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!

  • 0t79JeIfK01RHyzo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    12 hours ago

    Sometimes it’s specific to the application. As an example, yt-dlp is 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.