Believe me, I am not advocating that most people only use their Browser, but it is the reality of the situation & actually kind of a good thing in terms of Linux adoption. As you point out, people moved to Chrome w few issues b/c, imo, most normies just need a browser.
As for the rest of it, most people consider the need to download exes one at a time a downside. And again, flatpaks & appimages are the workaround to universal compatibility (anything but adding repos).
That said, you obviously have a lot of experience. I hope you can get to the point where it doesn’t feel like Linux is fighting you.
Agreed. The shift from downloading installers to finding stuff in the app store is a pretty big jump, and a necessary one IMO because it prevents the main source of malware (downloading sketchy exes) and ensures that everything stays up-to-date. When it comes from the distro package repository, you can be reasonably sure that it’s legit.
And yeah, flatpaks rock.
Linux is a paradigm shift, and I think it’s generally for the better.
The distro I use (Pop_os) has a lot of outdated packages in the ‘store’, & I think that’s pretty common for any distro that’s not bleeding edge.
The store compensates with flatpaks a lot of the times, but my issue with those is they don’t integrate with the system very well. To launch Krita (for a random example), instead of using ‘krita’ in the command line, I need to use like, ‘~/.local/var/org.kritafoundation.krita.flatpak’ (I am making that up, but it’s probably something similar). This becomes a real issue when using scripts or needing software to work system wide.
Appimages are actually my current favorite method for universal install. I rename them, then stuff them in my ~/bin/ directory. My gripe with appimages is there is no auto generated .desktop file.
I like building from source, but sometimes it feels like I install 10 gigs of dependencies to build a 400kb piece of software.
Adding repos was invented by the Devil & is thus appropriately cursed to break systems, so I stay away unless there’s really no other options.
I guess what I’m saying is every single method sucks, but still better than Windows lol.
Honestly, an up-to-date store would be the best of all Worlds, which I suppose is Arch’s AUR, but, nah. Arch looks like a headache.
Anyways, I’m blabbing. That happens when I start geeking out about Linux.
instead of using ‘krita’ in the command line, I need to use like, ‘~/.local/var/org.kritafoundation.krita.flatpak’
Does your DE not find it for you? Both GNOME and KDE seem to find my flatpaks, so I just launch them from there.
Ideally you don’t launch GUI apps from scripts, and you don’t install CLI apps via flatpak. So the handful of times you do want to launch a GUI app from a script, I think it’s reasonable for there to be a little bit of annoyance.
You can make an alias if it really bothers you.
Appimages are actually my current favorite method for universal install. I rename them, then stuff them in my ~/bin/ directory. My gripe with appimages is there is no auto generated .desktop file.
That, and nothing autos updates them, not to mention the compete lack of a sandbox, so it can do anything your user account can do.
Adding repos was invented by the Devil
Yup, the only exceptions are “official” repos. Projects like Debian and Fedora don’t ship nonfree software, so the “official” extra repos are essential for things like nvidia drivers.
Arch’s AUR
If you don’t like extra repos, you shouldn’t like the AUR, since that’s essentially the same idea. You’re basically running arbitrary code on your machine.
Believe me, I am not advocating that most people only use their Browser, but it is the reality of the situation & actually kind of a good thing in terms of Linux adoption. As you point out, people moved to Chrome w few issues b/c, imo, most normies just need a browser.
As for the rest of it, most people consider the need to download exes one at a time a downside. And again, flatpaks & appimages are the workaround to universal compatibility (anything but adding repos).
That said, you obviously have a lot of experience. I hope you can get to the point where it doesn’t feel like Linux is fighting you.
Good luck!
Agreed. The shift from downloading installers to finding stuff in the app store is a pretty big jump, and a necessary one IMO because it prevents the main source of malware (downloading sketchy exes) and ensures that everything stays up-to-date. When it comes from the distro package repository, you can be reasonably sure that it’s legit.
And yeah, flatpaks rock.
Linux is a paradigm shift, and I think it’s generally for the better.
The distro I use (Pop_os) has a lot of outdated packages in the ‘store’, & I think that’s pretty common for any distro that’s not bleeding edge.
The store compensates with flatpaks a lot of the times, but my issue with those is they don’t integrate with the system very well. To launch Krita (for a random example), instead of using ‘krita’ in the command line, I need to use like, ‘~/.local/var/org.kritafoundation.krita.flatpak’ (I am making that up, but it’s probably something similar). This becomes a real issue when using scripts or needing software to work system wide.
Appimages are actually my current favorite method for universal install. I rename them, then stuff them in my ~/bin/ directory. My gripe with appimages is there is no auto generated .desktop file.
I like building from source, but sometimes it feels like I install 10 gigs of dependencies to build a 400kb piece of software.
Adding repos was invented by the Devil & is thus appropriately cursed to break systems, so I stay away unless there’s really no other options.
I guess what I’m saying is every single method sucks, but still better than Windows lol.
Honestly, an up-to-date store would be the best of all Worlds, which I suppose is Arch’s AUR, but, nah. Arch looks like a headache.
Anyways, I’m blabbing. That happens when I start geeking out about Linux.
Does your DE not find it for you? Both GNOME and KDE seem to find my flatpaks, so I just launch them from there.
Ideally you don’t launch GUI apps from scripts, and you don’t install CLI apps via flatpak. So the handful of times you do want to launch a GUI app from a script, I think it’s reasonable for there to be a little bit of annoyance.
You can make an alias if it really bothers you.
That, and nothing autos updates them, not to mention the compete lack of a sandbox, so it can do anything your user account can do.
Yup, the only exceptions are “official” repos. Projects like Debian and Fedora don’t ship nonfree software, so the “official” extra repos are essential for things like nvidia drivers.
If you don’t like extra repos, you shouldn’t like the AUR, since that’s essentially the same idea. You’re basically running arbitrary code on your machine.
The AUR can be great, just be careful.