this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I don't like Snap too, but it has some advantages over Flatpak. And unfortunately the most popular distribution still uses Snap. In example it is easier to create Snap packages ~~and Flatpak does not support CLI only applicatoins~~ ( Edit: my bad ) , but Snap does (something like grep in example). Also some may like it more that Snap relies on AppArmor instead using the custom solution of Flatpak.

All in all, its not like black and white which is better. I still wish only one of the formats would exist, because this is not the kind of fragmentation I wish to have. But both exist and the end user should decide which of them to kill.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

the most popular distribution still uses Snap

Ubuntu is the most popular? On server maybe, on desktop I doubt it.

Flatpak does not support CLI only applicatoins

It is not true. You can install Neovim as flatpak, for example.

Also some may like it more that Snap relies on AppArmor instead using the custom solution of Flatpak.

It only means, that on distros without AppArmor you get almost no sandboxing of snap applications.

The only advantage snap has is the ability to package drivers as snaps. Other than that there's simply no reason to choose proprietary-backed snap over flatpak.

EDIT: Typos.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I am pretty sure Ubuntu is still far and away the most popular desktop distro. For servers I would have guessed it was something like RedHat/CentOS or possibly Debian.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Flatpak does not support CLI only applicatoins

Where does that misinformation come from? That's not the first time I've heard it. Was that actually true at one point?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

In think it comes from flathub not having many cli applications in it. I’d love to drop snaps for Flatpak only. But I can get so many snaps that aren’t on flathub it’s crazy.