If you were using a Fedora Atomic Desktop, I think rpm-ostree could work for most browsers. As for the Tor Browser tarball, you may need to use a Podman or Distrobox container. I’d be curious if @RoyalOughtness had any thoughts on how one should install the Tor Browser on Secureblue? That advice would probably be applicable for most atomic/immutable distributions.
You can use Snaps on other distros, for example on Arch.
Simply layer the browser with ostree or similar.
That’s not always true. There is an official Flatpak for Firefox, yet it does not have the same sandboxing as via non-Flatpak installation. Same for Tor Browser Launcher Flatpak.
Thought I’d jump into this thread to ask a few questions. Today I’m installing Fedora Silverblue (First time using Linux) on a laptop. It will be used mainly as an updated backup in case of loss of power (I live where a lot of hurricanes hit). The only two apps that’s mandatory for me is Firefox and Proton Mail. Both I plan to install using Flathub over Flatpak and rpm. Both apps will be downloaded from the company directly in Flathub. Why Flathub? It’s the quickest most up to date app over Flatpak and rpm. Also I believe it properly installs itself as a proper container app.
Am I going about this the right way? Just want to be sure Silverblue with Flathub is the prefered way for me to keep the apps updated to the latest version. Also, do the Flathub apps automatically update or do I need to manually update the apps when there’s a new version? If manually, should I just install the new Flathub update over the already installed version or uninstall and do a fresh install?
[Flathub is] the quickest most up to date app over Flatpak and rpm
I think you may be slightly misunderstanding what Flathub fundamentally is.
Flatpak and RPM are package formats and package management systems, whereas Flathub is a repository for flatpak packages. You can source Flatpaks from Flathub but you cannot use Flathub instead of Flatpak.
Both apps will be downloaded from the company directly in Flathub
One day hopefully that is posssible, but I don’t think that it is currently possible. Firefox is officially available on Flathub, but Protonmail is not iirc, Protonmail is on Flathub but it is an unofficial community build, it does not come directly from Proton.
Also, do the Flathub apps automatically update or do I need to manually update the apps when there’s a new version? If manually, should I just install the new Flathub update over the already installed version or uninstall and do a fresh install?
I don’t recall whether flatpaks auto update on silverblue, but its easy to check for and apply updates manually (either using the terminal flatpak update or using Gnome-Software (which will automatically check for updates and alert you when its time to update). You do not need to uninstall/reinstall, just check for and apply updates and let your package manager(s) do their thing. Package management on Linux is likely more automatic/integrated than what you are used to if you are coming from Windows.
However, I also wanted to note too that there’s a security issue when apps are distributed through Flathub as it doesn’t allow signing builds with a custom GPG key (you’d have to distribute the sigs separately, see feather-wallet/feather#47 (comment) ) and you’re putting all trust into Flathub. Devs could however selfhost their own Flatpak repo.
Thanks guys for the reply’s! So after installing Silverblue I discovered that I couldn’t use dnf unless I somehow forced it. It was only rpm-ostree. The first thing I tried to do was uninstall Firefox and install a newer version but it just wasn’t working. Could be that Firefox is part of the Silverblue base image that’s standard and not a standalone app you can just uninstall. Eventually after tinkering with the OS, I finally decided I needed something more user friendly, so I switched to Fedora Workstation. From there it was smooth sailing. Updated the repos, installed all the media codecs, used the sudo dnf upgrade, etc.. I uninstalled Firefox and searched through the hidden files in the file explorer (or whatever linux calls it) to delete the leftover files firefox didn’t delete during uninstall. I reinstalled Firefox using Flathub directly from Mozilla. As stated by someone earlier, Proton Mail app is only available unofficially as a wrapper but I went to Proton directly which offers both a deb version for Ubuntu and a rpm version for Fedora, so rpm it was directly from Proton. Also grabbed Gnome Tweaks and other little apps. Overall, success in every way.
To clear up my previous post. I wanted to stay away from Flatpaks from the Fedora repo since they are not always up to date and preferred Flatpaks from Flathub which are usually quick to get out the latest versions. Looks like rpm also played a role in that some apps are just unavailable as a Flatpak. So I installed some rpms as well.
Why do you waste other people’s time asking, if you use Flatpak nevertheless?
You didn’t even read into how to install software properly on Silverblue, yet concluding that Fedora Workstation is more user friendly. If you don’t do basic research, you will have similar problems over time on any distro.
It does not interfere with the browser’s sandbox, as long as you don’t screw up snap’s permissions, which is the most important part in case of browsers. Regarding snap’s own confinement, you can have some/most of it on some other distros with Apparmor.
You’re right! Rpm is the preferred way but the versions of the apps are behind. So if a newer version of the app fixes critical bugs, wouldn’t you consider that more important? From what I’ve seen, the Flathub Flatpak seems to be up-to-date with app releases. If rpm could match the quick release turnaround, then I would make rpm my go to. If I’m wrong in my thinking, I would love to hear otherwise. I do value you and everyone elses input.
I’m still new to the linux world and kinda jumped a little into the deep end. I was in a hurry and didn’t give Silverblue a chance. I’ll return to it at a later time to invest more time into it since it’s really the distro I actually want. From what I see, Flatpak seems to be the prefered choice with Silverblue and I can see how to easily install apps using either the software store or by command like ‘flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.firefox’. I know rpm is also another way. I did run into an issue when trying to completely uninstall apps. In the software store there wasn’t an easy uninstall/trash button that I could see compared to other distros. I tried the command ‘rpm-ostree uninstall org.mozilla.firefox’ or something similar and I got an error message about language packs weren’t able to be uninstalled, therefore, Firefox couldn’t be uninstalled. That’s were I needed to research a little more. I will get back to Silverblue again so if you have some suggestions, I’m able and willing to go down the rabbit hole. Thanks again!
Yea, it looks like this is the only way to go. I did some extra research and found out that Firefox is part of the base image of Silverblue. So you can never get rid of it. Maybe hide it behind a layer but when you do an upgrade it just comes back again. You can add a Flatpak but then you have two copies of Firefox. Kinda annoying but like you said, stay with the native packages, at least for Firefox in Silverblue.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but security patches (particularly if they’re patching an identified CVE) are pushed out on stable distributions like Fedora, so you should have most or all important updates quickly. This might exclude vulnerabilities which aren’t assigned a CVE, but I think that’s mainly an issue for smaller programs. I assume major browsers like Chromium and Firefox properly assign CVE’s when needed, but I could be wrong.
