Fuck Flatpak

Flatpak sucks. And here is why.

Waste of storage

Let's install yuzu, a popular open source Nintendo Switch emulator. It is written in C++ and uses Qt as front-end.

• Official Flatpak 2.9GB (Repo 1.2GB, Runtime 1.6GB, App 50MB), WTF?! 🤮
• Official AppImage 56MB 😋
• openSUSE RPM 39MB 😋

Flatpak uses 75x more storage than RPM, and 50x more storage than AppImage. This is mainly caused by Flatpak's huge runtime (1.6GB, including Mesa, KDE, etc.) and repo data (1.2GB, cannot be removed).

Here are some suggestions to Flatpak developers:

1. Almost all GNU/Linux distros has built-in Mesa. Why do you need org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default (~700MB)?
2. Yuzu depends on Qt, but not KDE. Why do you need org.kde.Platform (~900MB)?
3. Why a Qt app needs org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze?

Poor desktop integration

In my KDE desktop, start yuzu, and click File > Open yuzu folder:

• Official Flatpak: open folder with Visual Studio Code, WTF?! 🤮
• Official AppImage: open folder with Dolphin file manager 😋
• openSUSE RPM: open folder with Dolphin file manager 😋

Clearly, Flatpak doesn't really know my system preference. It used wrong app to open a folder.

Other desktop integration problems I found only with Flatpak version of yuzu:

• If you choose a game folder /home/jerry/Games, Flatpak won't give yuzu access to real folder. Instead, it will create a virtual folder, like /run/usr/1000/doc/cb7c5bcc. However, this virtual folder can suddenly disappear, with no reason! You have to configure the game folder again when it is lost. The same issue also happens to Ryujinx, another popular Nintendo Switch emulator. See flatpak/flatpak#5179

Reviews by others

• https://flatkill.org/
• https://flatkill.org/2020/
• https://ludocode.com/blog/flatpak-is-not-the-future