Intro:
With GNU/Linux, apps are fairly easy to install. With OpenMandriva, you find the name of the app and run the install command in Terminal. For example, Mozilla Firefox:
sudo dnf in firefox
And there is also Dnfdrake which is a very nice way to find apps.
That is all fine and good and highly appreciated, but what about apps that are not being consistently updated or updated at all? Back to Firefox. For the longest time in OpenMandriva, if you ran the above install command, you would get 147.0.1 from the Rolling repo. Up until recently, it had not been updated for quite some time. Counting the main and minor upgrade versions, it was nearly 30 versions behind. See for yourself and look at the bug and security fixes each new version received:
Now it is 155.0 in OpenMandriva. That was just a few days ago. Already, Firefox is 2 versions ahead… 155.0 > 155.0.1 > 156.0.
I want to stress that I am in no way complaining about software in OpenMandriva not being updated fast enough. I realize developers and maintainers are badly needed. I hope this void gets filled as OpenMandriva gets more and more popular as users and developers of other distros get sicker and sicker of being with a corporate version of GNU/Linux with a bad political activism agenda and the like. I hope OpenMandriva never loses its present view on this subject.
So how do users get current software faster? The easy way is to use Flatpaks instead. And the even easier way to find, install, and remove Flatpaks is with an app called Easy Flatpak. It is similar to Bazaar without the politics and activism baked into it. I call Bazaar “Bizarre” because of that crap.
Setting Up OpenMandriva for Flatpaks:
First, you need to install the Flatpak package in order for OpenMandriva to support Flatpaks:
sudo dnf in flatpak
Then you need to get Easy Flatpak which is a Flatpak app:
flatpak install flathub org.dupot.easyflatpak
Then you need to refresh the KDE “Start Menu”:
kbuildsycoca6
You should now see “Easy Flatpak” in the UTILITIES menu. If not, either log out or reboot your machine, and it should appear there when you log back in. Once you have it, open it, and you will see this (mine has apps I have installed):
I think most users are familiar with Software Centers so I won’t waste our time going over every feature of Easy Flatpak. I will point out that there is a Search Glass at the top left you would click on to search for apps. You can also see the main list of some of the apps I have installed. As you install apps, their launchers will show up in the KDE Start Menu. If not, run kbuildsycoca6in Terminal to update the launcher lists in the Start Menu.
As you can see at almost the top right, I have 6 updates to get. If I click UPDATES, all I have to do to get them is click the UPDATE ALL button at the bottom right of the UPDATES window:
Pretty easy to update isn’t it? If you prefer the Terminal instead, you can run:
flatpak update
The only other thing I will point out is the “hamburger”/3 line button at the top right. Click on it. I install ALL of my Flatpaks as SYSTEM, not USER. I have had ZERO issues doing it this way, and it makes Flatpaks apps available for other users as well:
The following will be opinions of mine and some tips. If you are happy and rolling with Easy Flatpak, this tutorial is done. The following should address most unwarranted concerns about Flatpaks so I encourage you to keep reading, but I realize TL;DR exists.
Any Issues???
Not really. All I have ever experienced is fear of change. Many users are old school cool and want to dnf in whateverappand that is perfectly fine. However, these are the users who complain the most about Flatpaks. It is a change they do not like.
There is one valid argument I have read from the above group. Something along the lines of, “I trust the packages supplied by my distro.” I agree nearly completely. BUT… what do you do when your distro of choice is small and packages are not being regularly updated for improvements, bug fixes, and security fixes? What do you do if your distro of choice bans apps you want for whatever reason? To me, that argument falls flat. I do agree it is VERY IMPORTANT to get Flatpaks only from trusted sources. I ONLY get mine from Flathub which is the default source for both Easy Flatpak, or when using the Terminal and specifying the source. Back to Firefox:
flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox
The source is specified above as “flathub”.
Using Firefox as an example once again, you can see in Easy Flatpak that the app is verified via the blue-circled check mark:
So I have made it a habit to look for this prior to installing a Flatpak.
You can also go directly to apps on Flathub’s website and verify they are legit:
https://flathub.org/en/apps/org.mozilla.firefox
During the update lockdown where in OpenMandriva that the most current version of Firefox was 147.0.1, I was able to update to each current version because I used the Flatpak version instead. I complained about this in OpenMandriva Matrix chat, but I came to the conclusion that using the Firefox Flatpak was a better way to use Firefox. It was easy to update as newer versions came out. The Firefox Flatpak works perfectly fine.
Another argument against Flatpaks you hear is, “They take up too much space!” If you are only using a couple of Flatpaks that also need library and desktop files to be downloaded as well for them to work then yeah sure. Once you get more and more Flatpaks, this is an extremely picky view to have as those libraries and desktop files get shared among them. Let me go into more detail on this.
Flatpaks are saved in your Home folder in ~/$USER/.var/apps/. When I open that folder on my system right now, I have 78 folders. If I highlight them all and view their total size, I am at 31.9 GBs. NOW I also use Thunderbird for email. If I remove that one folder from the equation going with the remaining 77 folders, I am at 15.9 GBs. If I take Firefox out of the equation as well going with the remaining 76 folders, I am at 14.4 GBs.
I find NONE of those numbers alarming. I have email going back to the 1990s. I use Firefox extensively for web browsing. 31.9 GBs is entirely acceptable to me.
The Good???
The biggest reasons to use Flatpaks instead of distro apps is to get updates much faster, to get apps prepared directly from their developers, and to have apps that work regardless of the distro being used which helps get rid of the Linux plague of fragmentation from having too many distros doing package management differently. Many apps now are officially offered as Flatpaks. Look up ones such as Bitwarden, OBS Studio, GIMP, Krita, Kdenlive, etc. All of those have an official Flatpak on Flathub. Some are even going to AppImages such as the latest 4.0 version of Audacity and some I listed previously.
I also see Flatpaks as a way to greatly free up developer resources so more work can be done on the actual distro. Back to Firefox once again. Why should a distro maintain a package for Firefox when Mozilla publishes a Flatpak version directly to Flathub? Resources can be freed up to work on fixing bugs and keeping the distro updated instead. I think that is a humongous benefit to any distro.
Some packages have to be built. I can think of some apps being a good idea to maybe NOT have as a Flatpak. Oracle’s VirtualBox comes to mind. Being a direct app for something like VirtualBox I think is an advantage. BUT… Bottles is a Flatpak and seems to work fine for those who use it (I use VirtualBox for all my virtual machines, but I may give Bottles a try). And there are apps that do not have Flatpak versions and no plans to offer Flatpak versions. For those, packages need to be built and maintained (unless an AppImage version exists).
Conclusion:
There is no right or wrong answer to use or to not use Flatpaks. GNU/Linux gives us all choice. For me, I am perfectly happy using Flatpaks for the vast majority of my apps with all the benefits listed above.
I think the future of GNU/Linux on the desktop is getting better and better with both Flatpaks and AppImages.
