System Apps to Flatpak

[celest ember]

I noticed some applications like Gnome Web, Image Viewer and Videos are installed as normal packages while flatpaks are available. Is there a reason they aren't installed as flatpaks?

And would it be an idea to have the option to install them as Flatpaks in the first setup?

[stark yoke]

If we install then as flatpaks then users disabling it can't have those packages as these applications do not have a snap.

[celest ember]

Ah yes makes sense

[celest ember]

But a toggle for it should be fine then right? Or a drop down menu

[stark yoke]

• some applications are necessary i.e like web browser,etc

[stark yoke]

🤔

You mean like an option to install these things as native packages for users disabling flatpaks? (I GTG good night 👋 )

[celest ember]

A drop down menu to choose between dpkg, flatpak from flathub and flatpak from gnome nightly

Might cost more effort than it's worth but if the devs like the idea :)

Anyway gn!

@outer brook

[muted owl]

+1
Love the idea!

[limpid crystal]

Maybe even make it default if the user selects Flatpack support on install (with an option to change of course). It confused me for a bit when I tried to remove Epiphany and discovered it was installed to the root

[outer brook]

We are planning to remove those apps from the desktop package of Vanilla. It just takes some time since I’m not sure if removing them will automatically remove the software

(That would be something annoying)

[celest ember]

Sounds good, what do you think about the drop down menu idea? This will give users the option to choose between normal package, flatpak or nightly flatpak.

[outer brook]

I don’t think we should provide the user with an easy way to install unstable packages

[celest ember]

Alright understandable, how about just normal package and flatpak?

[wispy geyser]

Or the user could just do it themselves

Problem solved

[celest ember]

No it's better to have it ootb

[past halo]

Interesting, I seem to have several of these apps installed twice (there are two entries in the software center), presumably once as dpkg and once as flatpak, and I was wondering if that's really necessary

[celest ember]

Yeah had the same issue

[slim cargo]

Ok I'd completely missed this thread. I think will be a very good idea to have it all flatpak if it's chosen by the user. Also hope that if you make the switch there will be no need to reinstall (I don't think but I'm very new to this immutable thing. Sorry if it's a stupid assumption)

[celest ember]

@outer brook can we implement this yet?

[potent yacht]

It could be done even easier for the KDE spin

Kde has a flatpak repo just for kdeapps you could use

[celest ember]

Why are they not uploaded to flathub?

[potent yacht]

I don't entirely know

But its how it is

Some KDE apps are on flathub

But konsole and some other ones are only on KDEapps

[celest ember]

Oh I think they're doing the same with GNOME

stable apps on flathub, nightly apps in their own repos

[potent yacht]

Maybe

[celest ember]

yeah just like nautilus is only in nightly, and not on flathub

[potent yacht]

But theres a lot of apps on kdeapps that don't exist as flatpaks anywhere else

[potent yacht]

True then

[stark yoke]

I think due to varying runtimes and some qt ones are proprietary.

[celest ember]

From what I've read on their site, they use kdeapps for their nightly applications

just like GNOME has gnome-nightly for theirs

and yeah the nightly applications do use different runtimes

[outer brook]

There is a big conversation lost in the dev channel. Spoiler: no

[celest ember]

:(

[rustic brook]

I have tried this and unfortunately from what I recall there are still some issues with the flatpak kde apps. Personally, essential system apps should just be installed as a system app, to prevent any potential issues, unless the upstream DE specifically prefers them installed as Flatpak (like Pantheon).

[celest ember]

GNOME is also making an effort to provide all their applications as flatpaks

Not sure what that prefer, but I've seen them recommend flatpak before

[rustic brook]

well everyone is trying to provide flatpaks except for ubuntu

tho considering vanilla's philosophy, it should just default to whatever gnome says they prefer for how to package their apps, right?