I'm using Arch and prefer to avoid the AUR when possible, so I install software through Flatpak if it isn't available in the official repositories. For example, I'm considering installing Zen Browser even though Firefox is already installed. Do Flatpak and pacman resolve dependencies in the same way, or could the Flatpak app download and store libraries that are already installed on my system for Firefox?
3 Answers
They handle dependencies very differently. Pacman installs and shares system packages, while Flatpak apps run in a more isolated environment and use Flatpak runtimes. That means a Flatpak generally won’t reuse the libraries installed by pacman for Firefox.
Flatpak runtimes are separate from your distribution’s packages and are designed to work across different Linux distributions. As a result, a Flatpak may download its own runtime or other libraries even when similar versions are already installed through pacman. Multiple Flatpak apps can share the same Flatpak runtime, though, so everything isn’t necessarily duplicated for every app.
If you’re avoiding the AUR because you’re worried about security, remember that Flatpak manifests also deserve some review. AUR packages aren’t automatically unsafe; you can inspect a PKGBUILD to see what it downloads and which commands it runs. For Zen Browser specifically, using a reputable package source and checking its build instructions is more important than assuming one format is always safer.
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