On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 2:41 PM Michael Catanzaro mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 11:15 am, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
In the single-user system scenario it doesn't matter that flatpaks are installed to $HOME by default, and it's probably preferred given the default Workstation partition layout; but I think it's confusing in the multi-user case, as a default, because those installed apps won't show up for any other user. Not only is there no way to set a default location, in the GUI I can't specify the system location on a case by case basis.
I've become convinced that the GUI should expose system vs. user installation for users to choose between.
It could be a checkbox under the Install button for the application in GNOME Software: for this user only
Or to that effect.
I was thinking *user* would be a better default, but seems not everyone agrees. :)
Back in the era when flatpak CLI defaulted to --system, I thought the same way and advocated for changing it, because ~/ has way more space available, and privileges aren't required to do the installation. But GNOME Software appears to have not followed that.
Another possibility is that an admin user (a user in the wheel group?) by default has flatpaks --system installed; whereas a standard user not in the wheel group, by default has flatpaks --user installed. Maybe that's already the case, and requires privileges for the admin user to install, but not the standard user.
If there were a per app install checkbox, it would be checked by default for the standard user and grayed out. They have no other choice but to ask their sysadmin for a system wide installation of the application.