It looks like the fedora-release-workstation package in Fedora 35 requires fedora-flathub-remote and fedora-workstation-repositories, so upgrading to Fedora 35 causes flatpak and fedora-workstation-repositories to be installed. I don’t like Flatpak and proprietary software so I would rather not have these packages installed, even if installing them don’t enable the repositories by default. --skip-broken doesn’t work and I can’t remove fedora-release-workstation since GNOME depends on it. Is there a way for me to upgrade without installing these packages? It doesn’t make sense for Fedora to force users to install non-essential stuff like Flatpak and I think these should be weak dependencies.
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@bessiethecow How do you install? / upgrade? If you do a new install Anaconda (the set of first screens) will ask you if you want proprietary apps.
Fedora does not install proprietary software, only way to install that propr. software is you do it yourself.
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If you doesn’t want Flatpak on Fedora, the easy way you could use Fedora spin i3. Or you could also use Fedora spin KDE. On KDE spin you could easily remove flatpak.
Or if you want still using Gnome, you could disable flatpak repositories with solution from Fedora ask here. Or you could also change file on /var/lib/flatpak/repo and adding line xa.disable=true on each [remote "repo-name"].
I’m personally love AppImage, Snap, and Flatpak. I believe with those technology it will allow app developer (open source or proprietary) not too worries about their app will behave differently on each different distros with different environment.
Fedora-release-workstation is just the definition of the installation like silverblue or server editions of Fedora. Flatpak is just a service, if you don’t use it, nothing will happen …
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The last time I did a clean install was with fedora 30. I have since done repeated system upgrades as per this.
I do not have, nor have I ever had, the feodra-release-workstation package. I do know, however, that it is only a basic meta-repo that pulls in the packages that would normally be installed from the workstation install iso.
This is the info about it.
https://fedora.pkgs.org/34/fedora-x86_64/fedora-release-workstation-34-1.noarch.rpm.html
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I made an empty package that provides fedora-flathub-remote and fedora-workstation-repositories to satisfy the dependencies without actually installing those packages.
Name: fake-third-party-repositories
Version: 1
Release: 1%{?dist}
Summary: Provides fake third-party repositories to satisfy dependencies
License: Public Domain
BuildArch: noarch
Provides: fedora-flathub-remote
Provides: fedora-workstation-repositories
%description
Empty package that provides fedora-flathub-remote and
fedora-workstation-repositories to satisfy fedora-release-workstation
dependencies without actually installing third-party repositories.
%prep
%build
%install
%files
%changelog
* Thu Dec 02 2021 Alexander Zhang <zhangalexy@gmail.com> 1-1
- Initial version
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I managed to clean up those packages like this:
sudo dnf swap fedora-release{-workstation,}
sudo dnf remove flatpak gnome-software PackageKit
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What are third-party repositories in standard installation of Fedora … RpmFusion, Google Chrome, Intel Quartus Prime, Intel OneAPI, NVidia Isaac, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Eclipse … need specific method to be used, nothing automatic, intention and just a bit of work. FlatPak launches containerized apps followed by Snap on Ubuntu, initially developed by Red Hat, a very close cousin that can’t be categorized as third-party from Fedora point of view as EPEL is maintained by Fedora.
Start with a new installation using minimal install image then work your way installing only what you want … choosing workstation, server, IoT, silverblue is far more easy …
Choose your own applications do a Everything.iso install.
Workstation does not not include Rpmfusion, not google chrome, not nvidia, not microsoft.
Everything.iso is the most clean install. its just the OS. Find it on https://alt.fedoraproject.org/
Information on the third party repositories included in the Workstation is here:
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s there a way for me to upgrade without installing these packages?
I see that a solution has already been posted :
As others pointed out, doing an upgrade ('dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=“ver”, then dnf system-upgrade reboot), only the packages you already have installed will be installed (with some exceptions).
As something to consider for a future overwrite/new install, would be to use kickstart (cf. https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/rawhide/install-guide/advanced/Kickstart_Installations/ ) to customize your installation.
That will allow you to specify which packages/package groups to install and selectively not install any packages that are unwanted.
I use kickstarts for all my new installs and have several different versions for different types of systems (Workstation, generic server, LAMP server, etc.)
This mechanism works really well, as it allows me to avoid installing many packages I don’t want that might be installed by default.
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