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?
Used it once… it’s as annoying as shit since you can’t just run apps you have to type ‘flatpack run org.mozilla.firefox’ instead of just typing ‘firefox’ (and I had to google that because I just can’t remember the sequence). Also for some reason it’s slow… as you mentioned a 1 second delay before anything works. I can’t see myself using it again.
As a local fix, you could set up an alias. Open .bashrc and add the following line:
alias firefox="flatpak run org.mozilla.firefox"So now you have to do that every time you install a flatpak.
Or just stick to a normal package manager, that does all that for you.
You could do the free software thing and write a shell script that creates an alias every time you install something.
Or use one that someone else has already written:
https://opensource.com/article/21/5/launch-flatpaks-linux-terminal
Frankly? I’d rather stick to a normal package manager too, if available. But the alias trick is useful in a pinch, if you must use a flatpak.