bubblewrap VS flathub

Nothing nix specific but you may be interested in https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap

Recently, I came across Chainguard and wrote the article How to build Docker Images with Melange and Apko. As a fervent supporter of Kubernetes and GitLab CI, I was eager to experiment with building images using Melange in this particular setup. GitLab's shared Runners work seamlessly with Bubblewrap, eliminating the need for additional configurations. This post is intended for enthusiasts like myself, interested in hosting their own Kubernetes Runners and leveraging the Kubernetes Runner Type of Melange.

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This is basically manually invoking what Flatpak does:

https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap

This is also useful for more than just security. E.G., you can test how your app would behave on a fresh install by masking your user configuration files. I personally also have a tool that uses it to basically bundle all dependencies from an entire Linux distribution in order to make highly portable AppImages— Been meaning to post that, will get around to it eventually maybe.

The flags above should hide your user data (`--tmpfs`), disable network access (`--unshare-all`), hide/virtualize devices and OS state (`--dev` and `--proc`), and make the rest of the root filesystem read-only (`--ro-bind`­— Including the insecure X11 socket in `/tmp`, which you might want to expose for GUI apps).

Check them against `bwrap --help`; I might have omitted one or two more things you'd need.

While trying to find out more comparison information, found this light on details issue:

https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap/issues/81

It mentions nsjail and minijail.

> Nobody ever even audits the binary contents of flatpaks on flathub (were they actually built from the source? the author attests so!).

IME/IIRC There aren't (or shouldn't be) any binary contents on Flathub that are submitted by the author, at least for projects with source available? You're supposed to submit a short, plain-text recipe instead, which then gets automatically built from source outside the control of the author.

> The Flathub service then uses the manifest from your repository to continuously build and distribute your application on every commit.

https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/submission/#ho...

Usually the recipes should just list the appropriate URLs to get the source code, or, for proprietary applications, the official .DEBs. Kinda like AUR, but JSON/YAML. Easy to audit if you want:

https://github.com/orgs/flathub/repositories

I also don't believe third parties maintainers packaging software on flathub is a big issue but I'm also not familiar with how other distro repos trust their maintainers. Hopefully more developers maintain their flatpak themselves (or someone they trust) and get their apps verified. If most apps are verified, warning users of unverified apps might be a good idea.

There's ongoing discussion about splitting open source and proprietary apps in to seperate repos [1]. Additionally having seperate repos for verified and unverified apps might make it more obvious where an app comes from in the cli.

But I don't know how seamlessly an app could transition between being in the third party repo and being in the official repo. Having the user quietly stop receiving updates seems like a bad idea, but automatically migrating might not be desirable either.

I also think flatpaks cli interface needs some work. It is functional but far from distro package managers.

Being verified is especially important for critical apps. Recently someone added malicious versions of apps to the snap store [3]. This lead to people getting their cryptocurrency stolen.

[1] https://github.com/flathub/flathub/issues/691

[2] https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/requirements

[3] https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/temporary-suspension-of-automat...

That means Linux users can now install Bforartists on any Linux distro easily, regardless of glibc version! https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/4295

Still having some problems with the flathub build, see https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/4082 for the current status.

Here is the flathub draft pull request: https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/4082

i assume you dont know how flathub works , theirs little or no QC , done flathub is just get told theirs an update for the package , if yo go look at the github repo pes https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/4164 for example , only updates the link to the girt repo , theirs 0 code checked

It all should be written in pages for contributors, read the docs for fusion, and the docs for flathub.

These are criticisms of the flatpak ecosystem as it stands today. Currently, the Firefox ESR package on flathub seems to be caught in limbo or maybe dead. Mozilla publishes both a snap and a flatpak of Firefox latest, but only a snap of the ESR version. This raises the question of why. Have Mozilla chosen to invest more in snaps than in flatpaks? If so, what's their reasoning? (More users on snaps, making it similar to why they put more investment into Windows than Linux? Something else?) If they haven't invested more into snaps than flatpaks, is this a sign that it's harder to maintain flatpaks (or at least on flathub) than snaps? If that's true, I would hope that flatpak/flathub would be soliciting feedback from Mozilla about it.

Because that may be very hard to sandbox: https://github.com/flathub/flathub/issues/3366