I really love applications packaged as flatpaks, but what I somehow miss is some info about each particular flatpak package to list limitations (if any) comparing to deb/rpm package. For example like:
I see for example limitations:
- Wireshark - network monitoring and analyzing tool. With flatpak version you can analyze already captured network traffic, but you can capture network traffic (you have to use Wireshark deb/rpm versions or some other tool to capture network traffic). It would be nice this info is available at individual flatpak level in Flathub, so users know what to expect, not to waste time investigating or reporting bugs on upstream projects
- Pinta - image editor - flatpak version can not open WebP image formats, deb/rpm versions can, but are required to install additional packages (this packages are not packed inside flatpak). I would like to see on “Limitation” tab: WebP can’t be opened.
- Firefox - I have spent a lot of time investigating why I can’t seem to work my tax office web site in Firefox. I was required to install some Firefox extension and some additional packages from operating system, then reading tons of info and testing a lot, I figure it out that Firefox/flatpak is sandboxed (which is great for most of the uses), but not for such integrations. When I installed Firefox/deb it worked out without an issue. Second exaple was when I tried to integrate my Firefox/flatpak package with my Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Kerberos single sign on. Couldn’t figure it out even with support of specialized company. I then figure it out that Firefox/flatpak sandbox is probably preventing this integration, but I was anone to figure it out. On “Limitation” tab I would like to see something like: “external integrations are not supported” or something similar.
What I see a lot of programs havee limitations using flatpak package. Some of them because they are packaged by third party maintainers that do not even have the knowledge something is not working or packaged by developers but saying, yes if you want this functionality you need deb/rpm package. OK, I don’t mind, what I would like is I could read this info on Limitation tab, so I am informed what is working and what not. I don’t want to be disappointed installing flatpak package and then blame flatpak for that, which is fault of individual flatpak package.
What do you think on idea to have “Limitations” tab on each flatpak package Flathub web site?