this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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What is the point of Flatpak, AppImage, Snap, etc? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by hypevhs@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org
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I don't understand what problem they are meant to solve. If you have a FOSS piece of software, you can install it via the package manager. Or the store, which is just a frontend for the package manager. I see that they are distribution-independent, but the distro maintainers likely already know what's compatible and what your system needs to install the software. You enjoy that benefit only through the package manager.

If your distro ships broken software because of dependency problems, you don't need a tool like Flatpak, you need a new distro.

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[โ€“] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Frankly I have found AppImage more useful because Flatpack and Snap seem to need an updated infrustucture which may not be there on an older distribution. AppImage seems to not need much. So I have not found Flatpacks and Snaps to really run on just any system.