SUMMARY If you navigate to a page of an application that is already installed and you have multiple backends available, Discover will prefer showing the page for the default backend, which makes it seem like the application is not installed when it actually is installed by another backend. Check the steps below for clarification. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Make sure to note which backend is set as your default in the settings page 2. Search for an application that is already installed on your system by a backend which is not the default (eg. If your default is Flatpak, search for an app installed by your distro or by Snap) OBSERVED RESULT The app page prefers showing the page for the default backend, and as such shows the button to Install that application, even though the same application is already installed by another backend. EXPECTED RESULT It should switch to the backend that installed the application, that way, when accessing the app page it will show the option to uninstall. If an application was installed by 2 or more backends that aren't the default, it should probably show a message that other backends have the same application installed. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: KDE neon 5.27 KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.7 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.108.0 Qt Version: 5.15.10 Kernel Version: 6.2.0-26-generic (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 6 × Intel® Core™ i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz Memory: 15,5 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 570 Series
I was just going to report/suggest this and I found this report already, so I will add my experience here. Plasma 6.0.0 (frameworks 6.0.0 too) and this still happens. I can't count the times that my parents have installed the same app 2 ou 3x on their PC because one of them is from flatpak, another is from snap and another is from the distro repo. And when they complain that their Firefox doesn't have their saved passwords and I go check it's because they logged into flatpak version of firefox but are now trying to use the snap version. Every time they launch discover and search for "Firefox" for example, if the flatpak backend is set as the default but you already have firefox installed from Snap for example, it will show in the application page as NOT being installed and with zero ways to tell that it is in fact installed from another repo/backend. My suggestions for Discover: 1 - Detect that the app is installed from another backend and open automatically the application page on the backend that it is installed from - also show that it is in fact installed in the search results (see point 3); 2 - When viewing the application page for a backend where it is _not_ installed from, show a hint on the top of the page telling the user that there this app is already installed from another source/backend with a button to jump to the installed backend and show the installed app; 3 - Try to join together, in the search results and browsing pages, the same app from multiple backends (for example if you search Firefox but have distro repos, flatpak and snap activated, only show 1 search result for firefox instead of 3 results) and automatically open the "default backend" if the app is not installed, when clicking the single search result. You can change backends as usual on the top of the application page. See point 2 - with this idea, we can safely mark the app as "installed" in the search results and listings. Discover showing the same app multiple times and having the installed version "hidden" if that is not the default backend, is extremely confusing especially for new users. And I don't mean only new linux users, I mean new KDE users too. I am glad to try help where I can. Thank you all for your effort :)
Hello, Kubuntu 24.04 with Plasma 5.27.11 here. I would like to add that sometimes it is strange: for instance I installed Floorp from their ppa. I installed Flatpak backend afterwards. Now Discover proposes to install Floorp as it was not installed, as described before. But for other applications, only Flatpak is proposed (Brave for instance), even if there is at lease a snap alternative. And for others (Falkon for instance), I can choose source from Flathub, Ubuntu or Snap...
Cannot reproduce this. Do you still encounter this problem? Discover always defaults to the backend which the app was installed from. I see uninstall & launch buttons etc. Changing to the non-default repository shows me an install button. Leaving and then immediately re-entering the apps information page still defaults to the backend it was installed from. Thanks.
(In reply to john.liptrot from comment #3) > Cannot reproduce this. Do you still encounter this problem? > > Discover always defaults to the backend which the app was installed from. I > see uninstall & launch buttons etc. > > Changing to the non-default repository shows me an install button. Leaving > and then immediately re-entering the apps information page still defaults to > the backend it was installed from. > > Thanks. I can still reproduce it on Plasma 6.4.5. My default backend is Flathub, when I open the Firefox page (an app preinstalled by Fedora from their own sources) I get the Flatpak version and a button to install, even though the app is already installed from another source. If I manually select Fedora Linux from the dropdown I can see the installed version and I get a button to uninstall. I'll attach a video.
Created attachment 185681 [details] Wrong source is selected for installed app
> I can still reproduce it on Plasma 6.4.5. My default backend is Flathub, > when I open the Firefox page (an app preinstalled by Fedora from their own > sources) I get the Flatpak version and a button to install, even though the > app is already installed from another source. If I manually select Fedora > Linux from the dropdown I can see the installed version and I get a button > to uninstall. I'll attach a video. Hello, Thank you for uploading the video. I still cannot reproduce this, but I have only tested this with flatpak. I cannot yet confirm if this is a Fedora only issue or not, but having two flatpak repositories on my system always shows the repo that the app is installed from by default, and I cannot get it this to fail. And I've really tried! So all I can really say for sure at this moment is it works for me, with flatpak. Can you please run this command in the terminal 'flatpak remotes -d' and attach a screenshot? Thanks!
Yeah, this was fixed for Plasma 6.5 recently.