Viewing topic Advice - Is this normal for Flatpak installation?

Advice - Is this normal for Flatpak installation?

Caldathras May 17

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For the most part, I prefer to use the repositories for software rather than Flathub. When I tried installing the Flatseal flatpak as a test/experiment in Linux Mint 21 XFCE, Software Manager popped up with a request to install EIGHT additional flatpaks that I hadn't chosen to be installed. One of them appears to be the driver for my nVidia chipset, which I have already installed via the Linux Mint repository. These are the additional packages it wants to install:

org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default
org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default
org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-535-171-04
org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel
org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264
org.gnome.Platform.Locale
org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Mint-Y-Aqua
org.gnome.Platform

1.4GB will be downloaded in total. 3.5GB more disk space will be used.

Is this normal when using flatpaks?

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Trias May 17

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Yep, it's normal. Flatpak is usually installing it's own dependencies, even if you already have those packages in your system. And yes, I think I've seen Flatpak installing it's own graphical drivers (or, say, it's own Wine) before.

Not a big expert on Flatpak, but I think they are doing it to maintain their "Consistent environment for each application" and "Full control over dependencies" they are proud for. Like, Flatpak developer should have everything, including even drivers, under his control. And yes, from what I understand, you can have more than one flatpaked GPU driver at the same time, but each one should be sandboxed and isolated, and only (normally?) accessible from one isolated Flatpak application.

How the system can even use different GPU drivers for different programs at the same time? That's where I'm confused also. IDK, but I guess it can do it somehow... :).

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Caldathras May 19

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Thanks. That reduces my concerns a good deal.

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whizse May 19

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Quoting: TriasHow the system can even use different GPU drivers for different programs at the same time? That's where I'm confused also. IDK, but I guess it can do it somehow... :).

The userspace part of the driver is a library loaded each time for each Vulkan/OpenGL application. So it's not one driver process handling everything on the system.

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Trias May 20

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Quoting: whizse
Quoting: TriasHow the system can even use different GPU drivers for different programs at the same time? That's where I'm confused also. IDK, but I guess it can do it somehow... :).
The userspace part of the driver is a library loaded each time for each Vulkan/OpenGL application. So it's not one driver process handling everything on the system.

Aha. Thanks for clarification.

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