Glyph@miss_rodent Multiple distros means multiple platforms. Multiple platforms means multiple dev targets. Multiple dev targets means that developing for "Linux" is, at minimum, *many dozens of times more expensive* than developing for macOS, or Windows, or the web.
cthos 🐱@cthos @miss_rodent do they? experts seem to disagree
@glyph @miss_rodent I mean, I run several different distros across several different pieces of hardware, with different desktop environments and I can install Flatpaks on all of them, so yes?
@glyph @miss_rodent The list includes but is not limited to:
- Manjaro on a 2015 Macbook Air 11" with XFCE
- Bazzite on a Framework 13" with KDE
- ZorinOS on Starlabs Starlite (which IIRC is highly skinned GNOME)
- Vanilla Ubuntu on a weirdo 10" tablet PC thingie from Chuwi (Required some config to enable because Ubuntu really loves snaps and they shouldn't)
And all my applications just work.
@cthos @miss_rodent FWIW it's not *impossible* for this to work, but it is wildly beyond *cost-effective* for most ISVs
Matt Campbell@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent Then the community should definitely organize to make Flatpaks work more reliably across distros. What are the biggest problems that make it necessary for app developers to put in distro-specific work even when targeting Flatpak? (I have no experience with this yet; my main desktop app project at this point is a remote desktop access tool, so that's a whole other can of worms.)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent flatpak does not address the deficiencies or the expense of interacting with a zillion different compositors, or for that matter different audio systems or GPS daemons. the kinds of apps that need to interact with the platform need an API shaped in terms of d-bus endpoints, and the problem that flatpak addresses is one of .so files. flatpak also requires manual management of filesystem permissions, which means apps are just slightly dysfunctional
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se, but most of the immutable distros (SteamOS, Bazzite, VanillaOS) lean _heavily_ on Flatpaks because you cannot just do `apt install {foo}`.
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent There are also other solutions for dev work, like most of those also have a contrivance for running a mutable distro in a container and then exposing binaries from that container to do stuff because not everything is a flatpak
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent immutable distros are probably the future in more ways than one. I didn’t realize this nuance, I should probably get one of these installed (other than steamos)
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Aurora and Bluefin are the Universal Blue immutable distros for development work, with either KDE or GNOME respectively - Bazzite's their "gaming" distro. They all work pretty similarly. VanillaOS is probably the most stripped-down one I've tried. And of course Fedora provides their own series of images.
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent like if I were to create an operating system for doing SMTP with twisted and a different operating system with unrelated branding for doing websockets
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent sorry I do not mean to be mean about this. but it seems like they’ve done some really good work here and are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have *heard* about bazzite and bluefin. at some length. i knew they were immutable distros. I had considered installing them. I did not even realize they were largely compatible let alone more or less the same thing
Raven667@glyph i think this is irreconcilable though because the software and out of the box config of an immutable distro is fixed, so you need to have different complete builds if you want different stuff in the base system. The compatability for apps is high though because the OS maker is pulling all the components out of the same pool. Like i dont think you want your general purpose desktop to boot into Steam, like Bazzite handheld builds do, but any of the flatpak apps will run just the same on all of the family, like the choice of specific flavor is driven by the hardware and purpose of the computer, but they can all run the same stuff outside the base os
@raven667 The Bazzite desktop builds don't auto-boot steam, though (but you *can* tell it to do that)
@cthos right, i run Bazzite on a laptop and a desktop, they start Steam on login, but not in big picture mode, but it was my understanding that the handheld builds *do* jump right into steam, just like steamos, eg on Lenovo Legion Go, including support for unique hardware in the base system that wouldnt be necessary or appropriate for a more general computing desktop, like motion sensors or rgb lighting
@raven667 @glyph @matt @miss_rodent they do, yes. I run Bazzite on a RoG Ally. That’s just a flag in a config file AFAIK though, i think there is a ujust script that can toggle the behavior.