I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
I personally still prefer native, but flatpak is my goto for whenever something isn’t working or when the official repos are outdated.
The other day I tried to use Malt for blender but it wouldn’t work on the native version because it was using the wrong version of python. The flatpak version works perfectly with Malt, but for some reason I don’t feel like troubleshooting, the OptiX denoiser doesn’t work.
Still though, flatpak is a welcome option and is way better than snap.
That is so strange. I think people are underestimating how important up-to-date packages are for certain kinds of workflows, and short of reinstalling everything onto a rolling distro, the only sane solution is something like Flatpak, or directly installing every new binary as it comes out, which can suck and does not guarantee having all dependencies.