
Hydrian
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@wickedsmoke I know what you mean. I package in Flatpak. More than a few are sloppy about cleaning up their builds.
@Karl R
in reply to Tio

Alex L 🕊 🇵🇸
Alex L 🕊 🇵🇸
• •

FYI each Flatpak app is like a Git repo and an update just downloads the files that actually changed. The files of all installed apps are stored together in a content-addressable storage, then hardlinked one or more times to form each app.

OSTree-based host OSs like Fedora Atomic work in the same way and hopefully in the future the files will be shared between the host OS and Flatpak apps too.

in reply to Tio

Okki
Okki
• •

When you install a Flatpak, it will need runtimes (GNOME, KDE, Freedesktop...). These are the ones that really take up disk space. But the good news is that it looks big if you install just one Flatpak application, but the more you install, the more they'll use the same runtimes already installed, and the less disk space they'll occupy.

And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...

in reply to Okki

Tio
Tio
• •
And no, ungoogled-chromium doesn't require 4-5 GB, just 153 MB...

How come on my system it had to download 4-5GB? And yes I use many flatpaks but that didn't seem to help. And this is not the first time am seeing these massive downloads.

in reply to Tio

Okki
Okki
• •
You can use the flatpak list --columns=name,size command to view the disk occupancy of all your Flatpaks and runtimes.
in reply to Okki

Okki
Okki
• •
And if your package manager doesn't do it automatically, you can also use this command to uninstall old runtimes you no longer need: flatpak uninstall --unused
in reply to Tio

Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝
• •

"takes forever to update them even on my 1GB internet connection"? huh?... you're on gigabit internet and it's taking forever? honestly that's not possible... Are you sure you have gigabit internet? or do you mean that your lan port is a gigabit port?..

I use flatpaks and it's really not that big of a deal (plus it happens in the background anyone, so most people will pretty never notice it)

in reply to Thibault Molleman🇧🇪 🌈🐝

Tio
Tio
• •
Yes I know very well what connection I have but since it has to download around 4-5 GB in that case, it takes a long long time. It depends the server where it is pulling these updates from I guess.... Maybe that particular package is worse than other flatpaks, but I have noticed this issue with long download times and huge download sizes on multiple computers and multiple flatpaks.
in reply to Tio

lerudd
lerudd
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definitely it's outrageous. it's that way by design. personal example: i don't run KDE but wanted to try okular, and ran the heck away and removed it when i saw it had installed 48,954 files at a cost of 820MB. this is just ridiculous...for a friggin' PDF reader?
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