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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Don't use Appimages (a writeup about all the reasons they are a pain for users) (github.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

176 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Appimages totally suck, because many developers think they were a real packaging format and support them exclusively.

Their use case is tiny, and in 99% of cases Flatpak is just better.

I could not find a single post or article about all the problems they have, so I wrote this.

This is not about shaming open source contributors. But Appimages are obviously broken, pretty badly maintained, while organizations/companies like Balena, Nextcloud etc. don't seem to get that.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Now I WILL get judged for this but hear me out... AppImages are useful for apps that will not get on Flathub. If you have an app that cannot get on Flathub (like a pirated Minecraft Launcher), you will be thankful developers are using AppImages for them. In this case, they're unlikely to use snaps (alt repos for snap are possible but difficult from what I've heard) and maintaining a flatpak repo just seems like overkill for a single program. So for cases like these, I'm glad to see these packaged as appimages

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Okay fair point. Piracy, illegal content etc. will all get removed from Flathub.

Similar to another comment about archiving software that may get removed

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Well you can just put a flatpac on a website and let download it from their right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Yea im pretty sure flatpak suports bundles that you can install directly, just like an appimage

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

You can, but it seems to be not documented how to get a .flatpak from an installed app.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As far as I know flatpak applications can be distributed as a file without the need for a repository, just like .deb or .rpm files

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Can they? I'll be honest, I'm not that familiar with how flatpak works on a more technical level.