Anyone else starting to favor Flatpak over native packages?

DidacticDumbass@lemmy.one to Linux@lemmy.ml – 206 points –

I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.

Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.

This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.

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That is absolutely the best usecase. There are only a handful of apps I need to be the latest version.

I am mostly using native packages.

@DidacticDumbass
You can set Debian to prefer installing from stable unless you explicitly request otherwise. That works on a per-package basis.

Presumably you could do the same with any apt-based distro, but I've not tried it.
@agelord

I usually use the terminal, so that is something I need to make sure of. Otherwise, using the Software Store I can explicitly choose which version to use.