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Steam Frame and Steam Machine will be another good boost for Flatpaks and desktop Linux overall too (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 2 days ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/linux@programming.dev
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With the Steam Frame and Steam Machine launching with SteamOS Linux this year, we're going to again see a nice boost for Flatpaks and desktop Linux overall.

Linux has, historically, been quite messy when it comes to software distribution. We have various distribution-specific packaging formats like .deb (Debian / Ubuntu), .rpm (Fedora) and the list just goes on and on. Canonical also went their own way with Ubuntu for the likes of Snap, but the real winner is going to end up being Flatpak and the main Flathub store.

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[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago

mmm yes, I too like duplicated dependancies in the push for a unified distro.

Realistically that's my only complaint about flatpak. I have 7 or 8 flatpaks installed on my system, and I think 4 seperate gnome environments installed as dependancies to them. It's so bloaty

[-] illusionist@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 days ago

It's a feature to have multiple environments. Otherwise all apps would have to stay on an old version with the lowest common dependency versions.

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 14 points 2 days ago

I really like Flatpak. Sure it uses extra disk space, but it works well, and doesn't require admin to install

[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

most software shouldn't require admin to install tbh, like I install all my stuff to ~/.local/opt and ~/.local/bin and it works fine generally as long as it doesn't need root for something. I do agree flatpak is nice for things that might need an isolated environment though, but for most of my stuff a local user based install works fine

[-] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 8 points 2 days ago

well that depends on the... dependencies (heh) more than the program itself

AppImage works well too, I've been using Gear Lever for them

[-] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 8 points 2 days ago

As another person said, having multiple versions of dependencies is part of the draw. Also, Flatpak does allow for deduplication of dependencies when multiple applications require the same version.

[-] Carnelian@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Who doesn’t like bloated dependencies, it’s like you get more software per software

[-] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Luckily SSD prices are going down. \S

In fairness, I have enough to value more the convenience than the extra size. Might not agree if I had a small drive

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

I agree. I wish Flatpak used a proper package manager. You install one Flatpak and you need the entire freedesktop sdk even if you use a fifth of it. Install a second Flatpak and maybe do it again.

[-] evol@lemmy.today 0 points 2 days ago

bit of a hyperbole but if we didn't stick to this shared dependency model for applications for so long we would already have the year of the linux desktop

this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
195 points (99.5% liked)

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