How do you guys get software that is not in your distribution’s repositories?

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They are windows, but the linux version of dll-hell across distros and distro versions makes windows dll hell look quaint.

      If someone had addressed that better it would be one thing, but binary interoperability is infinitely broken, so app image is actually an improvement.

    • Samueru@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Isn’t the gnome runtime alone 2GiB? You know how many appimages that is?

      Not to mention you are unlikely to only use one runtime.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Then again, loads of apps share that runtime. And if other runtimes have same stuff as that GNOME runtime, the shared parts are on your disk only once. It’s pretty smart in how it works.

        • oldfart@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Ran out of space on a 30GB partition when trying around 10 smallish programs as flatpaks. Runtimes are shared in theory but not in practice.

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            If you allocate 30 GB for / that seems pretty low these days for a desktop system. If you don’t have much space, it’s always best to go with regular repository packages

            Here someone had 163 flatpaks and it used 8,7GB in runtimes. So I’m guessing the 30GB number is for whole of /.

            I just checked out mine, I have 34 apps and runtimes use 3,1GB

            Runtimes are shared in theory but not in practice.

            I think three runtimes (newest freedesktop, KDE and GNOME) cover 90% of my flatpaks. Then there’s programs that use some EOL’d runtime and never get updated, which sucks

        • Samueru@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          I tested installing some web browers, kdenlive, yuzu and libreoffice and without knowing I ended up with 3 different runtimes and the total storage usage (with deduplication) was 4.79 GIB.

          Meanwhile with 33 appimages that I have (which includes same flatpak apps I mentioned) are using 2.2 GiB.

          It doesn’t matter if they share if in the end they end up using several times more storage than the appimage equivalent.

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            You should test it out with those 33 installed as flatpak. If you end up with 4.7GB for runtimes, that’s basically nothing these days as far as storage goes for that amount of programs. More you have, more you benefit from shared runtimes. I doubt it’ll be less than AppImages but it’s usually the starting runtime space use that shocks people.

            Here someone tested it with 163 flatpaks and the runtimes used 8.7GB. With the top 5 most used runtimes covering 128 of those flatpaks.

            https://blogs.gnome.org/wjjt/2021/11/24/on-flatpak-disk-usage-and-deduplication/

            I just checked out mine, I have 34 apps and runtimes use 3,1GB

            It doesn’t matter if they share if in the end they end up using several times more storage than the appimage equivalent.

            Well we are talking about two gigs, after all. Unless you’re using an embedded system, it’s not a much of a concern if you ask me. But it is more, true

            • Samueru@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              . If you end up with 4.7GB for runtimes, that’s basically nothing these days

              Yes but that wasn’t the original comment I replied to was about.

              163 flatpaks and the runtimes used 8.7GB

              163 flatpaks using 8.7 GiB means that the average flatpak is using 54.6 MiB.

              That’s good the other time I got this linked: https://tesk.page/2023/06/04/response-to-developers-are-lazy-thus-flatpak/#but-flatpaks-are-easier-for-end-users

              Which is no good as in that example there was 173 flatpaks using 27.66 GiB, average 160 MiB, while in your case the average flatpak is using 91 MiB.


              This is what I have with appimages:

              In this case the average appimage is using 69 MiB, though there is one outliner which is the Steam appimage that I have there (470 MiB) which is an entire conty container with its own video drivers and everything, without it the average would be 56 MiB.

              I know this doesn’t matter these days but once again that wasn’t what the original comment was about.

              Well we are talking about two gigs, after all. Unless you’re using an embedded system, it’s not a much of a concern if you ask me. But it is more, true

              Thanks for the link showing an average flatpak using 54 MiB though, didn’t think it was possible lol.


              WAIT I just took a deeper look at the link, isn’t that guy just showing the runtimes without the applications using 8.7 GiB?