{"slug": "flatpak", "name": "Flatpak", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "Linux system for building, distributing and running sandboxed desktop applications across distributions.", "recommenders": 13, "commenters": 31, "warners": 10, "score": 4.821, "rising": 3.71, "first": "2025-11-09", "latest": "2026-10-22", "why": "HN commenters like it for running up-to-date desktop apps on stable distros like Debian or Alpine without dependency conflicts, and for sandboxing that leaves little behind when an app is removed.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 13, "neutral": 8, "compare": 0, "warn": 10}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 0, 4], "listed": true, "loved": ["Current apps, stable base", "Sandboxing"], "caveat": "Sandbox breakage", "short_quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "icon": true, "domain": "flatpak.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://flatpak.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Flatpak"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like it for running up-to-date desktop apps on stable distros like Debian or Alpine without dependency conflicts", "cites": [{"id": 802408560, "item_id": 50150535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "by": "oflebbe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "excerpt": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS: Running up-to-date desktop apps like synology-drive, prusa slicer, keepassxc, kdenlive or even Steam at the same time without any conflicting dependencies and configurations tainting the distribution. And if you do not want to use it any more, you can simply remove it with little or even no traces left behind. I love the experien", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "use_case": "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 801666451, "item_id": 50104153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104153", "by": "nicfio", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably", "excerpt": "I don't like Ubuntu. It was born with the intent of making Linux more user friendly, it changed policy wanting to become the Microsoft of the linux world: Snap, Mir. And then why use a derivative if I can stay on the original? I love debian: stable, it creates the right environment to feel at ease without the fear that every update can break something. Old software? flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably.", "context": "", "use_case": "running newer software on Debian", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 772562321, "item_id": 48285145, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48285145", "by": "JCattheATM", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak has been a great way to run them.", "excerpt": "This is bad news, and exactly the type of viral problem criticics of systemd warned about. Systemd advocates always downplay the issue, but here we are. I love using Alpine, and for the few packages that don't have a musl version available (e.g. Steam), flatpak has been a great way to run them. Hopefully someone will maintain a fork.", "context": "Alpine user", "use_case": "running packages without musl builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd"}]}, {"text": ", and for sandboxing that leaves little behind when an app is removed.", "cites": [{"id": 758786640, "item_id": 47424165, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424165", "by": "Levitating", "date": "2026-03-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the way it sandboxes the applications.", "excerpt": "> dislike flatpaks and favor a low-level, bare-metal approach Flatpaks are sandboxed with bubblewrap[1]. I would still call that bare-metal. And flatpaks aren't particularly bloated either, there's no need for a flatpak to be any bigger than a regular binary if it only depends on the kde/gnome/freedesktop runtime. I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the ", "context": "", "use_case": "installing sandboxed apps", "switched_from": "distro packages", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 802408560, "item_id": 50150535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "by": "oflebbe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "excerpt": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS: Running up-to-date desktop apps like synology-drive, prusa slicer, keepassxc, kdenlive or even Steam at the same time without any conflicting dependencies and configurations tainting the distribution. And if you do not want to use it any more, you can simply remove it with little or even no traces left behind. I love the experien", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "use_case": "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is that sandbox permissions break features like file access, game controllers and theming", "cites": [{"id": 791607024, "item_id": 49475439, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475439", "by": "blizdiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time.", "excerpt": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time. Every desktop app i use has some broken feature. Sandboxes as another permissions panel suck. Simple browser-like permissions that allow prompted overwrite would be WAY better! Now i have media organizer programs that deletes my files if i try to write on a networked drive. Games that can\u2019t see the controller", "context": "Aurora user", "use_case": "desktop app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 802411744, "item_id": 50150734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150734", "by": "Tooster", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak was overwhelming, required flatseal and often theming broke.", "excerpt": "AppImage works in the same way downloading a binary from the web and running it with `./program` works. It is dumb simple, but it has really poor integration with the system. I've been using AppImages for several years but the manual churn got to tedious \u2014 auto updates, system integration, background services, keeping it tidy. I contributed AppImage packaging workflow to some apps \u2014 mechanism itself is messy, support", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 791651872, "item_id": 49478242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478242", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development.", "excerpt": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development. The page mentions adding more granular permissions, which is nice to see. However, another necessary improvement is actually making it possible for software to incorporate these new granular permissions in a backwards compatible manner. As one example, I maintain a game on Flathub that supports game controllers as an input device. By default,", "context": "maintains a game on Flathub", "use_case": "distributing a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}]}, {"text": ", and several users found it buggy or unreliable.", "cites": [{"id": 802395888, "item_id": 50149743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50149743", "by": "edg5000", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem.", "excerpt": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem. Maybe this got fixed nowadays. I did not find it user friendly either, but this could be addressed by the distro. AppImage actually works and is simple, so I use that. Snap is trash because autoupdate cannot be disabled without code changes (what?!) last time I checked.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 742942512, "item_id": 46433907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433907", "by": "bobajeff", "date": "2025-12-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I just hope it wouldn't be a buggy mess like flatpak is.", "excerpt": "I like this idea and know at least a few who would love to use this if you can solve for the: 'unfortunate rough edges that people only tolerate because they use WINE as a last resort' Whether those rough edges will ever be ironed out is a matter I'll leave to other people. But I love that someone is attempting this just because of the tenacity it shows. This reminds me of projects like asahi and cosmopolitan c. Now ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Win32 is the stable Linux ABI"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Current apps, stable base", "summary": "Lets users run up-to-date desktop apps on stable or older distros without conflicting dependencies.", "quotes": [{"id": 802408560, "item_id": 50150535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "by": "oflebbe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "excerpt": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS: Running up-to-date desktop apps like synology-drive, prusa slicer, keepassxc, kdenlive or even Steam at the same time without any conflicting dependencies and configurations tainting the distribution. And if you do not want to use it any more, you can simply remove it with little or even no traces left behind. I love the experien", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "use_case": "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 801666451, "item_id": 50104153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104153", "by": "nicfio", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably", "excerpt": "I don't like Ubuntu. It was born with the intent of making Linux more user friendly, it changed policy wanting to become the Microsoft of the linux world: Snap, Mir. And then why use a derivative if I can stay on the original? I love debian: stable, it creates the right environment to feel at ease without the fear that every update can break something. Old software? flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably.", "context": "", "use_case": "running newer software on Debian", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 772562321, "item_id": 48285145, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48285145", "by": "JCattheATM", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak has been a great way to run them.", "excerpt": "This is bad news, and exactly the type of viral problem criticics of systemd warned about. Systemd advocates always downplay the issue, but here we are. I love using Alpine, and for the few packages that don't have a musl version available (e.g. Steam), flatpak has been a great way to run them. Hopefully someone will maintain a fork.", "context": "Alpine user", "use_case": "running packages without musl builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd"}]}, {"label": "Sandboxing", "summary": "Apps are sandboxed with bubblewrap, and file access is granted through Portals.", "quotes": [{"id": 758786640, "item_id": 47424165, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424165", "by": "Levitating", "date": "2026-03-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the way it sandboxes the applications.", "excerpt": "> dislike flatpaks and favor a low-level, bare-metal approach Flatpaks are sandboxed with bubblewrap[1]. I would still call that bare-metal. And flatpaks aren't particularly bloated either, there's no need for a flatpak to be any bigger than a regular binary if it only depends on the kde/gnome/freedesktop runtime. I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the ", "context": "", "use_case": "installing sandboxed apps", "switched_from": "distro packages", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 792025376, "item_id": 49501586, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49501586", "by": "silver_sun", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak uses Portals to let the user grant access to different files/directories", "excerpt": "Flatpak uses Portals to let the user grant access to different files/directories, apparently they don't have access by default: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/sandbox-permissions.html I was also unable to find any Flatpak that has access to the home directory when installed, you may well be right but I couldn't find any. I used Flatseal to verify the permissions: https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.github.tchx84.Flat", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed app installs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root"}, {"id": 733863681, "item_id": 45866480, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45866480", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Users are better off flatpaks powered by bubblewrap .", "excerpt": "I experimented bubblewrap as a better alternative to firejail. Unfortunately there are scripts for few applications. It\u2019s tool for developers. Users are better off flatpaks powered by bubblewrap .", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed apps for users", "switched_from": "", "story": "Using bubblewrap to add sandboxing to NetBSD"}]}, {"label": "Clean removal", "summary": "Removing an app also removes its configuration and cache files, leaving few traces.", "quotes": [{"id": 758786640, "item_id": 47424165, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424165", "by": "Levitating", "date": "2026-03-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the way it sandboxes the applications.", "excerpt": "> dislike flatpaks and favor a low-level, bare-metal approach Flatpaks are sandboxed with bubblewrap[1]. I would still call that bare-metal. And flatpaks aren't particularly bloated either, there's no need for a flatpak to be any bigger than a regular binary if it only depends on the kde/gnome/freedesktop runtime. I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the ", "context": "", "use_case": "installing sandboxed apps", "switched_from": "distro packages", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 802408560, "item_id": 50150535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "by": "oflebbe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "excerpt": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS: Running up-to-date desktop apps like synology-drive, prusa slicer, keepassxc, kdenlive or even Steam at the same time without any conflicting dependencies and configurations tainting the distribution. And if you do not want to use it any more, you can simply remove it with little or even no traces left behind. I love the experien", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "use_case": "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}]}, {"label": "Coexists with apt", "summary": "Runs alongside the distro's default package manager without taking it over.", "quotes": [{"id": 801849153, "item_id": 50115572, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115572", "by": "bayindirh", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Brew, flatpak, etc. live alongside your default package manager peacefully.", "excerpt": "> you can't opt out of apt without changing distros Yes, however apt/dnf/emerge/etc. are main package managers of the systems. They don't slowly overtake packages you use or the repositories of other distributions do not quietly offload package installations to other package managers (e.g.: apt install firefox triggers snap installation in Ubuntu. This is malicious behavior). Brew, flatpak, etc. live alongside your d", "context": "built a Debian derivative distribution", "use_case": "package management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 794942160, "item_id": 49683885, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683885", "by": "mikae1", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use \"dnf\" to upgrade my system and \"flatpak update\" and \"brew upgrade\" to upgrade the apps I've installed.", "excerpt": "> I don't understand the distinction you use here. Distinction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683258 I use \"dnf\" to upgrade my system and \"flatpak update\" and \"brew upgrade\" to upgrade the apps I've installed. An app like VirtualBox does not install using Flatpak or Homebrew, so I would use dnf for that. It's usually an app or two that doesn't work via Flatpak/Homebrew/AppImage that I need to install using d", "context": "Fedora user", "use_case": "installing user apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Homebrew 7.0.0"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Sandbox breakage", "summary": "Sandbox restrictions break app features like file saving, attachments, controllers and theming, and can require Flatseal.", "quotes": [{"id": 791607024, "item_id": 49475439, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475439", "by": "blizdiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time.", "excerpt": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time. Every desktop app i use has some broken feature. Sandboxes as another permissions panel suck. Simple browser-like permissions that allow prompted overwrite would be WAY better! Now i have media organizer programs that deletes my files if i try to write on a networked drive. Games that can\u2019t see the controller", "context": "Aurora user", "use_case": "desktop app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 802411744, "item_id": 50150734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150734", "by": "Tooster", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak was overwhelming, required flatseal and often theming broke.", "excerpt": "AppImage works in the same way downloading a binary from the web and running it with `./program` works. It is dumb simple, but it has really poor integration with the system. I've been using AppImages for several years but the manual churn got to tedious \u2014 auto updates, system integration, background services, keeping it tidy. I contributed AppImage packaging workflow to some apps \u2014 mechanism itself is messy, support", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 791651872, "item_id": 49478242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478242", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development.", "excerpt": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development. The page mentions adding more granular permissions, which is nice to see. However, another necessary improvement is actually making it possible for software to incorporate these new granular permissions in a backwards compatible manner. As one example, I maintain a game on Flathub that supports game controllers as an input device. By default,", "context": "maintains a game on Flathub", "use_case": "distributing a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}]}, {"label": "Buggy experience", "summary": "Some users found it repeatedly failed to work or called it a buggy mess.", "quotes": [{"id": 802395888, "item_id": 50149743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50149743", "by": "edg5000", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem.", "excerpt": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem. Maybe this got fixed nowadays. I did not find it user friendly either, but this could be addressed by the distro. AppImage actually works and is simple, so I use that. Snap is trash because autoupdate cannot be disabled without code changes (what?!) last time I checked.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 742942512, "item_id": 46433907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433907", "by": "bobajeff", "date": "2025-12-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I just hope it wouldn't be a buggy mess like flatpak is.", "excerpt": "I like this idea and know at least a few who would love to use this if you can solve for the: 'unfortunate rough edges that people only tolerate because they use WINE as a last resort' Whether those rough edges will ever be ironed out is a matter I'll leave to other people. But I love that someone is attempting this just because of the tenacity it shows. This reminds me of projects like asahi and cosmopolitan c. Now ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Win32 is the stable Linux ABI"}, {"id": 791607024, "item_id": 49475439, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475439", "by": "blizdiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time.", "excerpt": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time. Every desktop app i use has some broken feature. Sandboxes as another permissions panel suck. Simple browser-like permissions that allow prompted overwrite would be WAY better! Now i have media organizer programs that deletes my files if i try to write on a networked drive. Games that can\u2019t see the controller", "context": "Aurora user", "use_case": "desktop app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}]}, {"label": "Runtime maintenance", "summary": "Runtimes have a limited lifespan and must be kept in sync, for example with NVIDIA driver updates.", "quotes": [{"id": 795339440, "item_id": 49708715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715", "by": "suby", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan.", "excerpt": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan. I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years, and it was deprecated a few months ago because the runtime it was using was no longer supported. This caused people to update the flatpak to Sublime 4, which is good, but I only have a license for 3. In the end I just downloaded the binary for 3 from their website, and it still just worked.", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"}, {"id": 802424881, "item_id": 50151555, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50151555", "by": "vintermann", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "And it works OK, except that I can get some very strange graphical bugs if the NVidia driver updates", "excerpt": "Heh, Prism Launcher, the author's example, is the main app I use flatpak for currently. And it works OK, except that I can get some very strange graphical bugs if the NVidia driver updates and I forget to update the flatpak Nvidia runtime.", "context": "", "use_case": "installing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}]}, {"label": "Security concerns", "summary": "Some commenters worry about malware on Flathub, past CVEs, and automatic updates.", "quotes": [{"id": 776043090, "item_id": 48502693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502693", "by": "sph", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak and Flathub terrify me, it's only a matter of time until malware appears.", "excerpt": "Be aware of false positives! I found I had two of these packages installed, clang19 and compiler-rt19, but due to my recent laziness in updating my system, mine were still the versions from July 2025 from the official repos before they had relegated them to AUR. You can check the build and install date with `pacman -Qi <package>`. I run Arch Linux in a container (within Fedora Silverblue), but my plan for the future:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "AUR Packages Compromised with Infostealer and Rootkit"}, {"id": 747436369, "item_id": 46714773, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46714773", "by": "aj2048", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Flatpak is handy", "excerpt": "Flatpak is handy, but given their history, if I can run it in the browser, I'll leave it there. I don't want it, even in a sandbox. Check out these CVEs: * https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-49457 * https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-22844", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "I'll pass on your zoom call."}, {"id": 769387361, "item_id": 48086710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086710", "by": "INTPenis", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "don't install flatpak as root if you don't have to", "excerpt": "I love this, I used to play this game a lot when I was bored at my brothers place, he only had a Windows computer. Just a few notes in the age of supply chain scares, don't install flatpak as root if you don't have to, and in this case you might want to use flatpak mask com.github.k4zmu2a.spacecadetpinball after installing, seeing as flatpak updates all its installed flatpaks otherwise. It's a project that hasn't see", "context": "", "use_case": "installing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}]}, {"label": "Package manager sprawl", "summary": "Adds yet another package manager to juggle alongside the system's own.", "quotes": [{"id": 737480834, "item_id": 46092552, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092552", "by": "SamDc73", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "rpm-ostree (which you really shouldn\u2019t touch unless you absolutely have to), Flatpak, Homebrew", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it for a couple of months on my main dev machine (I don\u2019t game much). It\u2019s my first exposure to immutable systems. I love the idea, but honestly, juggling all these package managers gets annoying really fast; for now what I use is rpm-ostree (which you really shouldn\u2019t touch unless you absolutely have to), Flatpak, Homebrew (some package are mac only or mac first), and distrobox (with arch). Every now", "context": "", "use_case": "package management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming"}, {"id": 803118129, "item_id": 50194883, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194883", "by": "jrmg", "date": "2026-10-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Yes, I use all these things", "excerpt": "And since before that, when we started turning to additional packages managers installed with package managers. Pip etc. mean that an \u201capt upgrade\u201d isn\u2019t enough, when it really \u201cshould\u201d be (used to be) in a well managed system. Then we layered _another_ level of package management on top with Flatpak etc. I don\u2019t think anyone has _really_ been - in practice - able to understand how many versions of Python (or shells ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CVE-2026-111943: Compromised Intermediate Certificate Authority"}]}, {"label": "Prefer alternatives", "summary": "Some users avoid it in favor of AppImage, bubblewrap, firejail or Homebrew.", "quotes": [{"id": 791632304, "item_id": 49477019, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477019", "by": "EffrafaxOfWug", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I avoid flatpaks and snaps as much as I can.", "excerpt": "I avoid flatpaks and snaps as much as I can. Here is a little blog post from 2021 that lists some of the huge issues flatpaks have https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future If you want to sandbox your programs highly recommend looking at firejail.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 791610945, "item_id": 49475684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475684", "by": "regexorcist", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "never liked Flatpak", "excerpt": "I use bubblewrap directly, never liked Flatpak.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 775980913, "item_id": 48498807, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498807", "by": "analog_daddy", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Hate to use flatpak for anything.", "excerpt": "Yes. I daily drive pop os now. Hate to use flatpak for anything. Only install core packages, google chrome and vscode using apt. Almost everything else is installed using homebrew. The idea is have a base stable system for UI and basic shell. Usually get the latest packages from brew. Earlier same base system but had distrobox with arch toolbox. Planning on using this scheme going forward, especially since while I lo", "context": "Pop!_OS daily driver", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Homebrew 6.0.0"}]}], "who": [{"by": "oflebbe", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "date": "2026-10-19"}, {"by": "bayindirh", "context": "built a Debian derivative distribution", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115572", "date": "2026-10-16"}, {"by": "mikae1", "context": "Fedora user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683885", "date": "2026-09-13"}, {"by": "ndiddy", "context": "maintains a game on Flathub", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478242", "date": "2026-08-28"}, {"by": "alanwreath", "context": "develops on a Mac", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48980518", "date": "2026-07-20"}, {"by": "JCattheATM", "context": "Alpine user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48285145", "date": "2026-05-26"}], "tags": ["for Linux users", "for stable/LTS distros", "for GUI desktop apps", "for running Steam", "for immutable distros"], "use_cases": ["installing apps", "package management", "app packaging", "app packaging on linux", "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "running newer software on debian"], "compared": [{"slug": "snap", "name": "Snap", "co": 10, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "appimage", "name": "AppImage", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "homebrew", "name": "Homebrew", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bubblewrap", "name": "bubblewrap", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "firejail", "name": "Firejail", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "arch-linux", "name": "Arch Linux", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "apt", "name": "apt", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "aurora", "name": "Aurora", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148601", "title": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474786", "title": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50102423", "title": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277355", "title": "Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50192900", "title": "CVE-2026-111943: Compromised Intermediate Certificate Authority", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49696697", "title": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {"warn": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 3, "recommend": 2}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 4, "warn": 2, "neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803118129, "item_id": 50194883, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50194883", "by": "jrmg", "date": "2026-10-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Yes, I use all these things", "excerpt": "And since before that, when we started turning to additional packages managers installed with package managers. Pip etc. mean that an \u201capt upgrade\u201d isn\u2019t enough, when it really \u201cshould\u201d be (used to be) in a well managed system. Then we layered _another_ level of package management on top with Flatpak etc. I don\u2019t think anyone has _really_ been - in practice - able to understand how many versions of Python (or shells ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CVE-2026-111943: Compromised Intermediate Certificate Authority"}, {"id": 802424881, "item_id": 50151555, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50151555", "by": "vintermann", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "And it works OK, except that I can get some very strange graphical bugs if the NVidia driver updates", "excerpt": "Heh, Prism Launcher, the author's example, is the main app I use flatpak for currently. And it works OK, except that I can get some very strange graphical bugs if the NVidia driver updates and I forget to update the flatpak Nvidia runtime.", "context": "", "use_case": "installing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 802411744, "item_id": 50150734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150734", "by": "Tooster", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak was overwhelming, required flatseal and often theming broke.", "excerpt": "AppImage works in the same way downloading a binary from the web and running it with `./program` works. It is dumb simple, but it has really poor integration with the system. I've been using AppImages for several years but the manual churn got to tedious \u2014 auto updates, system integration, background services, keeping it tidy. I contributed AppImage packaging workflow to some apps \u2014 mechanism itself is messy, support", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 802408560, "item_id": 50150535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150535", "by": "oflebbe", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS", "excerpt": "Flatpak is now an indispensible part of my linux setup on debian or an older ubuntu LTS: Running up-to-date desktop apps like synology-drive, prusa slicer, keepassxc, kdenlive or even Steam at the same time without any conflicting dependencies and configurations tainting the distribution. And if you do not want to use it any more, you can simply remove it with little or even no traces left behind. I love the experien", "context": "Linux user on Debian or older Ubuntu LTS", "use_case": "installing up-to-date desktop apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 802395888, "item_id": 50149743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50149743", "by": "edg5000", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem.", "excerpt": "Every time I tried Flatpak it did not work, always some other problem. Maybe this got fixed nowadays. I did not find it user friendly either, but this could be addressed by the distro. AppImage actually works and is simple, so I use that. Snap is trash because autoupdate cannot be disabled without code changes (what?!) last time I checked.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak \u2013 An Insecurity Nightmare (2023)"}, {"id": 801849153, "item_id": 50115572, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115572", "by": "bayindirh", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Brew, flatpak, etc. live alongside your default package manager peacefully.", "excerpt": "> you can't opt out of apt without changing distros Yes, however apt/dnf/emerge/etc. are main package managers of the systems. They don't slowly overtake packages you use or the repositories of other distributions do not quietly offload package installations to other package managers (e.g.: apt install firefox triggers snap installation in Ubuntu. This is malicious behavior). Brew, flatpak, etc. live alongside your d", "context": "built a Debian derivative distribution", "use_case": "package management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 801666451, "item_id": 50104153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104153", "by": "nicfio", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably", "excerpt": "I don't like Ubuntu. It was born with the intent of making Linux more user friendly, it changed policy wanting to become the Microsoft of the linux world: Snap, Mir. And then why use a derivative if I can stay on the original? I love debian: stable, it creates the right environment to feel at ease without the fear that every update can break something. Old software? flatpak and appimage solve the problem comfortably.", "context": "", "use_case": "running newer software on Debian", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 801666213, "item_id": 50104138, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104138", "by": "c7b", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if you use containers or flatpaks for most things (which I'd recommend)", "excerpt": "CachyOS is probably the new hip one (Arch-based). The new \"I use x, btw\" would be nixOS. Arguably, the distro matters a lot less if you use containers or flatpaks for most things (which I'd recommend). So there's nothing standing against using just boring Debian stable these days, or Fedora if you want to be more up to date. If you like fancy UI, check out the COSMIC desktop environment, should work on all mentioned.", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) released"}, {"id": 795339440, "item_id": 49708715, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49708715", "by": "suby", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan.", "excerpt": "My problem with flatpak is that the underlying runtime has a limited lifespan. I used the Sublime Text 3 flatpak for many years, and it was deprecated a few months ago because the runtime it was using was no longer supported. This caused people to update the flatpak to Sublime 4, which is good, but I only have a license for 3. In the end I just downloaded the binary for 3 from their website, and it still just worked.", "context": "", "use_case": "app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils"}, {"id": 794942160, "item_id": 49683885, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683885", "by": "mikae1", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use \"dnf\" to upgrade my system and \"flatpak update\" and \"brew upgrade\" to upgrade the apps I've installed.", "excerpt": "> I don't understand the distinction you use here. Distinction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683258 I use \"dnf\" to upgrade my system and \"flatpak update\" and \"brew upgrade\" to upgrade the apps I've installed. An app like VirtualBox does not install using Flatpak or Homebrew, so I would use dnf for that. It's usually an app or two that doesn't work via Flatpak/Homebrew/AppImage that I need to install using d", "context": "Fedora user", "use_case": "installing user apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Homebrew 7.0.0"}, {"id": 792025376, "item_id": 49501586, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49501586", "by": "silver_sun", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Flatpak uses Portals to let the user grant access to different files/directories", "excerpt": "Flatpak uses Portals to let the user grant access to different files/directories, apparently they don't have access by default: https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/sandbox-permissions.html I was also unable to find any Flatpak that has access to the home directory when installed, you may well be right but I couldn't find any. I used Flatseal to verify the permissions: https://flathub.org/en/apps/com.github.tchx84.Flat", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed app installs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root"}, {"id": 791651872, "item_id": 49478242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478242", "by": "ndiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development.", "excerpt": "It's great that there's more investment being put into Flatpak development. The page mentions adding more granular permissions, which is nice to see. However, another necessary improvement is actually making it possible for software to incorporate these new granular permissions in a backwards compatible manner. As one example, I maintain a game on Flathub that supports game controllers as an input device. By default,", "context": "maintains a game on Flathub", "use_case": "distributing a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 791632304, "item_id": 49477019, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477019", "by": "EffrafaxOfWug", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I avoid flatpaks and snaps as much as I can.", "excerpt": "I avoid flatpaks and snaps as much as I can. Here is a little blog post from 2021 that lists some of the huge issues flatpaks have https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future If you want to sandbox your programs highly recommend looking at firejail.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 791610945, "item_id": 49475684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475684", "by": "regexorcist", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "never liked Flatpak", "excerpt": "I use bubblewrap directly, never liked Flatpak.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 791607024, "item_id": 49475439, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49475439", "by": "blizdiddy", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time.", "excerpt": "Flatpak is great for installing, but as a happy Aurora user, it\u2019s annoying and it breaks things all the time. Every desktop app i use has some broken feature. Sandboxes as another permissions panel suck. Simple browser-like permissions that allow prompted overwrite would be WAY better! Now i have media organizer programs that deletes my files if i try to write on a networked drive. Games that can\u2019t see the controller", "context": "Aurora user", "use_case": "desktop app packaging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 783688288, "item_id": 48980518, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48980518", "by": "alanwreath", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pity because I love the control you have over git", "excerpt": "I\u2019m running my development from a Mac which I think precludes flatpack usage. Pity because I love the control you have over git", "context": "develops on a Mac", "use_case": "sandboxing dev tools", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop Using OpenCode"}, {"id": 779916759, "item_id": 48744797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48744797", "by": "anthk", "date": "2026-07-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "propietary packages with Flatpak for corporate crap", "excerpt": "It's still there, at IRC/Usenet/some niche forums. Replace phreaking with maybe some mesh networks and ways to connect computers without calling an ISP. There are still niche blogs and even phlogs. And you can still use Pidgin and libpurple plugins to connect to a huge array of protocols. Ditto with core Biltbee or Bitlbee+libpurple allowing you to use any IRC client (even the ones without TLS for DOS and Win9X) to c", "context": "", "use_case": "proprietary packages", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Internet I Grew Up with Doesn't Exist Anymore"}, {"id": 778859872, "item_id": 48678742, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678742", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend taking a look at appimages or flatpak within Linux", "excerpt": "I recommend taking a look at appimages or flatpak within Linux if you wish to do so and if you do appimage, try to take an older system within a VM from my understanding as then you wouldn't have issues of glibc which I have sometimes heard. I'd be interested to help if that is of your interest.", "context": "", "use_case": "packaging Linux apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OpenKnowledge \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion"}, {"id": 776043090, "item_id": 48502693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48502693", "by": "sph", "date": "2026-06-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Flatpak and Flathub terrify me, it's only a matter of time until malware appears.", "excerpt": "Be aware of false positives! I found I had two of these packages installed, clang19 and compiler-rt19, but due to my recent laziness in updating my system, mine were still the versions from July 2025 from the official repos before they had relegated them to AUR. You can check the build and install date with `pacman -Qi <package>`. I run Arch Linux in a container (within Fedora Silverblue), but my plan for the future:", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "AUR Packages Compromised with Infostealer and Rootkit"}, {"id": 775980913, "item_id": 48498807, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498807", "by": "analog_daddy", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Hate to use flatpak for anything.", "excerpt": "Yes. I daily drive pop os now. Hate to use flatpak for anything. Only install core packages, google chrome and vscode using apt. Almost everything else is installed using homebrew. The idea is have a base stable system for UI and basic shell. Usually get the latest packages from brew. Earlier same base system but had distrobox with arch toolbox. Planning on using this scheme going forward, especially since while I lo", "context": "Pop!_OS daily driver", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Homebrew 6.0.0"}, {"id": 775509492, "item_id": 48469343, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48469343", "by": "coppsilgold", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "There is also flatpak (uses bubblewrap internally).", "excerpt": "Alpine is a good system for the boot/main rootfs because it's rock solid and has the most recent kernel. When glibc is required or when you just want to access the repositories of other distros you can unshare and pivot_root into the respective rootfs (using bubblewrap). There is also flatpak (uses bubblewrap internally). You can also go the extra mile and use bubblewrap to initialize the desired mount environment an", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Alpine Linux 3.24.0 Released"}, {"id": 772562321, "item_id": 48285145, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48285145", "by": "JCattheATM", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "flatpak has been a great way to run them.", "excerpt": "This is bad news, and exactly the type of viral problem criticics of systemd warned about. Systemd advocates always downplay the issue, but here we are. I love using Alpine, and for the few packages that don't have a musl version available (e.g. Steam), flatpak has been a great way to run them. Hopefully someone will maintain a fork.", "context": "Alpine user", "use_case": "running packages without musl builds", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd"}, {"id": 772449233, "item_id": 48278077, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48278077", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Now flatpak fell for it too", "excerpt": "> Systemd-appd gives applications an identifier and stores their permissions Soon systemd will sniff more data - such as the age: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954#issuecomment-4045027951 And the usual copium aka this is very harmless, nothing evil is done, nothing bad can happen. That'll cover the age. In the future systemd will sniff for more private data. For those who think this is a conspiracy theory", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Flatpak Will Depend on Systemd"}, {"id": 769387361, "item_id": 48086710, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086710", "by": "INTPenis", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "don't install flatpak as root if you don't have to", "excerpt": "I love this, I used to play this game a lot when I was bored at my brothers place, he only had a Windows computer. Just a few notes in the age of supply chain scares, don't install flatpak as root if you don't have to, and in this case you might want to use flatpak mask com.github.k4zmu2a.spacecadetpinball after installing, seeing as flatpak updates all its installed flatpaks otherwise. It's a project that hasn't see", "context": "", "use_case": "installing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Space Cadet Pinball on Linux"}, {"id": 762465872, "item_id": 47654117, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47654117", "by": "elcdodedocle", "date": "2026-04-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am grateful for flatpaks too.", "excerpt": "I understand the frustration. I have the uttermost reverence for distro maintainers and I love distro repos. I like that my OS is a consistent and well thought suite of aligned tools mindfully put together by a collective that knows what they are doing and test that it all fits and plays nice much better than I do. Please stop treating these awesome people like some kind of authoritarian ogres. I am grateful for flat", "context": "", "use_case": "app installation", "switched_from": "", "story": "GabeN Is Shitting Yacht Money into Flatpak and You're Still Arguing Init Systems"}, {"id": 758786640, "item_id": 47424165, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424165", "by": "Levitating", "date": "2026-03-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the way it sandboxes the applications.", "excerpt": "> dislike flatpaks and favor a low-level, bare-metal approach Flatpaks are sandboxed with bubblewrap[1]. I would still call that bare-metal. And flatpaks aren't particularly bloated either, there's no need for a flatpak to be any bigger than a regular binary if it only depends on the kde/gnome/freedesktop runtime. I used to prefer installing apps via my distro directly, but I now prefer using flatpaks because of the ", "context": "", "use_case": "installing sandboxed apps", "switched_from": "distro packages", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 747436369, "item_id": 46714773, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46714773", "by": "aj2048", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Flatpak is handy", "excerpt": "Flatpak is handy, but given their history, if I can run it in the browser, I'll leave it there. I don't want it, even in a sandbox. Check out these CVEs: * https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-49457 * https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-22844", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxing apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "I'll pass on your zoom call."}, {"id": 743542341, "item_id": 46471396, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471396", "by": "Alupis", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Flatpaks to install many GUI apps, such as FreeCAD, KiCad, Darktable, Steam, Reaper, and a lot more.", "excerpt": "I've used Fedora on my laptop for over a decade. I switched my main home workstation to Fedora in 2023, and haven't looked back since. My workstation runs Kinoite[1], an immutable/atomic version of Fedora. I started with Fedora 38, and now am running 43. Flawless major-release upgrades. I develop using distrobox[2] (pet containers) on podman. It \"Just Works\". Nearly 99% of my Steam library is playable on Fedora too. ", "context": "", "use_case": "installing GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 742942512, "item_id": 46433907, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46433907", "by": "bobajeff", "date": "2025-12-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I just hope it wouldn't be a buggy mess like flatpak is.", "excerpt": "I like this idea and know at least a few who would love to use this if you can solve for the: 'unfortunate rough edges that people only tolerate because they use WINE as a last resort' Whether those rough edges will ever be ironed out is a matter I'll leave to other people. But I love that someone is attempting this just because of the tenacity it shows. This reminds me of projects like asahi and cosmopolitan c. Now ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Win32 is the stable Linux ABI"}, {"id": 737480834, "item_id": 46092552, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092552", "by": "SamDc73", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "rpm-ostree (which you really shouldn\u2019t touch unless you absolutely have to), Flatpak, Homebrew", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it for a couple of months on my main dev machine (I don\u2019t game much). It\u2019s my first exposure to immutable systems. I love the idea, but honestly, juggling all these package managers gets annoying really fast; for now what I use is rpm-ostree (which you really shouldn\u2019t touch unless you absolutely have to), Flatpak, Homebrew (some package are mac only or mac first), and distrobox (with arch). Every now", "context": "", "use_case": "package management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming"}, {"id": 733863681, "item_id": 45866480, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45866480", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Users are better off flatpaks powered by bubblewrap .", "excerpt": "I experimented bubblewrap as a better alternative to firejail. Unfortunately there are scripts for few applications. It\u2019s tool for developers. Users are better off flatpaks powered by bubblewrap .", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxed apps for users", "switched_from": "", "story": "Using bubblewrap to add sandboxing to NetBSD"}]}