I’ve been involved with Linux for a long time, and Flatpak almost seems too good to be true:
Just install any app on any distro, isolated from the base system and with granular rights management. I’ve just set up my first flatpak-centric system and didn’t notice any issues with it at all, apart from a 1-second waiting time before an app is launched.
What’s your long-term experience?
Notice any annoying bugs or instabilities? Do apps crash a lot? Disappear from Flathub or are unmaintained? Do you often have issues with apps that don’t integrate well with your native system? Are important apps missing?
Flatpaks are great. I do wish flatseal was part of the flatpak standard. I want an android style permissions menu
Well, Flatseal is using flatpak’s standard way of managing permissions. Everything it does you can also do from the command line with flatpak. It’s just a frontend.
I think KDE wants to add these options to it’s settings as well. That will be great, when it’s better integrated into the whole system.
KDE already does have the same thing in its settings
I’d like to see permission pop ups so I know it wanted permission to do something and didn’t have them, having to ask me. Sometimes it is explained that certain stuff the app does are blocked by the sandbox by default for security, but you can enable it, which is alright. Sometimes you’ll just have to find that out for yourself.
I wish it would be possible now but it probably won’t happen until windows and mac will have similar features. The problem is that processes cannot just read a file, because in the container it doesn’t exist. It’s maybe due to permission. Maybe not. You cannot tell. Android apps are written in a way that they request access, while pc apps are just reading the files directly without requesting permission.
So the app has to be written for flatpak. However, afaik, this is the maintainers goal too. Btw, the file open dialog is a currently working example of the dynamic permission handling. It’s just that the app should use these features which is not guaranteed.
That makes sense. Unfortunate that we won’t have it anytime soon
Same. In addition to the prompt-based permissions that @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee brings up, I’d like to see more granular control of permissions. For example, a flatpak app’s access to webcams, controllers, etc. are all controlled through just one permission:
--device=all(aka “Device Access” in KDE’s Flatpak Permission Settings).