Appimages totally suck, because many developers think they were a real packaging format and support them exclusively.
Their use case is tiny, and in 99% of cases Flatpak is just better.
I could not find a single post or article about all the problems they have, so I wrote this.
This is not about shaming open source contributors. But Appimages are obviously broken, pretty badly maintained, while organizations/companies like Balena, Nextcloud etc. don’t seem to get that.
I hate them both, give me a .Deb (or equivalent) if you’re gonna package it. And get off my lawn! 🤣
Installing .deb files from random sources is also very insecure and not reliable for updates.
Less secure than blindly installing flatpaks or appimages?
Appimages work “everywhere” so they are better for distributing malware.
Flatpaks are normally not installed from random sources and I hope it stays like that.
So yes and no.
(Also Flatpaks are, at least in theory, sandboxed and can’t mess with your system stuff unless you allow them to)
Not yet.
The permissions are too comlicated (unlike “allow documents access” on Mac for example)
And there is no Desktop GUI integration for opt-in to permissions. So install, open Flatseal / KDEs settings, harden, then run.
Some of these apps can’t work as flatpaks at all, because they require more access to the system, e.g. Davinci Resolve. AppImage allows that. I mean, heck, even Ubuntu runs a virtual filesystem in order to allow its Snap Firefox to access the Dictionary that lives “outside” its sandboxing. So, yes, there are cases where AppImages do serve a purpose. Not most cases, but a lot of cases.
Have a look at GPU screen recorder, I think thats as much privileges as you need.
XDG-desktop portals are not yet complete. But for filesystem access and GPU de/encoding that should already work.
If the Davinci Resolve devs actually cared about Linux… I think the best way to run it is using uBlues image on Podman.
Have a look at GPU screen recorder, I think thats as much privileges as you need.
XDG-desktop portals are not yet complete. But for filesystem access and GPU de/encoding that should already work.
If the Davinci Resolve devs actually cared about Linux…
AppImages can be signed. Flat pak is the lesser option for security
Explained in a other comment how a pain it is to verify such a signature.
Is that stored in the appimage file?
I find it funny how flatpak neglectors always spell it wrong
I agree with this, but as an app developer, can I just say, Flathub’s documentation is an absolute abomination. It is so bad, that I’ve tried 3 times to publish an app and have given up each time. I can build a local Flatpak just fine, but getting it on Flathub is just so convoluted and bad.
AppImages are ridiculously easy to build and distribute, just a pain to actually use. And even then, they’re not that much of a pain.
Totally understand that. Development docs are so needed.
If worst comes to worst you can just distribute your .flatpak file directly, as you would with your app image
This would tick a lot of issues but please dont do that. People will get used to it and suddenly malware is possible again.
AppImages are great and easy to use and they can be very easily archived. Today I tried to archive a Flatpak package (yuzu) and it was a pain, complicated and gave up in the end. I end up archiving multiple versions of the AppImages and continue using the Appimage for this emulator. Also sometimes Flatpaks do not work correctly, and I (and any other user) have to figure out what settings and configuration, rights and other stuff is needed to setup with Flatseal. Recently I solved the open links issue with Flatpaks, and found out a certain portal was required to be installed. Also sometimes the theming is not correct too.
All in all, I use Flatpak still and AppImages too, each for their own reasons. The lack of repositories and not needing an installation for being functional is not a problem with AppImages, because that’s the entire point of it. They can be automatically generated and ready for download, regardless of any repository, directly on Github from the developers. There is even a program, RPCS3 (a ps3 emulator), which can check and update itself and list all changes since last update.
If you download AppImages from shady places, then off course its shady and insecure. Just like installing any software without knowing what you are doing is insecure. So that’s not a point against the format itself. The argument “Duplicated libraries” is hilarious, if we speak about AppImages vs Flatpak, because Flatpak has duplicated drivers (especially with Nvidia, I know how bad it is because I had Nvidia cards before) and desktop environment versions, just because certain versions of the application needs it.
I don’t understand these evangelism for packaging formats. Flatpak, AppImage, native system packages and other formats have their own uses and are all useful and not bad.
What do you want to achive with archiving, because of a potential takedown by Nintendo?
Just for your purpose you could just keep it installed and probably block it from getting updated. I am sure you could also backup the .flatpak file somehow, and all the dependencies would still be accessible.
flatpak runtimes are pretty bloated, when you use different versions etc. And its bad that you cant only use Flatpak, currently. But locally they use deduplication, so GNOME, KDE and Freedesktop.org will share at least some libraries.
But for sure, it may not be the best library management there is.
Its not evangelism, there are developers that thinl Appimage is an acceptable format and only support that. I dont know but guess some licenses prohibit user repackaging as Flatpak, so you have to stick with that pain.
The deduplication is only for one specific version, even if its installed on my operating system already. AppImages do not include the entire KDE system. And Flatpak will install multiple versions of drivers (Mesa in example) and other dependencies. While this is exactly what Flatpak was designed for and there are good reasons for, it is important to understand that was counter arguing your argument against AppImages for being bloated. Both approaches are good in their own way, depending on what you want or need.
The backup of Yuzu Flatpak was just a current example why someone would want do that. There can be any reason to backup specific software versions, which is not the topic of today. The topic is, that with Flatpak its a mess to backup and restore. Yes, you can copy the configuration and installed binary files, but that does not work on any other computer. You can backup the key and other important files as well, but then its complicated to restore them as well, that I just gave up. It’s probably not impossible, but not straight forward; a bad user experience.
Meanwhile I can just download an AppImage and copy the file and its archived. Done. In multiple versions. No extra software, knowledge or complicated dance to do this very simple and important task.
Good points.
We’re also regularly debating Flatpak here. That password managers don’t tie into the browser and the desktop themes don’t apply. It’s also not the best solution and regularly confuses newer users.
Flatpak is the best solution.
Password manager is usualy an add on.
Themes not applying is wrong packaging, not flatpaks fault.
Flatpaks limitations are real but you should install as flatpak first and if not working, then use the native package or nix. And limitations in flatpaks should be advertised.
Hehe, No. It’s the sandboxing.
But with this approach you take over the answering questions to newbies… Why doesn’t the webcam show up in the videoconferencing? Why doesn’t my GTK / QT themes apply to some software and it’s a 2 page tutorial with lots of command line commands to fix that? Why can’t I install Firefox add-ons and on Windows and MacOS everything just works? Why is Linux so complicated and regularly stuff doesn’t work?
I had this argument multiple times now. There is an easy solution: Do it the other way around until you know what you’re doing and about the consequences. Distributions are there for a reason. They put everything into one package and do testing to make sure everything works together. They provide you with security patches if you choose the right distro. LibreOffice and a Browser even come preinstalled most of the times. If you do away with all of that, it’s now your job to tie the software into your desktop, your job to handle the sandboxing if there is addons that need to pierce the sandbox. Your job to make sure the Flatpak publishers do quick updates and keep the runtimes up-to-date if a security vulnerability arise within an used library…
I’m not directly opposed to using Flatpak. I’m just saying there are some consequences that aren’t that obvious. There are valid use-cases and I also use Flatpak. But in my experience hyping some of the available technologies without simultaneously explaining the consequences is regularly doing a disservice to new users.
Do you mean fedora not installing codecs by default and the flatpak version of firefox has it bundled, i.e. just works?
I don’t want to argument with you about that. If something doesn’t work as expected or intended, you’ve done a bad job. Stuff not working on linux isn’t exclusive to flatpak. It’s the fault of maintainers if people complain about a flatpak version compared to distro package.
More people have to use flatpak and report the bugs they experience. The more people focus on flstpak the less infancy bugs will appear.
I’ve got only recent runtimes installed. There’s no old runtime. I understand your concern though, but it’s less of a problem for maintained software. Moreover, you’ve got the same problrm for other package manager. Flatpakcan even improve upon this because it’s bundled.
There’s also a distinction to be made if it’s an official distribution channel or if someone else packaged it.
I mean it’s not even my own problem. I just have Spotify, Microsoft Teams and Zoom installed that way, and a few pieces of software that I’m testing. I use a rolling distro so I have the most recent versions of every software I need anyways. And I have the skills to configure stuff. So I myself don’t have an use-case for a spyware-riddled Chrome browser from Flathub or something. I have a nice LibreWolf from the unstable channel of my distro. Steam and all the other stuff is there, too. And it works almost flawlessly. Why would I trade that in for a 4GB version of the same software that has downsides?
It’s the newer users I’m concerned with. Their sub-par experience of Linux.
This is what I mean:
- https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/7352 (Maybe Keepass works as of now(?) I don’t think so but I haven’t tried. At least some addons do. But other’s don’t. It requires the permissions to be configured by the prople preparing both flatpaks that want to talk to each other.)
- https://itsfoss.com/flatpak-app-apply-theme/ / https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/desktop-integration.html
- All the issues people had with Steam, the graphics drivers, attaching gamepads/controllers or headsets, getting Discord and extras working. (Some of that seems to have been resolved in the meantime. They put quite some work into it.)
- Some distros don’t update Flatpak packages as part of their standard update mechanism. You need to learn to regularly run “flatpak update” or learn how to activate that.
- I have some packages still rely on old runtimes that are missing security patches. I suppose it’s the same for a lot of other people. And there isn’t a mechanism to warn you. You also need to learn how to figure that out.
- I don’t remember which of the video conferencing solutions this was, but I remember fighting with the webcam permissions and advice on the internet was to disable sandboxing entirely. I set the permissions a bit better but then also screen sharing wouldn’t work.
As I said, it’s okay for someone like me - and probably you - to use, and I don’t complain. I’m glad I have Flatpak available as a tool. But look at the issues I’ve linked above and the steep learning curve for the beginner. They need to learn what GTK is, what QT is, what desktop they use, learn what Flatseal is, use the CLI. They have no clue why it is even required to do that much work to get their Keepass set up. And that it’s not Linux’ fault but their decision from 2 weeks ago to install the browser that way. And their experience is just worse than it needs to be. And this isn’t unsubstianced, I’m speaking from experience. I’ve answered these questions over and over again. It’s already annoying to get the NVidia stuff set up reliably, find new software and adapt your workflow. And the switch from X11 to Wayland broke things like screen sharing/recording, anyways. And we’re now piling 20 other things on top, to learn and do manually if you happen to be one of the users who don’t use the default standard setup.
And nothing of that is “bad” or can’t be fixed… We’re making progress with all of that. And we’ll get there. All I can say with my experience helping people with their Linux woes and the current state of Flatpak: The “use Flatpak for everything” mentality is causing issues for some newer users. And experience shows: They rarely understand the consequences but heard the hype about Flatpak. And few of them can explain why they used Flatpak over the proper packages in their distro.
So my opinion in short:
- Flatpak is nice : yes
- try a Flatpak first, then the distro package if it doesn’t work: hard no
- you can get recent software on older distros with flatpak: yes
- you can recommend Flatpak: Yes, if you also explain the consequences of the sandboxing and pulling things from potentially unreliable third-party sources. You’re doing people a disservice if you don’t.
- some of this will change in the future: yes
- we should have more sandboxing: yes
That native messaging portal is probably developed somewhere. But for sure, also apps installing themselves “partly” as an extension of another, like Zotero and Libreoffice. This could be done though, okay.
Themes generally just work on KDE at least. At least light/dark themes, which may not really be the fanciest of choices
I’d be happy if people just cut down on advertising Chrome/Firefox and LibreOffice via Flatpak to new users. They should use the packaged version. That’s why we have distributions, to make the whole system a smooth experience and everything tie together.
Flatpak is slowly getting there and I think at least some distros have it preconfigured so the default GTK themes are in place.
Ultimately, I’d like sandboxing to be available natively in Linux, at least for desktop applications. And we can talk about a packaging format that is available to the user, allows pulling software directly from the upstream project, includes libraries and runtimes.
Yes SELinux confined users or apparmor could allow sandboxing apps the same way as flatpaks.
On 2GB of RAM systems that would make a lot of sense.
Chromium cant use its native sandbox, Firefox supposedly can.
But Librewolf and more should be used as Flatpak, unless you need multiple apps to chat between (native messaging) which doesnt work yet, its way more stable.
Yeah, I think we should extend on the sandboxing features like AppArmor, SELinux and Flatpak for desktop use. Look at MacOS and Android and what they’re doing for desktop users. That is currently not the Linux experience. Ultimately I’d like my system to have an easy and fine grained system to limit permissions. Force third-party apps to ask permission before accessing my documents or microphone. have sane defaults. make it easy to revoke for example internet access with a couple of clicks. make it so I can open an app multiple times. and have different profiles for work, private stuff and testing. This should be the default and active in 100% of the desktop applications. And apps should all use a dedicated individual place to store their data and config files.
Librewolf and more […] used as Flatpak, […] its way more stable.
That’s just not true. I’ve been using Linux for quite a while now. And I can’t remember my browser crashing in years, seriously. Firefox slowed down a bit when I had 3000 tabs open, but that’s it. How stable is your Flatpak browser? Does it crash minus 5 times each year? How would that even work? And what about the theming and addons like password managers I talked about in the other comment? Use the distro’s packaged version. It is way more stable. And as a bonus all the edge-cases will now work, too.
Most things already work. You know, desktops need to start with that, they need to implement popups for these permissions. And I guess apps also dont ask for permissions yet (like they do with Pipewire access), they just take it or fail.
So its again a problem of adapted apps.
Storage is all stored in
~/.var/app/and could be duplicated etc if you really want to. That would require some hacking, but you could have multiple profiles for apps. Tbh this is not hard to do at all, just rename the app folder to “appname-profile” and rename the active folder back to the apps name.A GUI for that would be interesting.
Browsers are a big example of good native packaging, as they get most attention. But for example on Debian, or Ubuntu, or many other platforms, I would prefer to use Flatpak Firefox (if firefox didnt have their deb repo now).
Chromium is hacky as Flatpak as the Sandbox is imcompatible and needed to be replaced.
For firefox there is no statement about this, hopefully soon. I use native browsers for the same reason as you.
The only use case for Appimages
If users want to carry applications around on a thumbdrive, or run on a fully immutable system like TAILS, Appimages may be needed. But this is the only target, and it is not a standard use case.I guess I agree. This is precisely the case where I have ever used them. Namely to have a portable executable of my password manager on a stick together with a backup of the password database.
I had no idea they were being used elsewhere.
Nextcloud, Balena Etcher, Lunar Launcher and more are exclusively supporting Appimage, thats the big problem.
don’t care still using appimages and not flatpaks
Thats a very constructive point!
By the way, if you guys are interested here is a talk comparing Appimages Snaps and Flatpaks by Richard Brown, one the devs at Suse, a big contributer to openSuse and the guy who spearheaded the Desktop variante of MicroOS (the immutable openSuse Tumbleweed).
He isn’t to keen on appimages either because of a miriad of technical issues.
youtube.com/watch?v=4WuYGcs0t6I&t=456
For all the Grayjay/Newpipe/Freetube users
Very good video with additional points, will add them
I’ll be voted down but…
This is the shit you get from kids who grew up with “app stores.”
The linux people and their repositories…
Lucky kids. I remember when I switched to Linux and encountered my first app store (Synaptic). That was already such a huge improvement over random
.exes, and app stores today are way, way better.Package managers are fine. Walled gardens are not.
Absolutely. Luckily there are plenty of non-walled garden solutions on Linux, e.g. Flatpak.
I mean, snap could also be not. Just somebody needs to write a wrapper that allows to download, verify etc. .snap packages from other repos.
Shitty move of Canonical for sure.
Appimages are awesome for the regular user. Single file, just double click to run anywhere. Snap and Flatpak should die a quick death and all the work should be used to improve Appimages. There’s no other concept for the end user as simple and clear as this.
No it is not. Appimages are bad.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4WuYGcs0t6I&t=456
Watch that talk. And also read the text I guess. Also comments under other comments.
Appimages are seriously broken
I don’t get why we didn’t just do it macOS style; bundle everything into one directory with a standardised structure and wire up file managers etc. to run the correct executable inside it.
Because the FHS is a more sensible organization of files. Not every user needs to have their own executable for each program, that’s a mess.
Eh, I’ve always felt these solutions are complementary, or supplementary, rather than a “versus”. Each one, in particular cases, covers gaps the others can’t cover. The only one that’s unneeded is Snap.
For example, I like Flatpak. I like that I can get software from an authorized hub, much like with a package manager. I like that the releases of the apps in the hub are mostly well documented.
But no matter how nice Flatpak seems to be, its overreliance on “portals” and “buses” and “seals” comes associated with trying to over-engineerize my system too much for its own good. Every app I have ever tried on Flatpak, for example, doesn’t support audio, apparently because I have the godly, eternal, battle-tested ALSA and not the manchild’s crap that is PulseAudio. But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way to do audio on Linux, I’m
supposedexpected to have it. What’s next? systemd-flatpakd?OTOH, I picked up the AppImage for Freetube and not only do I get audio but it loads and runs noticeably faster than the Flatpak version. And since it’s an official release I know where can I trustably get an update from. Literally no downsides!
But I sure as hell am not going to go for an AppImage for an app from which I expect more integration with my desktop activity, such as say a code editor or an advanced image / model viewer. Not if I can help it. Because I am going to be expecting to be able to stuff like drag and drop, have a correct tray icon, etc.
So that means I have to keep an eye on both solutions.
Hey, at least I’m avoiding Snap!
Now if there’s an AppImage for Steam somewhere… maybe…You got me in the first part XD
No joking, apart from that
But since apparently PulseAudio is the GNome / Microsoft approved way
I think I understand your point.
Pulseaudio is outdated, Pipewire AND Pulseaudio are now needed. Maybe also just Pipewire, and you can somehow fake Pulseaudio?
I never used a system without Pulseaudio, and Fedora has both (?) Or just Pipewire.
Pulseaudio is the old stuff that apps want to use, pipewire is the new cool stuff (I recommend qpwgraph) which allows like everything.
Aaand it is not overcomplicated, it isolated apps and introduces a permission system. Privileged programs that channel the requests and permissions, and sometimes need user interaction. Its actually less chaotic, the problem simply is that Flatpak ALSO tries to run all apps everywhere. And apps are mostly not up to date, so Flatpaks have randomly poked holes everywhere.
Today I worked on hardening configs for my apps. I maintain a list of recommended ones here. I will just put my overrides in my (currently still private) dotfiles, will upload them some day.
I am for example now Wayland only. Not all apps want to, but with the correct env vars (which I just globally set for all flatpaks, hoping it will not mess with anything), all apps use it.
This makes the system way faster, and applying different vars on the apps is very easy with Flatpak.
Literally no downsides!
Not true. It still has no updating mechanism, the binary may be official, but the rest are random libraries that may not be well versioned or controlled, etc etc.
The post is specifically about upstream supported Appimages, while Flathub is mainly maintained by the same 4 peolple (it is crazy). The request is for upstream devs to maintain Flatpaks.
But for sure not everything is nice. Runtimes are too huge, outdated apps cause huge library garbage, downloads are inefficient, …
AppImage is great at what it does - provide an ultra-low effort packaging solution for ad-hoc app distribution that enables a developer who won’t spend the time to do rpm/deb/flatpak packaging. There are obvious problems, security and otherwise, that arise if you try using it for a large software collection. But then again some people use things like Homebrew and pacstall unironically so …
But then again some people use things like Homebrew and pacstall unironically so …
Thank you for mentioning this! Unfortunately a quick search on the internet didn’t yield any pointers. Would you mind elaborating upon the security problems of Homebrew(/Linuxbrew)? Thanks in advance 😊!
Post about homebrew by Jorge Castro
I am not sure how secure it is.
I learned quite some things from this talk
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4WuYGcs0t6I&t=456
Appimages are damn broken
I mean, I’m not saying they aren’t. I think the original argument is valid. I just think they’re better than the alternative, which isn’t Flatpak but self-extracting .sh files.
Yes thats true. But that talk specifically mentioned the horrible security practice of appimages, and that they dont run everywhere at all
No argument. The security aspect is something that seemingly a lot of people in this thread don’t get. The some-person-creates-a-package-I-install model works as reliably as it does without sandboxing only when that person is a well known trusted individual or group. For example the Debian maintainers team. It’s a well known group of people who are trusted due to their track record to not produce malware-ridden packages intentionally or unintentionally. That is the line of defense you got. If you remove that, you end up in download-random-shit-on-Windows land in regards of security.
What’s worse, this extends to the bundled libraries. Unlike central systems with shared libraries like Debian, bundling libraries means that the problem extends to the sources of those libraries! Package A and package B both include libjpeg-v1, it’s got a remote exploit gaping hole. Developer A has time to follow CVEs and updates theirs. Developer B doesn’t or has moved on. The system gets a patched libjpeg-v1, app A gets it, assuming it can be auto-updated. App B remains open for exploitation.
Therefore given all that, sandboxing is a requirement for safely using packages from random people. Even when the packages from those come from a central source like Flathub or Snap Store. Sandboxing is why this model works without major security incidents on Android.
Anyway, won’t be the first bad practice advocated by some in this community.
This matches very well with this talk of an OpenSuse microOS maintainer doing a followup on his thoughts of Appimages, Snaps and Flatpak.
Spoiler: Flatpaks are the only ones that work.
Snaps work too if you use Ubuntu and trust Canonical, as he mentions. I’m a bit annoyed at Flatpak for being inferior to Snap in that it can’t be used to install system components. Snap allows for a completely snappy system, without the need to build the base OS one way and the user apps another. The OS from-traditional-packages, user-apps-from-Flatpaks model is an unfortunate compromise but I guess we’re gonna get to live with it long term. It’s better than the status quo.
BTW I completely disagree with him that everyone should be using rolling releases. As a software developer, user, and unpaid IT support, this is a mind boggling position.
Yesno. Snaps are not sandboxed at all, which is a nogo for normal application distribution.
So while I think it also sounds nice to pack an OS into different immutable parts, if the entire system is flawed, its not worth it.
Flatpak is good for app distribution, the rest is job of the OS.
not rolling release but normal stable release, not some random LTS. Not every software is like Firefox ESR (which honestly is not needed as Firefox doesnt break), but Debian etc. often just randomly dont ship updates.
Fedora is a bit too rolling, but if you always stay on the older supported version, thats okay. Especially with atomic.
Odd, this random github rant didn’t seem to sway my opinion.
To hell with user choice, only flatpak
I’m not going to weigh in on the specifics of Flatpak vs AppImage, because I don’t know enough about the particulars.
However, I think the “user choice” argument is often deployed in situations where it probably shouldn’t be.
For instance, in this case, it’s not the user’s choice at all, but a developer’s choice, as a normal user would not be packaging their own software. They would be merely downloading one of a number of options of precompiled packages. And this is the thrust of the argument. If we take the GitHub rant at face value, some developers seem to be distributing software using AppImage, to the exclusion of other options. And then listing ways in which this is problematic.
I, for one, would be rather annoyed if my only option were either AppImage or Flatpak, as I typically prefer use software packaged for my package manager. That is user choice, give me the option to package it myself; hopefully it’s already been done for me.
There are some good things to be said about trust and verification, and I’m generally receptive to those arguments way more than “user choice.”
Thanks. Also, afaik lots of software is not legal to redistribute as Flatpak.
