Manjaro is working on a Flatpak-focused version

I haven’t really seen other except ZorinOS did say it has had million of downloads but I would take that with a grain of salt (like everything with numbers)

What is difficult to know is the ‘conversion rate’ of downloads to installs, and then the percentage of installs that are kept - and for how long. It could be the story of “The incredible Shrinking Numbers”… or not.

Personally, I rely on my own impressions of the quality/usability of various systems… and I’m here! :grin:

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Alcohol 120% … oh no, that was for Windows …

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Not that I particularly agree with it but I think the goal us 2 different editions. Normal manjaro and flatpak based manjaro, the idea that flatpak based distro would be more suited to phones and the up coming steam deck. We all know steam deck is going to be arch based but i can’t see valve launching steam deck on a rolling release. Most steam deck users will probably never have used Linux before let alone a rolling release

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Objectively speaking, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The two big flatpak-based immutable distros, Silverblue/Kinoite and EndlessOS are substantially different.

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You can’t really centrally plan Free Software development. People work on what they want to work on. Sometimes the process is not efficient, sometimes it is more efficient than more structured projects.

It is also very interesting to remember that when Ubuntu made the decision to scrap the 32 bit libraries, Valve specifically inquired Arch devs about it.
It is not unthinkable that this is a bigger thing than we think. Manjaro has become quite a name, and it might be possible Valve is actually talking to them directly.

LOL, Manjaro is two blokes and a handful of volunteer maintainers / devs.

Nearly all Manjaro’s packages are Arch maintained.

Manjaro is like a cloud, seems substantial to some from a distance, but is really just mist / vapor and mostly air.

Isn’t unsubstantiated viral marketing a wonder?

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I think that might actually be the case:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/testing

We’re going to be installing Manjaro, which is an Arch Linux distribution, similar to what’s on Steam Deck.

Found that some time ago here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/valve-adds-documentation-for-steam-deck-development-suggests-manjaro-linux-for-now/

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Was a typo, it should read:

Manjaro has become quite a meme

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Just a friendly reminder that this forum is not a place to bash other distros or their staff.

Please avoid letting the conversation go in that direction.

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We all love each other sooo much! :heart_eyes:

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its only weird when you teamup with snaps then going flatpak :slight_smile: but probably manjaro also want to roll intoo the iot type of realm… thats actualy snaps created for.

The irony isn’t lost on me to pair up with steam deck. .

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So it’s Fedora with AUR support? Or will this move cut them off from the AUR as well due to dependency issues?

It sounds like more Fedora Silverblue kind of thing.

Nobody knows yet. It isn’t clear how they are planning to implement it.

That being said, even if they used an ostree-based implementation the way Silverblue/Kinoite do, I suspect it would still be very different than those.

I used to love flatpaks, as they are the best of the three universal packaging formats (flatpaks are better than appimages and snaps, imo). Lately, I have been playing around with systemd-free distros, and flatpaks were a good way to overcome compatibility issues and still run the packages I needed, at least that was the case for Artix & Devuan.

Since I started running Obarun on one of my machines, I have realized that flatpaks can’t work with a truly systemd-free distro. So much for the “flatpaks work on any distro” claim. So, while they are still my favorite universal packaging format, they are not as good as I once thought.

I either need to find alternatives, build from source, or avoid software altogether if it won’t work without systemd, or large portions of systemd code in a supposedly “systemd-free” distro. The simple fact that flatpaks don’t work on a truly systemd-free distro really shows and highlights the issues with systemd that its detractors complain about.

I don’t think most appimages rely on systemd. Even if you prefer flatpak, they might be the better choice for your use case.

nix might be another option.

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Do you even Arch?