Does FreeBSD have a plan like Linux Flatpak + FlatHub?

Espionage724

Espionage724

I keep up with a couple Linux distros, and have the impression that Flatpak + FlatHub at the base is a goal vs traditional rpm/deb/etc packaging.

Does FreeBSD have anything like that going on or planned?
 
Flatpak is a solution to a Linux problem, since in the Linux world there are lots and lots of different distributions with different package managing systems. So, if you are developing an app for Linux it makes it easier to deliver it to all distributions with flatpak, or snap.

FreeBSD doesn't have that problem, we have pkg and ports that cater to FreeBSD.
So no, there are nothing like that in the plans.

I know some people have had success unpacking app images and running them on FreeBSD via Linuxulator, but that all depends on what kind of app it is.
 
Flatpack is kind-of like PC-BSD PBI. It's halfway between traditional packages and containers. The next evolution of this concept is ostree. Check out Fedora Silverblue which implements rpm-ostree. Think of it as git for packages. Packages are bundled like git commits, an all-or-nothing approach.

Red Hat has been pushing their immutable O/S, an ostree based O/S, for a while now. Their CoreOS, the platform that OpenShift runs on, is an immutable O/S. (Yes, CoreOS is officially dead but it's still the OpenShift platform.) OpenShift is an on-prem cloud platform.

There is no such concept as ostree for FreeBSD or any other OS other than select Linux distros. It's a great idea for an O/S vendor where the vendor has control over package selection and management, reducing calls to the help desk (costing the vendor $$$).

This of course opens up the discussion of traditional packages v.s. packages that contain all dependencies (flatpak and at the O/S level ostree). There are advantages and disadvantages on either side. Personally, I've spent 50 years working with traditional packages (IBM mainframe, various UNIX, Linux and FreeBSD). I've worked with ostree lately. Ostree is more predictable for the uninitiated but what it gains in apparent end-user simplicity it loses flexibility, useful to a seasoned sysadmin. Though, more secure as there's less "wiggle room" to customize.
 
bledyzer

Thread 'Possibility to port snapd/flatpak for FreeBSD'

Hi partners!

I recently studied about sandboxing formats of package distribution like Flatpak and Snap, and I realized that don´t exist ports our plans, at least from the flatpak / snap community, to port snapd or flatpak for others Unix-like operating systems, after some research I undestand that the port efforts is very huge due a hard dependency of Linux kernel features like namespaces, apparmor/Selinux, and seccomp, but I thinking if is no possible adapt some of dependencys for a existing FreeBSD features like apparmor/SElinux to FreeBSD MAC using their resources for substitute...
  • Thanks
zoujiaqing

Thread 'Do you have tools like fedora's flatpack?'

Firefox use flatpack run other linux.

FreeBSD have the package? use jails? port it?
  • Thanks
R

Thread 'Port Snap & Snap-Store to FreeBSD'

Hi

Can someone please port
1) snap from https://snapcraft.io/docs/installing-snapd
2) snap-store from https://snapcraft.io/snap-store
to FreeBSD?

Thanks
rraj
 
DutchDaemon

Thread 'Why is FreeBSD not (more) like ....'

As of today, FreeBSD Forums staff will actively close down (and eventually remove) topics that serve no other purpose than to complain that "FreeBSD is not (like) Linux" (or Windows, or MacOS, or any other operating system), or that "FreeBSD does not use systemd", or that "FreeBSD has no default GUI", or that "FreeBSD does not encrypt gremlins", etc. This also includes topics that devolve into that kind of debate.

Note that this is a general user and administrator forum, where the community aims to assist those who want to install, run, or upgrade FreeBSD as-is. Discussions...
  • Thanks
  • Like
 
scottro said:
Crivens, I've seen that one so often, I can't believe it still makes me laugh.
Click to expand...
I also considered the one about abstraction, as it is a good illustration of the source of that problem. But we already have a flat pack technology, regards from pc-bsd.
 
If your interest in FlatPak is security, then a Jail is probably best. Linux doesn't have a standard approach to this so hence why FlatPak, Docker, Snaps and all that other crap exist.

If your interest in it is avoiding spraying cruft all over the filesystem, just use pkg_fetch(8) and extract the packages into a separate prefix. Its fiddly but I have some early scripts that you might be interested in.

If your interest in it is some app store like FlatHub then I'm not sure. Perhaps some fancy UI on top of pkg(8)?
 
Well, FreeBSD does have the tools to implement ideas from Linux camp... like pkgbase offering the kernel as a package (just use normal pkg commands to install a new FreeBSD kernel). Or, sandboxing services in jails (like Poudriere builds, services, you name it). It does take a bit of thinking and RTFMing, but it's not impossible. There's also a KDE-specific tool that seems to pick up on available updates for FreeBSD packages.

Well, with dependency hell still lurking and ready to bite at the CLI level, I'd think that it makes more sense to RTFM and learn to make use of available tools. You'll be surprised at what they can do. And the FreeBSD manuals are in no hurry to become obsolete.
 
fmc000 said:
3B
Click to expand...
I may be underestimating the impact that gamers have on Linux, but software continues being packaged for the mainstream Linux distros and the likes of Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora don't need them at all.

If containers were to be abused this way I'd rather see something like QubesOS but using containers instead, with the OCI runtime using true lightweight VM's like Kata Containers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top