Flathub, the main front-end for Flatpak packages, which serves various applications and games to many different Linux distributions and Steam Deck has surpassed 2 billion downloads.
At time of writing there's been 2,004,922,946 downloads. To me, it's quite worth celebrating. Long have we seen the complaints from people wanting to switch to Linux, or testing out the waters, with how fractured the ecosystem is overall. You've seen the complaints at some point I'm sure.
But, being able to tell people "just download it from Flathub", and for a lot of Linux distributions that's now simply a case of opening up the local software app like GNOME Software or KDE Discover, it's a different and much easier world.
From the Flathub Statistics page:
A keen eye might note when it started rocketing upwards. As a reminder, the Steam Deck from Valve released in February 2022, and it certainly seems like around that time it started shooting up. Not surprising, since a lot of people enjoy the Steam Deck's Desktop Mode, which is powered by KDE Plasma with Flathub being the way to install most things there.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
CyborgZeta Jun 25
If I want the latest versions of emulators like Dolphin, PCSX2, or RetroArch, it's as easy as installing the Flatpak. Likewise with Firefox, or the various KDE software.
Quoting: sarmadI will take to your positive outlook.Quoting: LoudTechieQuoting: sarmadNice. It's good to see that Steam Deck owners are also tinkering around with the desktop. This will help let people know that Linux desktop is now far more usable than most people think.
I've mixed feelings about that.
At one side it's a sign of failure, at the other it's a driver for improvement.
Pros:
A. Everyone tinkering on Linux makes the whole ecosystem slightly better, just by trying to improve their own experience and gaining expertise, information and sometimes even code to improve it(whoo FOSS collab).
B. It shows to them the value of controlling your own system.
Cons:
A. These people don't tinker for fun, but to run the software they want to run, which indicates that the out of the box experience is still subpar.
Not exactly. We are not talking about people tinkering; we don't know how many people are tinkering around with the desktop. This graph shows you people downloading new apps from Flathub, which means they are people looking beyond what can be found in the Steam store. They could be installing emulators, open source games, or maybe some desktop apps, and that has nothing to do with the experience being subpar. Quite the contrary, this is a positive experience where you are not locked down like is the case with consoles.
I could make a point that when people install emulators they're tinkering out of necessity and thus showing my point, because they are adding functionality to their device that wasn't in the default behavior to be able to do the usecase they bought the device for, but that is arguing semantics and I really want you to be right.
So @sarmand is right Steam Deck users are using flathub, because they're enjoying the freedom of FLOSS and not out of necessity
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