[Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

lquidfire · 2017-09-09 10:17:36

I ran

sudo pacman -Syu

Instead of offering me possible upgrades, I get asked the following:

Replace flatpak with extra/flatpak-builder? [Y/n]

Now I don't know what to base my answer on. Is 'flatpack' deprecated? Is the one from 'Extra' better?

I checked the 'Latest News' on the Arch homepage, but see nothing. Couldn't find anything in the forums, either. Surprisingly enough, a quick search of either 'flatpack' or 'flatpack-builder' in the Arch Package Search on the website didn't provide any info either. Turns out 'flatpak' is spelled without 'c'.

Googling gave some info on snap vs flatpack, but didn't really help much with the question at hand.

Please advise this newbie how to understand what's going on, why I am asked this question in the first place, where to find info to help formulate an answer, etc. Thanks!

Edit: formatting + typo
Edit 2: update after seeing my spelling error in 'flatpak'

Last edited by lquidfire (2017-09-11 19:56:55)

lquidfire · 2017-09-09 10:28:19

Update:

I ran

pacman -Ss flatpak

Output:

pacman -Ss flatpak
extra/flatpak 0.9.10-2 [installed: 0.9.8-1]
    Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework (formerly xdg-app)
extra/flatpak-builder 0.9.9-1
    Tool to build flatpaks from source

I am confused as to how flatpak-builder can replace flatpak. Can I assume that pacman knows what it's asking when it wants to replace one with the other? Or where can I find an explanation? Cheers!

eschwartz · 2017-09-10 01:01:00

The idea is that older versions of flatpak provided the builder tool as well, and the new flatpak-builder package will offer to replace flatpak in order to continue to provide the old package's functionality.

BTW flatpak-builder also depends on flatpak (currently 0.9.10-2), and it only replaces flatpak<0.9.10 so you should end up with both packages if you had the old unified package, and going forward if you only install flatpak and not flatpak-builder you will not be urged to install the builder tool.

phw · 2017-09-11 08:14:40

Just to get some more background: Upstream flatpak developers had both flatpak itself and the flatpak-builder tools in the same source tree. They decided to split the flatpak-builder of as a separate project, and Arch packaging followed this. If you accept the answer of pacman you will end up with both flatpak and flatpak-builder installed. As Eschwartz explained, flatpak-builder is not a full replacement for flatpak, but it replaced the builder part of the old flatpak < 0.9.10 package. But I was confused by the message at first, too, even though I knew about the upstream changes

TheCoon · 2017-09-11 16:35:15

This is not directly related to OP's question, but it may help out others faced with an update issue which arose on my system following the flatpak change.

:: Replace flatpak with extra/flatpak-builder? [Y/n] 
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
warning: removing 'gcc-libs' from target list because it conflicts with 'gcc-libs-multilib'
warning: removing 'gcc' from target list because it conflicts with 'gcc-multilib'
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: gcc-ada: requires gcc=7.2.0-2

The solution was to first install gcc-ada-multilib with:

pacman -S gcc-ada-multilib

Afterwards the update succeeds with the multilib dependency.

Last edited by TheCoon (2017-09-11 16:35:45)

lquidfire · 2017-09-11 19:56:21

Thank you, Eschwartz and phw.

I don't know if I need the builder part, so I think I will leave it out. If it is needed somewhere, I am sure I will be told so..

Reading up on flatpak dev pages would probably have provided this info. Glad you guys knew and could help me out.

Cheers from South Africa!

eschwartz · 2017-09-12 01:37:57

TheCoon wrote:

This is not directly related to OP's question, but it may help out others faced with an update issue which arose on my system following the flatpak change.
:: Replace flatpak with extra/flatpak-builder? [Y/n] 
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
warning: removing 'gcc-libs' from target list because it conflicts with 'gcc-libs-multilib'
warning: removing 'gcc' from target list because it conflicts with 'gcc-multilib'
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: gcc-ada: requires gcc=7.2.0-2
The solution was to first install gcc-ada-multilib with:
pacman -S gcc-ada-multilib
Afterwards the update succeeds with the multilib dependency.

This has absolutely nothing to do with flatpak, and also people open threads about their accidentally messing up when installing their multilib compiler toolchain all the time.
(If you are using gcc-multilib, it is quite obvious that you cannot use the non-multilib version of just some parts of the gcc toolchain. I don't know why people feel the need to comment about this all the time!)

Arch Linux

#1 2017-09-09 10:17:36

[Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#2 2017-09-09 10:28:19

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#3 2017-09-10 01:01:00

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#4 2017-09-11 08:14:40

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#5 2017-09-11 16:35:15

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#6 2017-09-11 19:56:21

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

#7 2017-09-12 01:37:57

Re: [Answered] Where to find info on flatpack vs flatpack-builder?

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