I'm mad about linux distros again today and I think I am realizing why this is so hard for me to write about systemically: I have a software engineer brain and so I try to model the various problems as technical problems.
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@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent Then the community should definitely organize to make Flatpaks work more reliably across distros. What are the biggest problems that make it necessary for app developers to put in distro-specific work even when targeting Flatpak? (I have no experience with this yet; my main desktop app project at this point is a remote desktop access tool, so that's a whole other can of worms.)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent flatpak does not address the deficiencies or the expense of interacting with a zillion different compositors, or for that matter different audio systems or GPS daemons. the kinds of apps that need to interact with the platform need an API shaped in terms of d-bus endpoints, and the problem that flatpak addresses is one of .so files. flatpak also requires manual management of filesystem permissions, which means apps are just slightly dysfunctional
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent flatpak does not address the deficiencies or the expense of interacting with a zillion different compositors, or for that matter different audio systems or GPS daemons. the kinds of apps that need to interact with the platform need an API shaped in terms of d-bus endpoints, and the problem that flatpak addresses is one of .so files. flatpak also requires manual management of filesystem permissions, which means apps are just slightly dysfunctional
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
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@glyph I like building a small garden not industrial agribusiness
@jay this is what homelabbing is for, not operating system development
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent It looks like the File Chooser portal (https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser.html) is supposed to implement a powerbox file dialog. I assume it somehow doesn't get this right.
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se, but most of the immutable distros (SteamOS, Bazzite, VanillaOS) lean _heavily_ on Flatpaks because you cannot just do `apt install {foo}`.
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent as long as the native version of apps still exists then that’s still 1 platform with 2 platform targets which ISVs now have a bunch of research to do to find out users are gonna be mad if they package their particular app like that. which by itself is already more work. and if your platform also supports whatever a “snap” is, god help you
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@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent It looks like the File Chooser portal (https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser.html) is supposed to implement a powerbox file dialog. I assume it somehow doesn't get this right.
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I have never seen an app do this in a way which appeared to work. my experience is limited though. glad to hear it at least exists though!
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se, but most of the immutable distros (SteamOS, Bazzite, VanillaOS) lean _heavily_ on Flatpaks because you cannot just do `apt install {foo}`.
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent There are also other solutions for dev work, like most of those also have a contrivance for running a mutable distro in a container and then exposing binaries from that container to do stuff because not everything is a flatpak
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent There are also other solutions for dev work, like most of those also have a contrivance for running a mutable distro in a container and then exposing binaries from that container to do stuff because not everything is a flatpak
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent immutable distros are probably the future in more ways than one. I didn’t realize this nuance, I should probably get one of these installed (other than steamos)
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent immutable distros are probably the future in more ways than one. I didn’t realize this nuance, I should probably get one of these installed (other than steamos)
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Aurora and Bluefin are the Universal Blue immutable distros for development work, with either KDE or GNOME respectively - Bazzite's their "gaming" distro. They all work pretty similarly. VanillaOS is probably the most stripped-down one I've tried. And of course Fedora provides their own series of images.
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Aurora and Bluefin are the Universal Blue immutable distros for development work, with either KDE or GNOME respectively - Bazzite's their "gaming" distro. They all work pretty similarly. VanillaOS is probably the most stripped-down one I've tried. And of course Fedora provides their own series of images.
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent like if I were to create an operating system for doing SMTP with twisted and a different operating system with unrelated branding for doing websockets
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Couldn't tell ya. Fedora does it too with Silverblue and Kinote (GNOME / KDE respectively).
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Couldn't tell ya. Fedora does it too with Silverblue and Kinote (GNOME / KDE respectively).
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent They're all built off the same base and you can rebase from one to another at will, though.
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent like if I were to create an operating system for doing SMTP with twisted and a different operating system with unrelated branding for doing websockets
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent sorry I do not mean to be mean about this. but it seems like they’ve done some really good work here and are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have *heard* about bazzite and bluefin. at some length. i knew they were immutable distros. I had considered installing them. I did not even realize they were largely compatible let alone more or less the same thing
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent They're all built off the same base and you can rebase from one to another at will, though.
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent thanks for all the info. there is a thick fog of war in distroland and this is very useful info
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent sorry I do not mean to be mean about this. but it seems like they’ve done some really good work here and are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have *heard* about bazzite and bluefin. at some length. i knew they were immutable distros. I had considered installing them. I did not even realize they were largely compatible let alone more or less the same thing
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent It's a valid critique!
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@miss_rodent but nothing is hostile to corporate interest here; the corporate interest can quite happily co-opt all the labor in any case; SteamOS has already proved that concept. You can either accept the corporate takeover *by* corporate leadership, or you can consolidate into an organization that protects user agency.
The logic here is "we shouldn't have a union, because that's just the same as a corporation". I specifically called out "volunteer-driven" distros (Debian, Fedora(ish), Arch)
You call out to the distributions to abolish themselves?
To bring up the topic: Systemd is exactly what @glyph is looking for „Unifying pointless differences between distributions“ https://unixdigest.com/includes/files/gnomeasia2014.pdf , brought to you by the systemd-critic article https://unixdigest.com/articles/the-real-motivation-behind-systemd.html but I verified the source on the conference homepage.
It seems to help PostmarketOS which is a systemd-only distribution which supports lots of exotic devices.
Unification seems to be the actual point which commercial cooperations like, for which reason the systemd lead developer was paid by Microsoft for 2022 to 2026.
„Never specific, always generic“ isnt necessarily environment-friendly, though.
I for my part prefer systemd free operating systems which differ on a wide variety of concepts.
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent You might be interested in this blog post from a Fedora developer which, among other things, argues that Fedora should move away from packaging apps as RPMs: https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2025/07/21/fedora-must-carefully-embrace-flathub/
