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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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173

Is there a downside to Flatpak? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by 0485919158191@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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Basically title.

I’m wondering if a package manager like flatpak comes with any drawback or negatives. Since it just works on basically any distro. Why isn’t this just the default? It seems very convenient.

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[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

One of the use cases I would like to have used Flatpak for is Visual Studio Code. Unfortunately, I found the isolation to be too onerous for developer needs. Take the Rust compiler toolchain. There's no way to access that from VSCode. There are ways to add on tools to the VSCode environment, but that feels like a kludge when I already have everything installed and set up. And if the toolchain isn't available for Flatpak, tough luck. Other features just simply don't work. I eventually switched to using the Ubuntu builds from the VSCode developers.

Edit: The Rust compiler toolchain can be added onto Flatpak because there is a packaged version of the toolchain, but it's not the host environment's version. Other tools like the fish shell might be entirely unavailable.