The Pros and Cons of Installing Applications With Flatpak on Linux Systems

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 18:00:00 +0800

Flatpak version at the time of writing: 1.14.4

“Flatpak, the future of Linux applications,” says the Flatpak official website.

Why is installing applications on Linux sometimes a nightmare? Why can Flatpak effectively ease this problem?

In this article, Ivon briefly explains why Flatpak emerged, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of Flatpak technology.

Terminology:

“System programs” refers to software such as compilers, runtimes, and libraries.
“Graphical programs” refers to software with graphical interfaces, such as office software, image processing, browsers, and so on.

＊ This article by Ivon mainly discusses the advantages and disadvantages of Flatpak technology. For the actual usage of Flatpak packages and commands, please see this article.

1. The Application Installation Problem of Linux Distributions
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First, let’s talk about the background behind Flatpak’s creation.

We all know that installing applications on Linux only requires downloading and installing them through a package manager. That is also what application stores do behind the scenes.

Linux now has at least more than 100 distributions, which creates software packaging problems.

Different distributions have different package managers, and the commands for installing applications are all different. Sometimes package dependency conflicts also occur.

Furthermore, each distribution maintains its own online package repository. Popular distributions include many programs; for example, Ubuntu and Arch Linux AUR have almost everything. By comparison, niche distributions (Void, Alpine) have to wait until their communities take shape before repository package counts accumulate; otherwise, users have to compile manually from source code.

Different distributions packaging software causes application versions to be inconsistent. For example, new Ubuntu versions include the latest programs, while LTS versions lag behind, causing updates to be out of sync.

So technologies attempting to unify cross-distribution application installation appeared. Flatpak is one example, while others include Snap and AppImage.

2. What Is Flatpak
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Flatpak, previously called xdg-app, is a cross-distribution package manager and package deployment system initiated by RedHat. Most Linux distributions (Debian-based, Fedora-based, openSUSE-based, Arch-based) already support Flatpak, ChromeOS has it too, and Fedora Silverblue is even an almost fully Flatpak environment.

Flathub is the most popular Flatpak package repository, with thousands of applications already listed.

In recent years, Linux graphical applications have gradually moved toward a trend of unified distribution, relying on cross-distribution technologies such as Snap, Flatpak, and AppImage, rather than relying on each distribution’s package manager to package software separately, preventing inconsistent program versions.

Flatpak mainly targets desktop graphical applications, such as browsers, office processing, image processing, games, and the like. Flatpak introduces a sandbox mechanism to isolate APPs and designs a permission system to strengthen security.

3. Advantages of Installing Applications With Flatpak
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3.1. Flathub Makes Deployment and Publishing Convenient for Developers
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Flathub benefits developers. The Flatpak official documentation explains in detail how to package applications as Flatpak and encourages developers to follow XDG standards. When distributing applications, developers can provide stable and testing versions for users to download, as well as versions for different architectures such as x86 / ARM. The Flatpak installer judges automatically.

Flatpak on Ivon's Blog

The Pros and Cons of Installing Applications With Flatpak on Linux Systems

1. The Application Installation Problem of Linux Distributions #

2. What Is Flatpak #

3. Advantages of Installing Applications With Flatpak #

3.1. Flathub Makes Deployment and Publishing Convenient for Developers #

1. The Application Installation Problem of Linux Distributions
#

2. What Is Flatpak
#

3. Advantages of Installing Applications With Flatpak
#

3.1. Flathub Makes Deployment and Publishing Convenient for Developers
#