Common chunks of data are shared / deduplicated across installed packages, again like Docker or Nix.
The runtime is under LGPL2.
Holy Claude
- Bottles (Wine/Proton runner)
- cpak
- Atoms (container manager)
- VanillaOS (atomic OS with bespoke tooling)
- Sinty OS (another atomic OS with bespoke tooling)
- Sinty DE (desktop environement + apps)
It's fair to say most of them are AI generated nowadays.
Every time I see a new package system that promises to free creators of the burden of integration and compatibility with the rest of my installed software, it's a hard "no" from me--and there have been a lot of these over the years. The promise is always how easy and carefree it is for packagers, but the things that make Debian harder are the things that make it valuable. Careful integration with the rest of the system with matching dependency versions. Modular, carefully partitioned packages for complex systems that would otherwise be all-or-nothing. Ongoing maintenance and updates. Responsiveness to security updates. Following common rules for configuration, directory placement, init/systemd integration, etc.
cpak looks like yet another system designed to ignore the rest of my system as much as it can and live in its own little world. In other words, designing around the needs and goals of software packagers over the needs of users and long-term system maintenance. Solving the easy problems instead of the hard ones.
Exactly what a small, locked-down system needs. A single-purpose server box. An advanced appliance, like a "smart TV", or media box, or an advanced home automation hub.
Right now on Flatpak, if I target org.freedesktop.Platform, when that gets security updates to libraries, my application will use them without needing to be rebuilt. I assume for cpak because OCI images are layered based on a fixed content commit, it won't get library updates unless rebuilt.
I do think Dockerfiles are a better mechanism than flatpak-builder specs, the ecosystem is huge.
With comments like this, I'm not even gonna bother opening the link