Yesterday I noticed that Thunderbird is installed as flatpak when you install the Zorin apt package of Thunderbird.
I don't want that other apps than real native .deb packages get installed on my system.
Aravisian wrote once that the removal of flatpak and the gnome-software plugin for flatpak wouldn't help to avoid this.
I'm wondering if it is possible to prevent the unwanted flatpak installation via transition packages by creating a file at /etc/apt/preferences.d and to set a negative pin priority there. I have made something similar for snap packages.
In that linux mint thread I found a template for that file.
ls it right? Can I make it this way and will it work in Zorin?
# To prevent the installation of Flatpak,
# this file forbids Flatpak from being installed by APT.
# For more information: https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/snap.html
Package: Flatpak
Pin: release a=*
Pin-Priority: -10
Unfortunately, that didn't work, although I had rebooted after creating the file and even though I had uninstalled Flatpak, Flathub, and the Flatpak plugin. Thunderbird was nevertheless installed as a Flatpak.
Flatpak was just reinstalled. Damn!
Alternatively, remove gnome-software and limit your use to Synaptic Package Manager and possibly Apper for graphical software interface. Synaptic can also be used for system updates which is what I use on PCLOS Debian.
Lastly, you could install Thunderbird via a tarball, using the same method as I have done with Web Browser installation.
It’s not a big deal if you know which apps are being secretly bundled into other package formats this way. It just bothers me that you’re not informed about it at all during installation. And unfortunately, you can no longer trust that Zorin’s apt packages are actually .deb packages. Who knows which other apps are being handled this way now or will be in the future?
I don't need Thunderbird, I just used it for my test because normal flatpaks are clear and not shown in my gnome software store because the flatpak plugin is removed. Critical are the .deb packages which install a flatpak. I'm not sure if the removal of gnome-software would solve that. I'll test.
Edit: The removal of gnome-software removes the zorin desktop. But when you reinstall the zorin desktop, gnome software gets installed because it is part of the zorin desktop package.
I'll try what happens when I install Thunderbird with synaptic.
It looks as it is the same as with gnome-software. There is shown that the Thunderbird package is a script which installs the flatpak:
I think that is because of Debian which doesn't smuggle in snap packages as ubuntu. So there are no .deb packages which install other packages and no need to create transit packages that prevent the snaps but install flatpaks instead (not much better).
I have never had that issue of the desktop disappearing, certainly not in Zorin 17. Perhaps Canonical/Gnome are upset that users like to use GNU/Linux how they want to use it.
As you know my experiment to remove the Zorin Desktop for Plasma worked, with me just keeping the artwork and gdm3, so I still have the bootsplash and Plymouth and the login screen.
Now I tested in addition to the priority file for apt preferences what would happen when I lock flatpak in synaptic (I have removed flatpak) and then install thunderbird.
This time it showed not that flatpak will get installed and it looked like a normal installation, no errors, and thunderbird is shown now in synaptic as installed. But the program Thunderbird doesn't work and is neither shown in start menu nor in gnome-software.
"flatpak list" shows "command not found", so it is not installed now.
Perhaps that worked in this case because there is no dependency set for flatpak for the thunderbird package. When running "apt-cache show thunderbird", there is flatpak shown at "Recommends", but neither Pre-Depends nor Depends listed.
Perhaps you've always uninstalled the entire GNOME desktop? I took a look at Zorin 17 Core (in Distrosea) and entered the command to remove GNOME Software there, and in terminal was shown that Zorin OS Desktop would be removed. Gnome-software seems to be deeply integrated into the desktop.
Well here we are. I forgot I had to reinstall gnome-software over a query on a post on the forum. Removed it and can still get into Zorin. What I discovered in Synaptic is that there is still liblflatpak0 - and look what happens if it gets marked for removal! I am beginning to think Zorin is definitely moving towards flatpak for sure:
Debian has Thunderbird as .deb Package in their Repos available. And I guess Zorin offers the Flatpak because the Flatpak is an official one from Mozilla.
Zorin OS Pro is almost exclusively Flatpak managed.
And yes, ZorinGroup has been a strong proponent of Flatpak for a long time.
This is where the discussions about the Zorin OS direction stem from. Switching to Gnome-Only, Switching to Unready Wayland and pressing Flatpaks are all just smaller symptoms of a trend that the ZorinGroup Clearly Supports.
The ZorinGroup are not hero's for the end user, supplying insulation from corporate interests.
