what are the pros and cons of apt vs flatpak?

merompetehla@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 76 points –

target OS is debian or linux mint

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I like flatpak as it helps me keep bloat down

Impossible. Like flatpak itself with 5 applications was using more storage than my entire distro with the same apps as appimages on top.

I can't say I have the same experience. Flatpaks keep everything tidy and most GUI stores offer the option to delete app data on uninstall

How big is your distro right now?

I am at 4.2 GIB with my distro (artix) + 30 appimages + home. Though stuff like ~/.local/steam is on a different partition.

I'll have to look but I have 6-7 VMs so 4.2Gb is child's play. My SSD is 256Gb so I have plenty of room

I know storage doesn't matter these days, but another different thing is suggesting flatpak "because it keeps bloat down".

Storage isn't everything. Having separate isolated storage locations keeps the cluster down and prevents conflicts. Plus if I need to change something it is easy to find.

I do that with appimages as they support a portable home. And that location can be moved around.

You can't get bubblewrap sandboxing with appimages in a user friendly way though, but I think I will start working on that (yes I'm serious).

Flatpak hardcoded ~/.var which I found a really bad decision and they had several issues opened on this which went really bad if you ask me:

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/46

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak.github.io/issues/191

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/1651