I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
They don’t hype it as much as (I think) they should on that webpage, but VanillaOS does this thing with it’s package manager, Apx, where it allows you to install applications from various distros via containers, and run them all side-by-side seamlessly. It’s neat.
What about the packages that are not available in flatpak? I assume there must be some packages that are only available in certain corners of the internet?
Flatpaks aren’t the only option in Silverblue: you can also layer packages using ‘rpm-ostree’ (requires a reboot though), and you can also use toolbx (or even better, distrobox) to create an easy-to-use container that you can do anything with. With distrobox you can install an app inside of a fedora/ubuntu/arch/other container, and then use a simple terminal command to expose that app to your host system as if it was installed natively.
I’m on Silverblue and I have mostly flatpaks plus a handful of layered packages as my base system. Then I have a couple of distrobox ubuntu containers for software development (lots of libraries and build tools), music production (with Yabridge and Wine). Because the base system is immutable I’ve never had a problem that prevented my computer from booting, and if I ever do, it’s extremely easy to roll back to before the last update. I’ve had a couple of issues working with containers in the past, but not big ones, and much of that comes down to my own user error.
I definitely recommend Silverblue for anyone who wants a rock solid, practically unbreakable Linux system.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. You can use flatpak (or snap if you swing that way) but you can also install applications via containers. They’re still not installed on the OS-- even “native” applications get installed via the container. So if the application you want is maintained for arch in aur, you can add the --aur tag to the apx command and it will install that version instead of the default, which is ubuntu. This also works for fedora applications.
Edit: More info here: https://handbook.vanillaos.org/2023/01/11/install-and-manage-applications.html
Doesn’t that result in a lot of wasted space from duplicated dependencies? Don’t get me wrong, this looks great on paper, which is why I desperately need to find fault with it before I start distrohopping again.
Just let some bees loose on your system for a while and they’ll sort that out.
Also depending on how good your CPU is btrfs compression would also save a fair bit. AFAIK shared libraries are pretty well compressible.
I’m sure it does to some degree, though I don’t know if it’s enough to matter on modern computers, and isn’t that what flatpak does, too? (duplicating dependencies)
In any event, if you don’t need an application from a specific distro there’s no reason to create that container. The non-ubuntu ones get created when they’re needed. (And I think the next version of VanillaOS will be debian-based, not ubuntu; in case that matters.)
That sounds cool. Thanks for the recommendation.
That is actually awesome. It sound like the Fedora aliens (?) but probably more reliable. Cool. Adding VanillaOS that to the list potential new OS that makes computing easy and fun.
I wonder how well it integrates with hardware. Arch with the pacman packages has been the only distro where I could get ROCm working reliably. I’d love to make a “ROCm container” and dump all that mess into it’s own sandbox.
In fact, the thing I really want is more of a “Qubes but not for security tryhards” (aka I can actually use Wayland AND game on it) where everything gets it’s own container mainly for organizational purposes, but something like this sounds like a fair compromise.
Could you do this with something like Distrobox?
IIRC Apx is using distrobox under the hood. So in that case yes.
Again - I have no idea how well it’s hardware support is. I assume 3d accel and whatnot would be fine because it’s widely used, but dunno if anyone tried running ROCm on it.
The source is reddit, but I didn’t want to send more traffic there: https://www.reddit.com/r/steamdeck_linux/comments/xltere/rocm_finally_installed_via_distrobox/