I run Debian 13 Stable with KDE Plasma, and have Flathub enabled on KDE’s Discover software store. I have a slight idea of the difference between the two: that Debian packages share system libraries and are therefore lighter in storage but do require password to access those shared libraries and could therefore become a security hazard if installing from an untrusted source, while Flatpaks have all they need and don’t require password to install, being more secure that way, but, as a consequence, consume more storage. Also noticeable is the fact that, for some programmes, the Flatpak version tends to be more recent and it therefore becomes the obvious choice when looking for the latest software.
However, I was looking at the SuperTux game, and what’s curious about this is that both, the Debian package and the Flatpak are version 0.6.3, while consuming 6.7 and 259,9 MB of storage respectively.
So should the obvious choice here be the Debian package, or would you still go for the Flatpak? I am not asking this because I’m particularly interested on this game as much as to learn more about the two system packages and whether my assumptions are correct or I am missing something.
Thank you and have a nice weekend!
Edit: Thank yoy to all commenters! I’ve learnt a bunch thanks to your replies to this post :)
The gist is probably:
- If you just want it to work: grab it from Debian’s own repos.
- If you desire sandboxing with both its positives and (potential) negatives: grab it as a flatpak
- If you desire a more up-to-date package: grab it as a flatpak
i never have issues with flatpak
You might also consider
linuxbrewas well, depending on your goals. AFAIK it’s almost the same as native but with better separation of dependencies.IF the distro’s .deb is recent-enough, THEN go with that.
IF it’s generations out-of-date, then you may have no choice but to go with the flatpack.
OS-integration ( with apt, for the .deb ) is to be preferred, generally.
_ /\ _
Sometimes it’s specific to the application. As an example,
yt-dlpis redistributed by Canonical, and they usually maintain stable packages, but their versions seem to lag like 6 months. This might be related to their desire for stability, or maybe just align to their release cycle. I don’t know.The issue is that yt-dlp needs to be updated more frequently because websites break their methods of downloading, so the version that follows the latest version seems to work better.
I don’t think using PPA’s is usually recommended, (like in the photo) so I think I would recommend flatpaks first if the developer of the application maintains one themselves. (and you want to follow later releases.) Though, the first time I had to use flatseal to fix an application, I felt like flathub was a failed platform.
For yt-dlp specifically, there is a stable backport that is fairly up-to-date: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/yt-dlp
It doesn’t yet have yesterday’s version, but the previous version was made available 3 days after it was released.
Of course it would require password, you’re putting something into your system after all. Arguably, Flatpak has some layers between it and your inner system.
What di you mean your distro’s repo is an untrusted source? Did you do something funny to it?
Heuristic : if you don’t know, trust your distribution. If you don’t trust your distribution, pick another one, repeat.
My personal rule of thumb is that if it interacts with the OS or filesystem deeply, native is probably better. E.g. IDEs, cli programs, browsers, Steam etc.
Apps that do a simple things are likely to work perfectly fine on flatpak.
But the problem is that there are outliers in each case. You should pick one and be ready to switch if things don’t work properly.
This is effectively how I judge it as well. Only thing I would add is that more things can be Flatpaks (ie. Steam). As long as you know about and use Flatseal to change the permissions. For instance, giving Steam access to my games directory.
This ^^ my rule of thumb is always using the zypper packages (I’m using openSUSE TumbleweedOS) I had troubles with some flatpacks before, but only one! It was enough for me to not return though xD still use flatpacks but only for less important apps. Not for steam, wine, etc.
the
aptversion.😏
