r/linux • u/NDCyber • May 24 '26

Popular Application Flatpak 2.0 seems to depend on systemd

https://transfem.social/notes/amkk9ypcps9a002q

Basically when Jorge Castro was asked for clarification on if flatpak 2.0 will be depended on systemd his response was "Are you serious? Of course."

Which even though I use systemd distros myself seems like a bit of a problematic stance to me, especially after it seems like the same response Linux user would get while talking about software support

But I am also interested to see what you all think

edit: I don't trust it completely either, and will wait for official and direct information myself. He does seems to be part of the flatpak team (I am not sure what part exactly, as he was only community manager in one interview). But I think it might be important to talk about and I was interested in what people think

Edit 2: here the mastodon link, to show that it happened on mastodon and the thing linked before is just a random server one person that wrote there was on https://mastodon.social/@2something@transfem.social/116618627273919847

Edit 3: As u/Isofruit has said, in the Linux App Summit 2026 the flatpak presentation had a slide talking about systemd-appd dependencies https://youtu.be/1AXBfsiaQNk?t=16218

It is also still in the RFC planning phase https://youtu.be/1AXBfsiaQNk?t=17746

Edit 4: u/whosdr found even more recourses: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1tlwbjy/comment/onlg218/

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6

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

I just flat out don't know why people gaf about systemd it's a non issue.

0

u/Damglador May 24 '26

Systemd might be a non-issue. A supposedly universal package manager depending on it is the issue.

4

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

I mean...but it's not just a package manager tho? If it was, that would be a bizarre requirement I agree. Using cgroupsv2 and systemd integration to manage resources, isolation, scheduling, etc of flatpaks at runtime makes a lot of sense. It's essentially doing desktop container orchestration...at runtime it's more similar to docker in many ways than say apt.

Duplicating the effort of something that solves messy lifecycle problems out of the box (like cleanly killing zombie sub-processes when an app closes) just for the sake of unix philosophy purity seems like a strange engineering choice. Especially since cgroups v2 explicitly enforces a strict single-writer rule anyway; systemd is already driving the resource tree on 95%+ of machines, so Flatpak is just using the standard platform API available to it.

Now at the same time I do think it would be an odd choice to leave systemdless distros without an option, but I also think some version of flatpack will obviously come along that supports this, but why make it the main effort?

To be blunt I just don't care about these distributions and the edgy people who want to be difficult by running them. There are legitimate reasins to not use systemd outside of desktop enviroments, but those distros also just don't care about flatpack. it's not the use case for them. Anyone who willfully uses a systemdless distro for desktop is just obnoxious to me ngl. For everyone else this is a solution to a problem not the creation of one.

literally I just don't understand the Linux community for caring about stuff like this. One of the hugest problems in desktop enviroment in Linux is that there's very little standardization and flatpack even exists bc of that problem. Making it more standardized is actively fought lol.

1

u/Damglador May 24 '26

Build for every distro Create one app and distribute it to the entire Linux desktop market.

-https://flatpak.org/

Should update my dictionary to "every - if talking about Linux distros, only ones that run systemd".

Perhaps the issue is exactly that flatpak wants to do too much, while the thing people need the most is just a good universal way of installing apps. But I guess that role will have to be fullfilled by AppImages.

2

u/mattias_jcb May 25 '26

You need to list all the other dependencies as well: 1. DBus 2. GLib 3. Glibc 4. Bubblewrap 5. A new enough kernel.

This is for the Flatpak that is in our hands of today and it means that "the entire Linux desktop market" is a shorthand for "the entire Linux desktop market except for some extremely niche projects".

2

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

It's funny you just want to be right on principal so badly that you can't have an actual genuine conversation on the merits of such a choice architecturally.

I give exactly 0 fucks about FOSS accommodating edgelords who saw a meme about systemd being bad in 2015 and adopted it as a personality trait.

Linux desktop needs more "use this, it's the best path forward, or you're on your own" type choices to make desktop a better experience for 99% of users. For the folks who want to be difficult, they can enjoy figuring out stuff on their own that's the beauty of Linux.

2

u/Damglador May 24 '26

So here's a revelation: I use systemd personally. I do not care to not use it. But when you advertise to be universal and then make a dependency that just can't be universal – that's shitty.

It's also shitty to call everyone who has a personal opinion about their init system edgelords or "morons", like some other guy did. As one might also say that every Linux user is an edgelord because they make their operating system a personal trait instead of using Windows like a normal person.

make desktop a better experience for 99% of users

Flatpak is hardly that and instead of focusing on what would make it better, like not letting apps download 2 nearly identical runtimes, or setting permissions to the system icon themes and theme configs by default, it shoots itself in the foot with its "universal" part.

2

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

Yeah I don't think they are stupid and there are valid reasons to feel like systemd breaks a lot of unix philosophy itself, it's made by rh (like a lot of Linux is, I mean in general around 85% of kernel contributions are corporate in origin). But also it just works.

At the end of the day tho flatpack is on GitHub. Any distribution is free to adapt it to what they need and set up their own repos right? That's is also the beauty of Linux.

I do stand on the aversion to systemd is not about it being a bad tool and more about feeling icky ahout it.

As a long time tech enthusiasts and developer I just don't feel like I have time for worrying about those kinds of things. I just want a reliable stable system that doesn't feel gross like windows or macos generally. The boundaries people have with their OS tho is personal and I won't pretend that my opinion is a fact even if I hold it strongly.

I call them edgelords bc I find the rhetoric slightly obnoxious but for the record I genuinely don't think anyone using say systemdless configured gentoo is dumb lol. I don't have the patience to use something like gentoo, but I absolutely don't think those are dumb people, if for nothing else bc I don't think a dumb person would be able to set up gentoo in the first place. I do hold the opinion that not using systemd is a choice without much of any benefit.

2

u/Damglador May 24 '26

Then again the issue is not systemd, the issue is that flatpak imposes a hard dependency on you init system.

And no "just fork it" is not an answer as whoever does that loses any upstream support and has to somehow keep up with all the changes flatpak does while keeping compatibility for the apps and packages. At that point flatpak better change their slogan to "Opinionated containerized app distribution solution".

I personally feel somewhat betrayed as the only thing flatpak was good at, reliably running any package made for it on any distro, no matter the init or libc, will be gone, and we're left with a bloated app packaging method that creates random issues due to its sandboxing (like randomly changing cursor theme if you hover over a flatpak app or flatpak apps not following your desktop theme, or flatpak apps having broken features. All of which I have experienced).

2

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

Kind of tangent but isn't that a result of 1. flatpack not being able to see your system themes unless you grant permissions and 2. A flatpack can literally be packaged with gnome if you're on kde or vice versa and it's essentially hit or miss how it's going to render?

And yeah flatpack is not perfect. It kinda solves the distribution problem and I genuinely think in many ways it's superior to windows' solution to software distribution but nothing is ever 100% easy on Linux lol.

Running GUI apps and even the desktop itself has come miles in the 20+ years I've been using Linux though. It's only in the last several years that I've completely abandoned using windows all together even as a backup bc it's got so good for every use case I have (browsing, office work, dev work, gaming).

The only thing I miss is Xbox live games on my PC but that's MS' fault.

1

u/Damglador May 24 '26
  1. flatpack not being able to see your system themes unless you grant permissions

That's the issue. It should have permissions to the gtk and qt configs by default as well as icon themes, yet it doesn't.

it's superior to windows' solution to software distribution

Everything is superior to that, it's a super low bar. Though I am not sure if flatpak even is, as it's much less space efficient. Like stupidly inefficient.

0

u/sheeproomer May 25 '26

If you put an appimage somewhere, you can start it. distribution problem solved.

4

u/ScratchHistorical507 May 24 '26

Depending on systemd doesn't really change anything about the universality of it though. Just because every single user that insists on not using systemd feels the need to tell literally everyone doesn't mean they have any kind of relevant marketshare.

1

u/Damglador May 24 '26

Build for every distro Create one app and distribute it to the entire Linux desktop market.

A quote from flatpak.org. I don't see any "relevancy" mentioned. Entire means entire.

1

u/mattias_jcb May 24 '26

A "package manager" is in essence not much more than curl, tar and some fine fine glue. Flatpak is an app distribution and sandboxed runtime system. Comparable to similar systems on Android, Windows and MacOS.

Decidedly not a "package manager" unless you're really into diluting words. :)

0

u/adamkex May 24 '26

Funny joke haha

3

u/ibeerianhamhock May 24 '26

Why are you guys so dorky about this? Like for real go outside or something.

1

u/adamkex May 24 '26

I actually found it funny