PackageKit isn’t a package manager in the same sense as what I meant. It’s more like a one level above “front end” to be able to manage different package managers with the same program. This means that “Software Stores” that use packagekit like Gnome Software or KDE Discover will work on most Linux system with whatever package manager is used in the backend. For example on a Fedora Workstation, packagekit makes it possible to install, update and manage both rpm installed through dnf, Flatpaks and if I wanted, Snaps, while on a Debian based system it would be able to manage your apt stuff, or on Arch packages installed through pacman for example. But from what I heard this also makes it a somewhat clunky and slow piece of software that has become kind of clunky and hard to maintain over the years, so its also an interesting question whether Cosmic is going to use it.

I just realized that I haven’t read any infos about the package manager that Cosmic is going to use. Is it going to be build on top of Ubuntu like Pop!OS and use apt? Are the apps going to be served by the package manager or as Flatpaks? If the later, it could be interesting to public them on the Flathub Beta remote when they reach that stage.

Man this Missinformationen is hard to squash. Yes Flatpaks absolutely share libraries. These are called runtimes and are shared between all the Flatpak apps that use the same version of it. You will only get more than one version of a given runtime if some apps need this other version. For most runtimes that I know of, most only have 2 currently maintained versions, so I almost never get more than that on my system (and when I do, app devs tend to update their apps shortly after so that they’re using a maintained runtime). For example on my system where I mostly use GTK apps, I only have two versions of the Gnome runtime (44 and 45). And even when you have more than one version of a runtime, they get deduplicated, so even runtimes share parts between them.

If you’re interested here is an article about it.

As other have pointed out, saying that “no dependencies are shared” is a very missinformed take, given that sharing dependencies as runtimes is an integral part of Flatpak’s structure. But what makes it even funnier and more obvious that you don’t know what your talking about, is that you than cite Nix as something you “vastly prefer” when Nix actually deals with dependencies in a very similar way to Flatpak. From the official site:

You can have multiple versions or variants of a package installed at the same time. This is especially important when different applications have dependencies on different versions of the same package — it prevents the “DLL hell”.

In both Flatpak and Nix, apps will only download a different version of a dependency when they need it. This ensure that, instead of breaking, the app will work the same on any system (be it an old stable Debian or a bleeding edge Arch system), without requiring devs to create monkey patches that they have to maintain as things evolve. It has the potential to immensely reduce the burden on app devs and maintainers, and make it a lot easier to make apps for Linux.

By the way, if you guys are interested here is a talk comparing Appimages Snaps and Flatpaks by Richard Brown, one the devs at Suse, a big contributer to openSuse and the guy who spearheaded the Desktop variante of MicroOS (the immutable openSuse Tumbleweed).

He isn’t to keen on appimages either because of a miriad of technical issues.

Man what a braindead take.

Firstly, you’re not adressing the fact that your BS Ad hominem didn’t even make sense. You’re calling OP a “kids who grew up with “app stores”” when they are talking about prefering to get a .tar over appimages. You’re now even doubling down with “That “terminal” app is scary!”. I know having actual arguments is hard, but maybe just think for a second before writing something, particularly if you’re so desperately trying to be snarky.

Secondly having to using the terminal is fine for experienced user who like the efficiency of it and makes sense for more advanced cli apps or development tools, but for app that are meant for an average it’s just a needlessly shitty experience. Same goes for having to look up the website to download a random package from the internet that you’re going to run uncontained on your system. Given how easy it is to game the SEO to land at the top, this is just begging for a virus and is an absolutely garbage system.

And it really doesn’t need to be this way given that we already have better working alternatives.

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the post? They literally praise native package managers, statically linked binaries and even .tar archives over appimages. If you don’t have any actual arguments against their point, you don’t have to make shit up, you know? Using BS ad hominem to dismiss someones opinion isn’t a great look.

And they explained why this opinion is kind of silly.

“I will not listen to anything this person has to say, because I don’t like a small and inconsequential part of their presentation” is not a great opinion to begin with, even ignoring the fact that this presentation might be necessary to reach a meaningful audience.

To be honest, this seems to me like a pretty bad take with weird and kind of BS arguments. Why are professional designer, both those working for some of the biggest tech companies and those working in open source project, making these choices? It couldn’t be for actual reasons or because they actually prefer it like that. No, they are “afraid of color”. Or implying that dark theme exist because of these black on white themes, as a mean to escape it. It just weird backwards logic to justify his taste and shouldn’t be necessary to just state that he prefer a different kind of themes.

To me, the Windows themes he showed as positive examples look way to cluttered and busy, even though they don’t show this much information. I don’t need the theme to be “exiting”, I need them to display the information in an easily readable way. And dark theme aren’t there just for people who dislike the modern light theme. Having a light and a dark theme (and ideally having the app follow your system preference) actually serves a purpose. You can actively switch between them depending on the context, the time of day, the brightness of the room or any other reason to make the screen easily readable and comfortable to look at.

I’m going to assume you’re not doing this maliciously, as not all of those features and infos are easily discoverable so here are a few infos you might be interested in:

• You always could type in the adressbar by typing Ctrl+L, which is the same shortcuts as all the Browser that I ever tested and most file manager as far as I know. In addition to that, in Gnome 46, you will be able to click the adressbar to type in it (someone had to create the widget for that and until now, nobody had the time/motivation)
• On any Gnome app, you can drag from any part of the headerbar, even on buttons or on the adressbar, you just need to click and hold anywhere. This is actually the best solution that I have seen anywhere in the desktop world: It doesn’t need a titlebar wasting vertical space across the entire width of the app and you avoid the situation where the app window is to small and isn’t dragable at all.
• Far as I know, classic mode isn’t officially part of Gnome and is instead a package that some Distros add that consist of a few extensions. But if you’re going to use extensions for an app menu, you might as well use the far better Arc menu which as a lot more options and is well supported (it’s already ready for Gnome 46 which isn’t out yet)
• Having / as a default shortcut isn’t a good idea for an average user, given that most of the stuff you access from there shouldn’t be touched if you don’t know what you’re doing. And if you do, adding the Bookmark takes a few seconds. (If you want to do it super fast Ctrl+L > / > Enter > Ctrl+D). In addition to that, an editable Sidebar is in the works is in the works, although just like anything, someone will have to do the work and write and maintain the code.

As for the statement “I’m not on mobile, this is a desktop”, I’m not sure what you mean. You do know that you can use just start typing in the overview to search for an app, file, settings, etc (what appears in the search can be edited in the settings)? Maybe I missunderstand what you mean, but I don’t see how the overview is in anyway something from “mobile”. In my opinion, the overview where you can manage your workspaces , open apps and quickly search and open new app, is the best thing Gnome made and is the reason why I and many other use it on Desktop. And if that is not for you, you can recreate a traditional desktop with extensions (Dash to Panel and Arc menu for example) or use KDE or Cinnamon, which are both amazing in their own right and perfected the traditional desktop.