Anyone else starting to favor Flatpak over native packages?
Anyone else starting to favor Flatpak over native packages?
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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Flatpak and Snap definitely make installation more simple. The packages come with their own dependencies so you have way less issues with conflicting dependencies. I like them when they are officially supported by the distribution or developer, but I prefer the official installations over supporting a random person making a package (not sure if this is a thing with Flatpak, but with Snaps that was definitely a thing).
Some software really benefits from not begin inside flatpak though, I had to switch back to the deb version of Visual Studio Code as the integrated console didn't have access to some software outside the package and was also logging weird errors.
I think that is what is pretty cool about them, that you can have both versions with no problems. Also, of course if the flatpak is giving me problems, I just uninstall it and use the package manager or something else.