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I just noticed that the current update of the distribution I'm using (version 18.3 of Linux Mint) boasts supports for "Flatpak". So, I ddg'ed it and found this Wikipedia page about yet.

So I understand Flatpak is some sort of sandboxing framework - but I don't see anything which suggests why it's useful and interesting for me to run all sorts of apps in "isolation" at all - unless I'm managing some physical machine offering "cloud" services. Why would I want to do this?

Going on the Flatpak website, it seems like it's offering a sort of a bypass around the individual distributions' package management system + support for multiple versions of the same package. Now, the second feature I like, but isn't it just something that distro package management systems need to start supporting better? As for the first part - it sounds like the 14 competing standards situation from xkcd. Am I misunderstanding something here?

PS - How is it different than Docker, which also does a sort of a sandboxing that's not as strong as putting up a virtual machine?

einpoklum
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  • I think the easiest way to get to know why it is useful is to just start using it. Go to https://flathub.org and install an app. You'll certainly also easily see that it is totally different from Docker. – rugk Mar 19 '19 at 19:05
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    I agree with the questioner. It seems like 'flatpak' have value to the developer at the expense of the end-user (i.e. more SSD and RAM). At least, if someone can explain the benefit of 'flatpak' over statically linking all the libraries into a super-sized executable. – codechimp Jan 29 '20 at 14:37

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