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The Future of Flatpak

(lwn.net)
306 points dxs | 2 comments | 22 May 25 23:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.528s | source
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conradev ◴[23 May 25 00:44 UTC] No.44068680[source]▶
The permissions issues are real.

It still isn't possible to package Tailscale or anything that creates a virtual interface as a Flatpak because there is no permission for that. macOS has an API to ask for permissions to add an interface/change routes.

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1. curt15 ◴[23 May 25 01:12 UTC] No.44068857[source]▶
Thanks to said API, Tailscale on MacOS is even distributed as a sandboxed app through the Mac App Store [1]. Flatpak's restrictions make certain classes of software difficult to use on "atomic" Linux distros like Silverblue or Bluefin that provide a read-only base system and expect users to get their software through Flatpak.

[1] https://tailscale.com/kb/1016/install-mac

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2. curious_ralts ◴[23 May 25 02:38 UTC] No.44069362[source]▶
I daily drive an immutable Fedora spin and if I wanted to install Tailscale I would most likely add it to the base image via `rpm-ostree` instead of trying to reach for Flatpak - not because i'm aware of the issues but because it makes more sense to me to add a more system-wide networking layer to the base image. That being said there are many apps that are not packaged as Flatpaks that I end up adding to the base layer out of necessity which I would have liked to use as Flatpaks.