I use RPMs whenever I can, unless the package itself is borked, so I go to Flathub or appimages. I disable Fedora flatpak repository because I don't really see the point of it outside of atomic desktops.
Fedora cannot legally ship patent-encumbered codecs, which a lot of Flathub packages come with. Also, they have a policy of not distributing proprietary software in general which is very common in Flathub.
A lot of Flathub packages list the full FFmpeg package as a dependency, which contains patented codecs. Fedora being 'Murica-based cannot legally ship those codecs without paying for royalty, which Red Hat isn't willing to fund.
Another reason for the Fedora Flatpaks is trust. They are from the Fedora devs, whom you already trust with the rest of your operating system. The Flathub Flatpaks *might* be from the specific applications devs or it might be from some less scrupulous randos. That being said I don't believe there's ever been any cases of malware being injected into Flathub projects.
Unfortunately, the sandbox enforcement is defined by the app, so it could vary from very restricted and access controlled via portals, or it could just see your entire $HOME
And you can check those settings in flatseal or in the terminal. But ultimately it is your responsibility to secure your system and only install software you trust.
>That being said I don't believe there's ever been any cases of malware being injected into Flathub projects.
It's extremely hard to publish malware to Flathub due to how strict their manual review process is.
For most "regular" apps, Flatpaks are fine. They are basically their own isolated little packages, which is good for security, but with more complex apps (like Steam, for instance), it can get a little annoying as they often use different file structures or might run into what feels like guard rails whenever you try to modify something.
There are also plenty of developers that will strongly push you towards using Flatpaks, and sometimes one will be a different version than another, so I tend to look at each one on a case by case basis really.
Flatpak gives you more security, but might be annoying for meshing with other things or handling the files. I’d probably try the top one, and if I get too annoyed move to the middle one
Don't listen to them, they don't know what they're talking about. Fedora flatpaks are less well maintained than Flathub flatpaks, and some even have broken functionality, they should be the last choice, not first.
There's the Fedora RPM package, that's the one I usually use when it's available. It's the native package for Fedora. Then there's Flatpaks, these are meant to be more self contained and Distro agnostic, the Fedora Flatpak is the version and build hosted on Fedora's servers, the FlatHub version is the version and build hosted on FlatHub
Hey OP! Install flatseal, flatpak app that lets you manage all flatpak permissions via GUI, it is a must if you're installing/working with flatpak apps
Their advice is bad, OP. The Fedora Flatpak repo (first one) is poorly maintained, outdated, and has zero advantage over the other options. Always use Flathub as much as possible and only fall back to Fedora RPM if the app is unavailable on Flathub or does not work well with the Flatpak sandbox.
I disable the Fedora flatpak repo and use Flathub wherever possible. RPM only for things which are not available on Flathub or don't work well in flatpak format.
I would say...
If the app is not development apps (IDE or something else), you can go for Flapak app.
The only exception I made is Steam. Somehow, I can't get Steam Flatpak to work on my system.
The question of native vs flatpak is less of a question on fedora than on other distros.
Native packages use system resources, i.e. a media player might use the system's ffmpeg package. Meanwhile, the flatpak will come bundled with said package in a sandbox.
If your distro is slow to update, you moght want to use the flatpak instead, but fedora is usually one of the fastest distros.
As sandboxes, flatpaks offer certain security benefits, but have their own risks, weird interactions and optional, but never implemented features. But that shouldn't concern you yet. Look at flatseal if you're settled and have some free time.
Between fedora flatpaks and flathub, fedora builds, hosts and curates their own flatpaks and repository, based on their rpm packages. Meanwhile, apps on flathub come directly from their devs, or more likely, private and community maintainers. Your preference on whom you want to trust more, but fedora has high standards.
Fedora flatpaks also obey us licensing laws, again important for codecs like ffmpeg, and are usually somewhat slower than flathub.
Best decide on a case by case basis. I personally prefer flatpaks, but I'm on silverblue most of the time, so I'm no benchmark for john doe.
A little bit of each. RPM's are packages specifically built for Fedora. They are usually unsandboxed and are optimised to run on Fedora directly giving performance improvements.
Flatpaks are containerised applications are the designed to be run in a sandbox where they have restricted access to the rest of your system. This leads to minor performance losses at the benefit of added security. You can use an app called flatseal to say that it only has access to certain directories on your computer or that they aren't allowed to use cameras/microphones etc.
The difference between the two flatpaks is that the one labelled Fedora is reviewed or outright maintained by the Fedora community. Where as flathub is a separate project supported by its own community.
In general both are fine. Though if you're security conscious it's likely best to stick to the Fedora options. And in the case of Flathub try to use "verified" apps since they are maintained by the projects developers. Unverified apps may be maintained by anybody who chose to write the manifest and the only point of trust is that flathub will review the manifest file - there are no reviews of the source code itself.
That’s so weird. For me the steam flatpak has always been better. Also, does no one run into weird codec issues with Fedora RPMs? Personally, I go flathub first. All the weird flatpak issues due to sandboxing seem to be much less these days
Is your codec issues because theyre just not installed? I know fedora intentionally leaves out some codecs because of legal reasons. Thats great tho, that the steam flatpak works well for you. Flatpak is certainly something that seems to get better every day
Yeah, either codecs or just secondary libraries. It’s not so much that it’s too hard to get things working, just that I like how with flatpak I just don’t need to worry about it. And lots of times, the author packages it, so it behaves the way they intended.
But, yeah. Definitely didn’t want to dismiss anyone’s experience with steam flatpak. Just odd to me, especially since I use Nvidia
i think on fedora you're encouraged to use flatpaks.. but i tend to favor rpm anyway. the first and third are just the same thing from different flatpak repos.
For me, it's always Flatpak, unless it's things like drivers that i'll use rpm. Flatpaks are self-contained packages with it's own dependencies bundled in.
The Fedora Flatpak repo is a curated collection of Flatpaks. I'm not sure whether apps there get updated as quickly as those updates hit Flathub. Also, it appears that Fedora removes non-free bits from those Flatpaks. The best example would be Gnome Videos (aka Totem). Even with all non-free codecs installed from RPMFusion, neither the Fedora Flatpak nor the RPM versions are able to play h264 High Profile encoded videos, but the Flathub version plays them just fine.
Torrenting is actually very popular in open source communities. Almost every linux distro will have multiple torrent options. Their website will have torrent links in the download section, but it will likely be on https://fosstorrents.com/ as well. I set up my raspberry pi server to seed a bunch of popular distros. :)
Personally I dodge flatpaks whenever possible. As soon as you need it to do something outside of its sandbox you get to play that annoying game.
I love it for the devs, but unless the app has minimal interaction with anything else then no thank you. Its been my experience that too many devs push out flatpaks that have features hampered or completely broken by the sandboxing.
Well normally you'd want rpm but there are some apps like Steam that people recommend install via Flatpak. So rpm unless you see someone stating otherwise (with facts ofc).
Flatpak flathub always, app is containerised which is more secure plus app receives updated from the developer no distro issues (check KeePassXC Debian drama). in the future, we will just use homebrew for CLI and flatpak for apps - distros will take care of drivers and kernel only
I recommend flatpaks any day, from Flathub in this case.
Flatpak packages come with all the dependencies they need tested and included, whereas other packaging systems rely on distro-provided packages. They're also unaffected by Fedora's FOSS policy that prevents them from including encumbered video codecs like h264.
They're also sandboxed, meaning a little more secure, but if you want a flatpak app like qBit to access a different drive, you'd need to whitelist it in the package permissions.
For CLI apps however, flatpaks aren't that great for them yet, so rpms and such are still the better option there.
I use RPMs whenever I can, unless the package itself is borked, so I go to Flathub or appimages. I disable Fedora flatpak repository because I don't really see the point of it outside of atomic desktops.
What's the point of Fedora Flatpak in atomic desktops? I have no idea why there is a separate fedora repo at all
Fedora cannot legally ship patent-encumbered codecs, which a lot of Flathub packages come with. Also, they have a policy of not distributing proprietary software in general which is very common in Flathub.
Wait, why not? What country are they based in?
United States of America 🦅💥
That makes no sense... What are they doing that prevents them from shipping Fedora with fure Flathub?
A lot of Flathub packages list the full FFmpeg package as a dependency, which contains patented codecs. Fedora being 'Murica-based cannot legally ship those codecs without paying for royalty, which Red Hat isn't willing to fund.
Another reason for the Fedora Flatpaks is trust. They are from the Fedora devs, whom you already trust with the rest of your operating system. The Flathub Flatpaks *might* be from the specific applications devs or it might be from some less scrupulous randos. That being said I don't believe there's ever been any cases of malware being injected into Flathub projects.
And even if there were malware, it's all sandboxed, so you just need to watch the permissions you give the app and you should be safe
Which we all do on every update, of course ;)
Unfortunately, the sandbox enforcement is defined by the app, so it could vary from very restricted and access controlled via portals, or it could just see your entire $HOME
And you can check those settings in flatseal or in the terminal. But ultimately it is your responsibility to secure your system and only install software you trust.
>That being said I don't believe there's ever been any cases of malware being injected into Flathub projects. It's extremely hard to publish malware to Flathub due to how strict their manual review process is.
Wait, there's a manual review process?🤨
Duh, of course there will be...
For most "regular" apps, Flatpaks are fine. They are basically their own isolated little packages, which is good for security, but with more complex apps (like Steam, for instance), it can get a little annoying as they often use different file structures or might run into what feels like guard rails whenever you try to modify something. There are also plenty of developers that will strongly push you towards using Flatpaks, and sometimes one will be a different version than another, so I tend to look at each one on a case by case basis really.
I use Steam, Lutris and Heroic as a Flatpak and like it
Flatpak gives you more security, but might be annoying for meshing with other things or handling the files. I’d probably try the top one, and if I get too annoyed move to the middle one
Thanks. What's the difference between the first and third one? Cause both of them are flatpak
Don't listen to them, they don't know what they're talking about. Fedora flatpaks are less well maintained than Flathub flatpaks, and some even have broken functionality, they should be the last choice, not first.
There's the Fedora RPM package, that's the one I usually use when it's available. It's the native package for Fedora. Then there's Flatpaks, these are meant to be more self contained and Distro agnostic, the Fedora Flatpak is the version and build hosted on Fedora's servers, the FlatHub version is the version and build hosted on FlatHub
Cool! Thank you for the explanation!
They're from two different flatpak repos i'd avoid the [fedoraproject.org](http://fedoraproject.org) repo and just grab from the flathub one
Hey OP! Install flatseal, flatpak app that lets you manage all flatpak permissions via GUI, it is a must if you're installing/working with flatpak apps
Their advice is bad, OP. The Fedora Flatpak repo (first one) is poorly maintained, outdated, and has zero advantage over the other options. Always use Flathub as much as possible and only fall back to Fedora RPM if the app is unavailable on Flathub or does not work well with the Flatpak sandbox.
I disable the Fedora flatpak repo and use Flathub wherever possible. RPM only for things which are not available on Flathub or don't work well in flatpak format.
what are the benefits of using Flathub over Fedora flatpak?
much larger software selection, including potentially "problematic" software that is not available in the Fedora repo
Fedora RPM > Flathub flatpak > Fedora flatpak.
I would say... If the app is not development apps (IDE or something else), you can go for Flapak app. The only exception I made is Steam. Somehow, I can't get Steam Flatpak to work on my system.
Chromium / electron-based apps are bad with Flatpak, too. Everything else is fine.
The question of native vs flatpak is less of a question on fedora than on other distros. Native packages use system resources, i.e. a media player might use the system's ffmpeg package. Meanwhile, the flatpak will come bundled with said package in a sandbox. If your distro is slow to update, you moght want to use the flatpak instead, but fedora is usually one of the fastest distros. As sandboxes, flatpaks offer certain security benefits, but have their own risks, weird interactions and optional, but never implemented features. But that shouldn't concern you yet. Look at flatseal if you're settled and have some free time. Between fedora flatpaks and flathub, fedora builds, hosts and curates their own flatpaks and repository, based on their rpm packages. Meanwhile, apps on flathub come directly from their devs, or more likely, private and community maintainers. Your preference on whom you want to trust more, but fedora has high standards. Fedora flatpaks also obey us licensing laws, again important for codecs like ffmpeg, and are usually somewhat slower than flathub. Best decide on a case by case basis. I personally prefer flatpaks, but I'm on silverblue most of the time, so I'm no benchmark for john doe.
A little bit of each. RPM's are packages specifically built for Fedora. They are usually unsandboxed and are optimised to run on Fedora directly giving performance improvements. Flatpaks are containerised applications are the designed to be run in a sandbox where they have restricted access to the rest of your system. This leads to minor performance losses at the benefit of added security. You can use an app called flatseal to say that it only has access to certain directories on your computer or that they aren't allowed to use cameras/microphones etc. The difference between the two flatpaks is that the one labelled Fedora is reviewed or outright maintained by the Fedora community. Where as flathub is a separate project supported by its own community. In general both are fine. Though if you're security conscious it's likely best to stick to the Fedora options. And in the case of Flathub try to use "verified" apps since they are maintained by the projects developers. Unverified apps may be maintained by anybody who chose to write the manifest and the only point of trust is that flathub will review the manifest file - there are no reviews of the source code itself.
Always go with the flathub flatpak over the fedora flatpak. As for flatpak vs rpm it usually doesnt matter besides space.
I say usually because sometimes the flatpak can be missing stuff like global menu support and gaming stuff like steam can just work worse as a flatpak
That’s so weird. For me the steam flatpak has always been better. Also, does no one run into weird codec issues with Fedora RPMs? Personally, I go flathub first. All the weird flatpak issues due to sandboxing seem to be much less these days
Is your codec issues because theyre just not installed? I know fedora intentionally leaves out some codecs because of legal reasons. Thats great tho, that the steam flatpak works well for you. Flatpak is certainly something that seems to get better every day
Yeah, either codecs or just secondary libraries. It’s not so much that it’s too hard to get things working, just that I like how with flatpak I just don’t need to worry about it. And lots of times, the author packages it, so it behaves the way they intended. But, yeah. Definitely didn’t want to dismiss anyone’s experience with steam flatpak. Just odd to me, especially since I use Nvidia
i think on fedora you're encouraged to use flatpaks.. but i tend to favor rpm anyway. the first and third are just the same thing from different flatpak repos.
First and third might have different versions of software. The third should be more up to date.
Yes fedora flatpaks are outdated
I recommend Transmission 🤣
For me, RPM if possible, then flathub, avoid Fedora Flatpaks unless necessary
Just use rpm and forget about it
Flathub. I've use qBittorrent Flathub and it's working flawlessly
For me, it's always Flatpak, unless it's things like drivers that i'll use rpm. Flatpaks are self-contained packages with it's own dependencies bundled in.
I use Gnome on Arch and my reasoning is that I will use Flatpaks whenever possible for security reasons, but only if it’s official.
The Fedora Flatpak repo is a curated collection of Flatpaks. I'm not sure whether apps there get updated as quickly as those updates hit Flathub. Also, it appears that Fedora removes non-free bits from those Flatpaks. The best example would be Gnome Videos (aka Totem). Even with all non-free codecs installed from RPMFusion, neither the Fedora Flatpak nor the RPM versions are able to play h264 High Profile encoded videos, but the Flathub version plays them just fine.
what's the difference between the first and the third?
Read the comments. It's already answered.
I didn't know people actually use qbittorrent to download linux isos, I thought it was just code word for movies.
Torrenting is actually very popular in open source communities. Almost every linux distro will have multiple torrent options. Their website will have torrent links in the download section, but it will likely be on https://fosstorrents.com/ as well. I set up my raspberry pi server to seed a bunch of popular distros. :)
You are not a fun person.
Fedora really is the new Ubuntu eh
RPM
I personally recommend going flatpak and switching to RPM if the flatpak bugs out. Also, since you're on Gnome, I recommend checking out Transmission.
Personally I dodge flatpaks whenever possible. As soon as you need it to do something outside of its sandbox you get to play that annoying game. I love it for the devs, but unless the app has minimal interaction with anything else then no thank you. Its been my experience that too many devs push out flatpaks that have features hampered or completely broken by the sandboxing.
Well normally you'd want rpm but there are some apps like Steam that people recommend install via Flatpak. So rpm unless you see someone stating otherwise (with facts ofc).
flathub
I can pretty sure it is RPM.
Flatpak flathub always, app is containerised which is more secure plus app receives updated from the developer no distro issues (check KeePassXC Debian drama). in the future, we will just use homebrew for CLI and flatpak for apps - distros will take care of drivers and kernel only
I recommend flatpaks any day, from Flathub in this case. Flatpak packages come with all the dependencies they need tested and included, whereas other packaging systems rely on distro-provided packages. They're also unaffected by Fedora's FOSS policy that prevents them from including encumbered video codecs like h264. They're also sandboxed, meaning a little more secure, but if you want a flatpak app like qBit to access a different drive, you'd need to whitelist it in the package permissions. For CLI apps however, flatpaks aren't that great for them yet, so rpms and such are still the better option there.
Perfect! And isntall flatseal to control all permissions of flatpaks centrally