Flatpak, Snap, Appimage, or 3rd party which do you prefer

adurante

I'm just curious of the preferences of Solus users in the case they find something they need that isn't in an eopkg format. What do you use instead?

Personally I tend to use Snaps just becuase I seem to have better luck with them than flatpaks. Appimage is a cool idea and I have used one or two but they seem less convenient than the other formats. 3rd party section of solus is nice but it's inconvenient to have to manually check for updates.

kuki

adurante Manually check is for all,I use both snap and flatpak without any problems

smoliva

adurante I'm just curious of the preferences of Solus users in the case they find something they need that isn't in an eopkg format. What do you use instead?

At the moment, I'm only using one package that's not from the repos, and that happens to be in a Flatpak. I don't have strong opinions about any particular format. It's merely a question of utility. I will say I recently needed to put together a Nextcloud installation for a client project, and found installing it via Snap to be a great timesaver.

brent

the question is what if no solus repo?
*solus-curated 3rd party only
*compile myself with forum's help

sorry solus. snap/flat/app has done nothing for me. poor, incomplete, unsatisfying, broken.
I like the oddball stuff and not the popular stuff so some of that's on me...it's scary the future is to migrate apps to these 3 bozos....my opinion, dude, (get off my lawn?)

exhibit A:
a solus-curated repo app
vs
some snap you just downloaded?

I rest my case...

edit: spelling

adurante

brent hahaha, I respect that. I know a lot of people have very strong feelings about snap/flatpak/etc. which honestly is part of the reason I wanted to ask people.

Part of the joy of Linux is if I want to use Snaps and you want to self compile, we both can use what we want.

Personally I use a mix of all of them except Appimage.

adurante

kuki Snaps automatically check for updates and will update if there are any. However for flatpaks and 3rd party you are correct you need to manually check for updates. Appimage itself doesn't have an update mechanism (at least not yet).

algent

I have tried them all. I use snaps and appimages sometimes when I can't build them myself, or just to want try them.

ender

I prefer appimages as I don't need anything else than the file itself, but above all how straightforward it is to package a custom build. The documentation is great, I think anyone willing and therefore able to build a program from source could instead benefit from the system integration of eopkg.

sgvd

ender
For me, exactly this. I have used all three, but appimages are just the most simply to download and use. Also the appimaged (daemon) to set shortcuts works nicely to remove/add shortcuts automatically on Solus.

I am creating a program myself, and due to the clear documentation I am first trying out AppImage, as it looked the simplest to build+use (no installation needed), which is nice for continuously iterating small changes.

paracetamol

Does updating apps installed from AppImages still require users to manually check for updates and download them? Because that's one thing that makes me not like AppImages that much. I like the convenience of telling a package manager to get all my apps up to date with one command, which is something both Flatpaks and Snaps provide.

synth-ruiner

paracetamol yeah, AppImages don't have any mechanism for updating I think. it's like Windows 😁

Justin

adurante AppImage itself doesn't have an update mechanism (at least not yet).

I don't think it ever will, it's designed for a single download style, like Windows. Unless the application inside the AppImage can over-write itself or files inside I doubt it'll ever be self-updating.

Solarmass

Flatpak

Justin

Back on topic I just use whichever has the application I want. I've used all in one way or another on Solus. I also like docker images for server type stuff, easy to install and manage.

bja-au

I checked out all three and prefer (if I can't use a Solus eopkg package) an appimage because, as mentioned above, it is one single "package", no other additional software required! Sure, the no upgradeability can be a nuisance however I find this to be minor compared to the "all-in-one" advantage.