Bug 2113841

Summary: flatpak update installs not needed packages
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: cornel panceac <cpanceac>
Component: flatpakAssignee: Debarshi Ray <debarshir>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
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Priority: unspecified    
Version: 36CC: amigadave, debarshir, klember, mail
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Last Closed: 2023-05-05 16:46:20 UTC Type: Bug
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Description cornel panceac 2022-08-02 06:33:00 UTC
Description of problem:

flatpak update installs packages that are not needed as far as i know.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

flatpak-1.12.7-5.fc36.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. uninstall 
packages not needed as listed below.

2. flatpak update
3.

Actual results:

flatpak update reinstalls the packages i've just uninstalled:

# flatpak update
Looking for updates…


        ID                                              Branch                Op            Remote             Download
 1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             20.08                 i             flathub            < 106.4 MB
 2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             21.08                 i             flathub            < 131.3 MB
 3.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            20.08                 i             flathub             < 11.6 MB
 4.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            21.08                 i             flathub             < 11.8 MB
 5.     org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264               2.0                   i             flathub              < 1.5 MB
 6.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          5.15-21.08            i             flathub              < 6.6 MB
 7.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          6.2                   i             flathub              < 7.8 MB


Now, if anybody actually needs these, then i should have been told so before uninstalling them.

Also, is not clear why several versions of certain packages are needed.

Plus, is Adwaita still needed?


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Debarshi Ray 2022-08-09 15:00:42 UTC
I would have to see the list of Flatpak applications that you have (ie., 'flatpak list') to be sure, but I am willing to guess that this looks as expected.

> flatpak update reinstalls the packages i've just uninstalled:

I would have to see the things that got uninstalled to shed more light on that.

> Also, is not clear why several versions of certain packages
> are needed.

I think you have applications that use different versions of the same runtime.

> Plus, is Adwaita still needed?

Adwaita is the default theme for graphical desktop applications on GNOME.  I think what you have is the Adwaita theme for KDE.  If you are using KDE applications in a GNOME session, then, yes, Adwaita is needed.

Comment 2 cornel panceac 2022-08-09 16:27:06 UTC
The list of previously uninstalled packages is as before:

        ID                                              Branch                Op            Remote             Download
 1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             20.08                 i             flathub            < 106.4 MB
 2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             21.08                 i             flathub            < 131.3 MB
 3.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            20.08                 i             flathub             < 11.6 MB
 4.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            21.08                 i             flathub             < 11.8 MB
 5.     org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264               2.0                   i             flathub              < 1.5 MB
 6.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          5.15-21.08            i             flathub              < 6.6 MB
 7.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          6.2                   i             flathub              < 7.8 MB

The list of all packages on this system:

$ flatpak list
Name                                              Application ID                                   Version                          Branch                 Installation
Discord                                           com.discordapp.Discord                           0.0.18                           stable                 system
SongRec                                           com.github.marinm.songrec                        0.3.2                            stable                 system
Detwinner                                         com.neatdecisions.Detwinner                      0.4.2                            stable                 system
Blanket                                           com.rafaelmardojai.Blanket                       0.6.0                            stable                 system
Spotify                                           com.spotify.Client                               1.1.84.716.gc5f8b819             stable                 system
Fragments                                         de.haeckerfelix.Fragments                        2.0.2                            stable                 system
C* Music Player                                   io.github.cmus.cmus                              2.10.0                           stable                 system
Mousai                                            io.github.seadve.Mousai                          0.6.6                            stable                 system
PDFedit                                           net.sourceforge.Pdfedit                          0.4.5.fl2                        stable                 system
SuperTuxKart                                      net.supertuxkart.SuperTuxKart                    1.3                              stable                 system
Freedesktop Platform                              org.freedesktop.Platform                         20.08.19                         20.08                  system
Freedesktop Platform                              org.freedesktop.Platform                         21.08.15                         21.08                  system
Mesa                                              org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default              21.1.8                           20.08                  system
Mesa                                              org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default              21.3.9                           21.08                  system
Intel                                             org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel                                              20.08                  system
Intel                                             org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel                                              21.08                  system
ffmpeg-full                                       org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full                                              21.08                  system
openh264                                          org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264                2.1.0                            2.0                    system
GNOME Mines                                       org.gnome.Mines                                  40.1                             stable                 system
GNOME Network Displays                            org.gnome.NetworkDisplays                        0.90.4                           stable                 system
GNOME Application Platform version 42             org.gnome.Platform                                                                42                     system
Jitsi Meet                                        org.jitsi.jitsi-meet                             2022.7.1                         stable                 system
Adwaita theme                                     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                                                            5.15-21.08             system
Adwaita theme                                     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                                                            6.2                    system
KDE Application Platform                          org.kde.Platform                                                                  5.15-21.08             system
KDE Application Platform                          org.kde.Platform                                                                  6.2                    system
QtSNI                                             org.kde.PlatformTheme.QtSNI                                                       5.15-21.08             system
KTorrent                                          org.kde.ktorrent                                 22.04.3                          stable                 system
Signal Desktop                                    org.signal.Signal                                5.53.0                           stable                 system
SuperTux                                          org.supertuxproject.SuperTux                     0.6.3                            stable                 system
Telegram Desktop                                  org.telegram.desktop                             4.0.2                            stable                 system
Telegram Desktop Webview Add-on                   org.telegram.desktop.webview                     2.36.5                           stable                 system
Zoom                                              us.zoom.Zoom                                     5.11.3.3882                      stable                 system

Comment 3 Debarshi Ray 2022-08-09 18:47:43 UTC
(In reply to cornel panceac from comment #2)
> The list of previously uninstalled packages is as before:
> 
>         ID                                              Branch              
> Op            Remote             Download
>  1.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             20.08               
> i             flathub            < 106.4 MB
>  2.     org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default             21.08               
> i             flathub            < 131.3 MB
>  3.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            20.08               
> i             flathub             < 11.6 MB
>  4.     org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel            21.08               
> i             flathub             < 11.8 MB
>  5.     org.freedesktop.Platform.openh264               2.0                 
> i             flathub              < 1.5 MB
>  6.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          5.15-21.08          
> i             flathub              < 6.6 MB
>  7.     org.kde.KStyle.Adwaita                          6.2                 
> i             flathub              < 7.8 MB

What was the exact command that you ran?

I am asking because 'sudo flatpak uninstall' will error out:

$ sudo flatpak uninstall
error: Must specify at least one REF, --unused, --all or --delete-data

See 'flatpak uninstall --help'

Comment 4 cornel panceac 2022-08-10 08:09:43 UTC
commands were similar with this one:

 flatpak uninstall org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel

Comment 5 Debarshi Ray 2022-08-10 17:01:11 UTC
(In reply to cornel panceac from comment #4)
> commands were similar with this one:
> 
>  flatpak uninstall org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel

I see.

It's expected that things like org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default and org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel will be around when the org.freedesktop.Platform runtime is around.  Those are extensions for that runtime offering OpenGL and VAAPI support.

Were you having any specific problems with those extensions?

Comment 6 cornel panceac 2022-08-11 06:33:22 UTC
The specific problem is that if a package is needed then it should not be uninstalled without a warning like it happened for the packages above. For other packages, i could not uninstall them if they were needed by some other package(s).

Comment 7 Ben Cotton 2023-04-25 18:25:04 UTC
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It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
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prior to this bug being closed.

Comment 8 Debarshi Ray 2023-05-05 16:44:24 UTC
(In reply to cornel panceac from comment #6)
> The specific problem is that if a package is needed then it should not be
> uninstalled without a warning like it happened for the packages above. For
> other packages, i could not uninstall them if they were needed by some other
> package(s).

You can think of these extensions as weak dependencies and plug-ins.  The ELF binaries of the applications are not linked to these plug-ins during the build.  Instead, these plug-ins are dlopen(3):ed by the applications at run-time.

So, the applications won't abort during start-up if the plug-ins are absent, but they will likely miss some functionality, which may or may not be critical.  For example, a media player may fall back to a different code path if VAAPI support is missing, but a game might completely refuse to work in the absence of any OpenGL support.

These things are implemented as extensions because their might be alternative implementations of them, and the applications choose the most appropriate one at run-time.  For example you can have an free software OpenGL implementation from Mesa or a proprietary one from the likes of NVIDIA, different implementations of multimedia codecs with OpenH264 being one, VAAPI, themes, and so on.

The general philosophy is that if you are poking around and making changes using the command line, then it's assumed that you have some idea of what you are doing.

I suggest filing an upstream flatpak issue if you want to improve the command line interface:
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/

... because this isn't a bug per se.  Hence there's little motivation to treat this with urgency downstream.

Comment 9 Debarshi Ray 2023-05-05 16:46:20 UTC
I am going to close this Fedora bug as WONTFIX, but it might still be worth pursuing upstream.

I am glad to see you play with Flatpak on Fedora, and thanks for stopping by!