Third-parts applications

sachakanner

Hi everyone,

I'm glad to write you with a naive question. I'm an user of Solus OS for about 18 months, and a GNU/Linux user for about 10 years (mostly ubuntu-based distros), without any technical experience.

I recently used with xubuntu, through "snap" installation I guess, an application, draw.io.

I wondered what was the reason there was not something comparable with solus package manager, as ubuntu's "snapstore", with that ability to use application not prepared by the distro directly. I noted there were some applications prepared by third-part developers, like Skype, Spotify or Google chrome, but not a supply so wide (that includes, for example, draw.io).

Is it related to the status of these different distros, based on Debian or developed from scratch ?

Thanks in advance for all your insights.

Nicolas

tomscharbach

sachakanner Solus supports Snap and Flatpak, both. The Third Party repository is closed and no new applications will be added to that repository, as I understand it. But between Snap and Flatpak, you can find most commonly-used third party apps.

I don't use Snap, so I'm not entirely sure how to install Snap apps up in Solus, but snapd is installed and Draw.io is in the Snap Store. I hope that someone who uses Snaps will be along to help.

I prefer Flatpak. I use Flatpak for Microsoft Edge and for Zoom, and have installed other third-party apps using Flatpak from time to time. Flatpak works well with Solus.

Draw.io is available as a Flatpak if you want to use it as a Flatpak.

To install Draw.io as a flatpak, first run

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

in the terminal, reboot, and then run

flatpak install flathub com.jgraph.drawio.desktop

in the terminal.

Reboot again and Draw.io will show up in the menu.

The drill is identical for other apps in the Flathub, although you only have to install the Flathub repository once, the first time you install a Flatpak. After that, just follow the instructions for the particular app (flatpak install flathub.com <package>).

tomscharbach

sachakanner Just in case you are not familiar with the differences between Appimage, Flatpak and Snap, this article is a basic comparison.

As you will no doubt find out from comments in this thread and others in the forum, as well as comparisons from a variety of sources around the internet, both Solus users and Linux users in general have varying opinions about each packaging format.

Like you, I have been a long-time Linux user (Ubuntu 2006-2017, Solus 2017-present) but non-technical. Looking at the question because I wanted to install Microsoft Edge and Zoom, I looked at appimage but quickly dismissed that platform because appimages are often not updated often, which is a deal breaker for a browser, which needs to be updated often for security reasons. I took a harder look at Flatpak and Snap, eventually preferring Flatpak because Flatpak generally loads more quickly and is somewhat more isolated from the OS than Snap.

The concept of distro-agnostic installation is interesting, to say the least. Have fun looking into it. You might learn a lot.

Sebastian

Hey, I am unsure whether this answers your question, but what I can say is this: in my understanding snap is a ubuntu development. Many distros prefer flatpak over snap. If you install flatpak from the software center, you can use flatpaks in a similar way like snaps.
On https://flathub.org/ you also find draw.io as flatpak.

sachakanner

Sebastian I wasn't aware of this, I'm gonna have a look. Thanks !

sachakanner

tomscharbach Thank a lot for the explanation and the detailed work-through you wrote. I'll definitely try with flatpak.

joluveba

Solus supports Snap, Flatpak, and Appimage. Draw.io is available in three versions:

Draw.io snap: https://snapcraft.io/drawio

Draw.io flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.jgraph.drawio.desktop

Draw.io appimage: https://appimage.github.io/draw.io/

Me, I prefer flatpaks and appimages, and avoid snaps.

sachakanner

joluveba Thanks. I'll have a look into the documentation of these features. Thanks for the advice.

sachakanner

tomscharbach I will for sure, thanks a lot for your detailed answer, the documentation, and the kind advices.

Sebastian

sachakanner There is just one thing you need to keep in mind using flatpaks: as you have rightfully pointed out there ist no (not yet?) integration of either snap or flatpak in the solus software-center. This means whenever you update your system via software-center or command line (sudo eopkg up) your installed flatpaks wont get updated at the same time.
For updating your installed flatpaks you need to run flatpak update in terminal.

This is why I update my system using a tiny shell script that first runs sudo eopkg up and then flatpak update.

Here you will find some other helpful information e.g. how to uninstall a flatpak: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/using-flatpak.html

tomscharbach

Sebastian For updating your installed flatpaks you need to run flatpak update in terminal.

@sachakanner My habit is to run flatpak update in the terminal once a week right after Solus updates. Takes but a minute and keeps all of the installed flatpaks current, right along with Solus. Flatpaks are self-contained and isolated from the OS, so forgetting to update doesn't screw anything up, but it doesn't hurt to get into the routine of updating the flatpaks whenever Solus updates, keeping things current.

sachakanner

Sebastian Thanks for the additional documentation and tip about upgrading, it'll be useful.

sachakanner

tomscharbach Alright, thanks for the updating tip, I'll definitely try.