When an app supports linux, it can do so by either:
packaging it for popular distro repositories,
giving instructions on how to build the app from the source code
or
package it on distro-agnostic, package management solutions like flatpak or appImage.
These last ones are sandboxed environments. That means they have their own dependencies isolated from your system, so they dont have to deal with every distros pecularities at the cost of using more storage space.
This is very useful for developers and in your case benefitial for the user because you can have both steam and zoom via flatpak on mint, arch or any obscure distro that has flatpak available, without any major problems.
Yup. The big downside to flatpak is that, as you said, it takes up more space.
To make a Windows comparison, imagine needing to install Java separately for every single program that needs it. Flatpaks tend to be orders of magnitude larger than technically necessary, simply because they’re sandboxed and come with everything they need to run, even if you already have it installed.
imagine needing to install Java separately for every single program that needs it
Isn’t that pretty close to what already happens though? With all of the different versions of java, different companies packaging up their special versions of OpenJDK, I’ve got quite a few different java versions on my computer plus I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some software just package their own Java binary with the software presumably to limit Java version mismatches
When an app supports linux, it can do so by either:
or
These last ones are sandboxed environments. That means they have their own dependencies isolated from your system, so they dont have to deal with every distros pecularities at the cost of using more storage space. This is very useful for developers and in your case benefitial for the user because you can have both steam and zoom via flatpak on mint, arch or any obscure distro that has flatpak available, without any major problems.
Edit: Formatting
Yup. The big downside to flatpak is that, as you said, it takes up more space.
To make a Windows comparison, imagine needing to install Java separately for every single program that needs it. Flatpaks tend to be orders of magnitude larger than technically necessary, simply because they’re sandboxed and come with everything they need to run, even if you already have it installed.
Isn’t that pretty close to what already happens though? With all of the different versions of java, different companies packaging up their special versions of OpenJDK, I’ve got quite a few different java versions on my computer plus I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some software just package their own Java binary with the software presumably to limit Java version mismatches