So I recently installed Cachyos and I am now met with this problem.

There are kind of 2 main contenders here and I’m split between them. What do you use?

There is pacman + aur and then there is flatpak. Pacman has deep system integration and is much more lightweight but it has deep system integration and requires sudo to install. flatpak has sandboxing and easy permission management but it’s bloated and possibly less performant?

Of course if the package isn’t available on flathub then I will have to use the aur but when both are available it’s hard to decide.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    2·
    58 minutes ago

    Yay

    I only use flatpak for one Python program because it has a lot of runtime dependencies I don’t want to bother with. I generally wouldn’t use flatpak.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    There is pacman + aur and then there is flatpak.

    This is sort of like asking “which fruit juice do you use, an acme apple juicer or a blamco orange juicer.” If I need a flatpak, I use flatpak. Sometimes things only have flatpaks and aren’t on the AUR.

    If it’s on both, nowadays I typically prefer the non-flatpak version, but that’s just sort of vibe based, I don’t really have a good reason. I think I ran into a few (very minor) problems with flatpaks (that were probably easy to fix) that I didn’t have with the non-flatpak version and that skewed me in that direction.

  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    3·
    7 hours ago

    when both are available it’s hard to decide.

    It’s easy to decide: AUR (only)

    Personally, I use pacman for as much as I can, then dip into yay for anything else.

  • Obin@feddit.org
    3·
    11 hours ago

    I have both yay and paru on the two Arch systems I manage, because pacman tends to break those occasionally through dependencies and that way I don’t have to do the whole makepkg bit again and instead can update the one with the other. I still find it asinine that these aren’t in the repos or the functionality isn’t integrated in to pacman, but since Arch’s entire philosophy is based on simplicity, I guess the chosen solution to secure user packages is security by obscurity.

    (I only still use Arch on those systems because I haven’t gotten around to migrate them to Gentoo yet, after implementing a binpkg repo and custom profiles many years ago so compiling on the weaker machines is essentially unnecessary, btw.)

  • iglou@programming.dev
    5·
    13 hours ago

    My reason for using arch linux is to have as little bloat as possible. So, pacman. Yay sometimes for AUR stuff, but my need for it is rare.

  • mub@lemmy.ml
    3·
    14 hours ago

    pacman / yay

    I also like pacseek as it provides a simple tui for package search and getting info about packages.

  • woodsb02@lemmy.ml
    2·
    15 hours ago

    For command line apps, I use paru for AUR. For desktop apps, if they’re available as a flatpak, I prefer that for the increased security provided by the sandbox. Otherwise I use Arch packages or AUR. I even uninstall GNOME apps (calendar, weather) from pacman, and install their flatpaks.

  • TruePe4rl@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    17 hours ago

    pacman + yay + appman (in cases where appimage is more convenient)

    If you need something from AUR, Chaotic AUR builds some of them.

    Technically I also use managers for certain languages and environments, so sometimes cargo, pip, luarocks, … whatever.

    I did try to use flatpak in the past, but I just found it annoying. If you do not explicitly need it’s capabilities for a certain app it is mostly makes accessing app’s config and data a major annoyance imo.

  • Ooops@feddit.org
    9·
    2 days ago

    Paru, so Pacman & AUR…

    With exactly one exception: Steam via flatpak because that’s the single package left that would need 32bit libraries from multilib-repo since Wine finally left those dependencies behind.

    • OUwUO@programming.dev
      2·
      13 hours ago

      Upvoted for Topgrade. It’s honestly so good on any system that employs more than one ‘updatable microcosm’,

      • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        It’s like magic too, because any new weird kind of package manager I add, it’s just picks it up and starts updating it. It can even update Windows apparently.

  • DefinitelyNotBirds@lemmy.mlBanned
    281·
    2 days ago

    Pacman plus the AUR is the move on Arch based distros. The AUR gives you access to basically everything, and paru or yay handles the build chain without pain. Flatpak has its place for apps that ship messy runtime dependencies, but for most things it adds an unnecessary isolation layer. Have you tried paru as your AUR helper yet?

    • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
      15·
      2 days ago

      I sometimes prefer Flatpak over AUR, because I do not trust everyone on the AUR to run scripts with root rights on my system. At least Flatpaks are a bit sandboxed (even if the sandbox is an illusion) and the programs don’t install and run with root rights. Sometimes the Flatpak is from the original developer and the script in AUR is not. Or the AUR script is not updated well and often enough, unlike day one Flatpak updates. But Flatpaks do not integrate well in your system and applications can look out of place too. There is a lot to consider, besides what you already mentioned.

      I use both, prefer the AUR in optimal cases.

  • AstroLightz@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 day ago

    pacman /w chaotic-aur.

    I don’t need the AUR directly, a GUI, or other managers. Just what came with my system + chaotic works just fine.

    edit: typo

  • thingsiplay@lemmy.ml
    15·
    2 days ago

    I use yay, as it comes by default with EndeavourOS. It’s basically an AUR helper that uses pacman and works quite the same.

    Flatpak is a different package manager and has nothing to do with your system packages. They are not exclusive, I use both. So what you basically asking isn’t which package manager people use, but rather which package format.

    • v_krishna@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Same here, I tried a number of arch derivatives and arch as well when I got a new desktop last year (after many years of mac work computers, iMac desktop for my kids, mostly Alpine images in the cloud/on k8s, and many many years of mostly Debian and fedora derivatives before I had kids and had time to putter around with *nix). Endeavor suited my needs (some local LLM stuff, personal browsing, a few OSS projects, and Steam) and yay has generally worked great to bridge the gap between pacman and aur.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    142·
    2 days ago

    Your question is not Arch specific, it’s “should I use flatpaks?” And the answer in my opinion is probably no.

    Flatpaks are a good idea to isolate certain applications and to provide a uniform way of installing packages. So there might be some apps that are not available in your native package manager, but do provide flatpaks. For those cases flatpaks are probably preferred. But Arch based distros have the AUR, so there are a lot of apps that aren’t packaged for Arch that you can still get as a native package. Sure, using the AUR is risky and if you’re not on actual Arch things might break sporadically because of mismatched dependencies (although I think CachyOS is full parity of packages with Arch, so that’s maybe more of a Manjaro warning).

    But flatpaks are clunky, bloated, require annoying permissions to be set to do basic things, and require you to update two package managers to do a full system update. They are more appealing for systems where you don’t want to give users root access but still allow them to install programs, but for your own computer I have never seen the appeal.

    • Cosmonaut_Collin@lemmy.world
      2·
      23 hours ago

      I partially disagree. I have found that some flatpaks are better than otherwise for updating the app. When I use the air branch of discord on arch, discord does not update automatically and I need to complete a system upgrade and modify a Jason file. The flatpak version updates automatically with no problems.

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        1·
        18 hours ago

        What is the air branch? Discord has a package on pacman, so it should just get updated with your normal system update, there’s no config or anything that could prevent that, pacman doesn’t care. What JSON do you have to edit and why?

        • Cosmonaut_Collin@lemmy.world
          2·
          15 hours ago

          Build_info.json

          I have only ever had this issue with discord on arch. Whenever discord has an update, it will not fetch the update, but it tells me that an update can be downloaded.

          This is the situation with discord through aur. https://karx.xyz/blog/discord/

          I do not know the air branch

          Also, I am trying to convince my friends to switch to element instead of discord, but they have been stubborn.

          • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 hours ago

            I have only ever had this issue with discord on arch.

            The issue you describe is not Arch specific and it’s not an issue. Using a package manager means using a program to manage your packages. Things can’t auto-upgrade, that breaks the point of a package manager.

            Whenever discord has an update, it will not fetch the update, but it tells me that an update can be downloaded.

            Of course, if you install discord through pacman, then pacman manages the update.

            As for the JSON file that’s a very hacky approach, discord shouldn’t outright fail to launch if there is an update. And in fact the Arch wiki says it has a flag to skip the version check completely:

            To disable the update check, add the line “SKIP_HOST_UPDATE”: true to ~/.config/discord/settings.json. If the file does not exist, create it and add the following:

            ~/.config/discord/settings.json

            {
  "SKIP_HOST_UPDATE": true
}

            More info on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Discord

            • Cosmonaut_Collin@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 hours ago

              The flatpak version of discord is able to fetch for updates when launching the app without needing to system update. And for some reason it is specifically on a system update. Updating only discord does not update the version even after modifying the build_info.json. and I could disable updates, but that shouldn’t be necessary unless discord is pushing updates that are actively making the experience worse.

              • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
                1·
                1 hour ago

                You’re completely missing the point. Discord is a chat app, not a package manager, therefore it should NOT update things EVER. You’re complaining that discord tries to do something it shouldn’t, fails and somehow you seem to think that’s pacman’s fault.

                The “issue” doesn’t exist on flatpaks because discord probably checks if it’s installed via flatpak and runs an update using the flatpak command without your say so. The “solution” is to stop discord from trying to be “smart” and failing and let it be updated when pacman decides to.

                The idea of a package manager is to let it manage your packages, if you want self-updating apps you don’t need a package manager, and good luck with dependencies and overlapping libraries.

    • tuhriel@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      2 days ago

      I usually use the pacman repo and if it’s not in there decide for this specific app if I use the AUR or flatpak version

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yup, that sounds like a good approach. I could even see people doing Pacman -> Flatpaks -> AUR and it would make sense to me.

        • Pope-King Joe@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 day ago

          This is my approach. I use pacman where I can, flatpaks when something is unavailable, and AUR to get everything not available in the first two, or when a native package is preferred but isn’t in the Arch repos.

    • FukOui@lemmy.zip
      21·
      2 days ago

      I guess you could put it that way. For most general applications, I prefer to use flatpak over pacman. Pacman and arch’s repos to me are still very confusing over other package managers (dnf, apt, etc)