reinstall Obsidian on Linux Mint and want to know the pros and cons of each packaging on Linux Mint.
Installed both flatpak, native, so which one would you use and why?
I just started using Obsidian again, after having used Simplenote for years.
So, to my question: what is the noticeable or functional difference between Flatpak and native package on Linux Mint? Why choose one over another?
With native package you refer to the official release from obsidian.md? If so, the difference is kind of clear, one is official and the other isn’t.
With that being said, the additional packaging could introduce minor discrepancies but in general it shouldn’t change the functionality of Obsidian itself. It might just be that you might need to consider other stuff in a different way. Like do you want to use wayland or not (whatever that is, but I see it referenced a lot)? How do you turn on/off hardware acceleartion if that turns out to be a case?
How do you get support if it’s not the official release, but another package?
With that being said, not answered with any prejudice, I’ve made the following stuff on my rather old laptop with Linux Mint:
)So the main answer I reckon would be that it depends on your preferences related to whether you want to use an official version or not, and how much setup/configuration/sync issues you might run into with either version. I do believe the functionality could be considered very close to identical.
I run LM on Cinnamon x11, and until Cimmanon decides to support it, I will keep far from Wayland, even though it is inherently more secure, given that Wayland is a breakaway dev team for x.org.
That’s quite fancy, but well beyond my paygrade uless I had a structured tutorial to follow.
Yes, I want to use the official, supported version, so it sounds like I will use the .deb.
Cheers!
I personally stay away as much as possible from snap, appimage and flatpack. I understand the rationale behind it and how it makes a dev’s work much easier to package the release.
But…
These formats (I did not compare them extensively against one another though, so some may be handling this better) run in sandboxing mode and that is a royal pain in the ass. I mean royal. It is beyond me how many times I have run into issues I just could not figure out and really did not even know what to search for online, only hours later to find some obscure github comment from the devs: oh yeah, this won’t work due to sandboxing.
As well, these packages store personal settings and other data in non linux standard way…it’s way way buried in obtuse directories. So this is hell if you doing some scripting.
Finally, if I were to run obsidian in one of these packages, and all seems fine, I never know when I am going to come across a great plugin I want to use and it behaves weird…only hours later to find out again…yep, sandboxing.
Till these issues are not fully resolved, I stay way clear of these packages and only use what’s in the repo, .deb package (in my case) or install using instructions on github or compile myself…
Not everyone will feel like I do, but these are common issues and I wanted to wan you about them.
Cheers
Obscure sandboxing has always been my downfall too.
That’s why I asked, and have gone with .deb for that very reason.
The official .deb from the Obsidian site, seems to take longer to open than the flathub.org version, and both are 1.8.9. Of course, I want to avoid the flatpak due to the sandboxing, so the native package would be my choice.
The PC is very fast: Ryzen 9, with nVMEs.
This is the first package I have had not open in a blink of an eye. This is like 15 seconds to open with zero notes except the welcome.md
Any thoughts, while I do freshly reinstall of each package?
I use the flatpak version of Obsidian already for a year or so and didn’t encounter any problems: like you I’m running Mint.
In some cases I use deb or appimage, example, if an app is unable to use my GPU fully, like for photo/video editing, 3d rendering or simply bc there’s no flatpak available. Otherwise I use flatpak. If you need to configure flatpak, use the terminal or Flatseal.
Of course you need to take in account, flatpaks are bigger, because they ship with their own libs and runtimes. The advantage is sandboxing and frequent updates.
I wouldn’t think twice - make yourself a picture: simply download and try Obsidian, instead to lose time with worries. Obsidian works well for me on Mint cinnamon.
I took all your advice after reinstating the .deb, and it slowed down enough to get on my nerves.
Then I installed from the Software Manager, and the flatpak opened in a flash.
Some people call the sandboxing a disadvantage when it locks them out of certain disrectories, but everything is running perfectly.
Related thread with Flatpak maintainer’s arguments:
I use Mint and always .deb (for any software).
No issues.