Mint added Flatpak support awhile ago but I hadn't had a reason to use it until I decided I wanted the latest build of GIMP which is not in the regular Mint repo. I went out looking for the PPA and saw that it was available in a Flatpak container so I fired up my software manager and opened the Flatpak tab and sure enough, there it was waiting for me.
Clicked install and in about a minute I was looking at the latest GIMP. Easy.
Then I looked around online for other recently released applications and found most of them are being made available as a Flatpak container.
I am excited to see containers taking off in earnest. They solve a lot of problems and eliminate one of the last reasons a regular desktop user might have to use the terminal.
But the most exciting thing about containers is that developers won't have to deal with supporting various distros. All a distro has to do is support containers. Maybe a step closer to getting some much desired commercial software on Linux, like Adobe's stuff.
Flatpak
Pariah wrote: Mint added Flatpak support awhile ago but I hadn't had a reason to use it until I decided I wanted the latest build of GIMP which is not in the regular Mint repo. I went out looking for the PPA and saw that it was available in a Flatpak container so I fired up my software manager and opened the Flatpak tab and sure enough, there it was waiting for me.
Clicked install and in about a minute I was looking at the latest GIMP. Easy.
Then I looked around online for other recently released applications and found most of them are being made available as a Flatpak container.
I am excited to see containers taking off in earnest. They solve a lot of problems and eliminate one of the last reasons a regular desktop user might have to use the terminal.
But the most exciting thing about containers is that developers won't have to deal with supporting various distros. All a distro has to do is support containers. Maybe a step closer to getting some much desired commercial software on Linux, like Adobe's stuff.
That's actually pretty cool. The more Linux can get people away from needing to deal with the commandline the better it's going to be for the general public.
Adobe releasing on Linux would make me take a serious look at it.
"Killing them dead till they believe"
† The Church of Mark †
† The Church of Mark †
avkills wrote: Adobe releasing on Linux would make me take a serious look at it.
It's kind of a pipe dream but containers remove a significant obstacle to commercial developers. Compile once, deploy everywhere.
Also containers run in their own little sandbox so they are more secure, isolated from the rest of the system. I'd like to see containers become the predominant way software is distributed on Linux.
Not even duct tape will fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound.
These sound a lot like Android APKs, which themselves look a lot like Debian .debs.
I'm glad this sort of thing is taking off, because installing software has generally been a pain point for Linux.
I'm glad this sort of thing is taking off, because installing software has generally been a pain point for Linux.
maurvir wrote: These sound a lot like Android APKs, which themselves look a lot like Debian .debs.
I'm glad this sort of thing is taking off, because installing software has generally been a pain point for Linux.
I don't know anything about APKs but debs are nothing like a containerized application. Debs still pull external dependencies and are not sandboxed at all.
Not even duct tape will fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound.
Pariah wrote:maurvir wrote: These sound a lot like Android APKs, which themselves look a lot like Debian .debs.
I'm glad this sort of thing is taking off, because installing software has generally been a pain point for Linux.
I don't know anything about APKs but debs are nothing like a containerized application. Debs still pull external dependencies and are not sandboxed at all.
Ah, I forgot about that. APKs are self-contained, though. Everything you need is right there in the ZIP archive (APK files are really just ZIP files renamed).