this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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Snap out of it (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

How do you guys get software that is not in your distribution's repositories?

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago (13 children)

There is no software that is not in AUR. I use arch, BTW.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But yeah, sometimes I just compile from source, if needed.

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

That’s exactly what the vast majority of AUR packages do already? You can also apply modifications to the compilation process if needed.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My software, QuickDAV, is not in the AUR. It’s open source, and I release it only as an AppImage, because I am lazy.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I guess we should have added the word “notable”

I’m terribly sorry, you left the door wide open ;)

I’m curious, what makes AppImage a good choice for the lazy developer? Is it easier to create?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

Ouch. xD

It’s super easy to create. And you distribute it on your own, so it’s basically like an installer exe on Windows. In my mind it’s one step above only offering source code.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If you don't compile from source, do you even Linux?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Linux From Scratch user detected

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Ah ... yeah ... totally. I would never use some filthy peasant distro like Mint. No sir! Never never ever!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Native package manager > Native binaries > AppImage > Flatpak.

Yes, snap isn't even on the scale.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not a fan of AppImages myself. For an universal format it has surprising amount of issues with different distros, in my experience. And the whole Windows style "go to a website, download the AppImage, if you want to update it, go to the web page again and download it again" is one thing I wanted to get away from. At least they don't come with install wizards, that clicking through menus thing was a pain.

For one off stuff I run once and never need again, AppImage is alright. But not being built-in with sandboxing, repos, all that stuff, it just seems like a step back.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I ran into the same issues, mentally, when trying out AppImages for the first time - but my attitude changed once I found and started using this tool: https://github.com/ivan-hc/AM

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (10 children)

App images are a very Windows way to do things. They bundle everything so they are big

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

They are windows, but the linux version of dll-hell across distros and distro versions makes windows dll hell look quaint.

If someone had addressed that better it would be one thing, but binary interoperability is infinitely broken, so app image is actually an improvement.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I'm a technically savvy but new to Linux user who installed Mint as my primary OS about a month ago. So far I've used Flatpaks and AppImages without any issue and haven't come across snaps. Would you explain the differences and why I would care about one over another?

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Why not just stick to what we've always been doing?

  1. wget something.tar.gz
  2. tar something.tar.gz
  3. man tar
  4. tar xzf something.tar.gz
  5. cd something
  6. ls -al
  7. ./config.sh
  8. chmod +x config.sh
  9. ./config.sh
  10. make config
  11. Try to figure out where to get some obscure dependency, with the right version number. Discover that the last depency was hosted on the dev's website that the dev self-hosted when it went belly up 5 years ago. Finally find the lib on some weird site with a TLD you could have sworn wasn't even in latin characters.
  12. make config
  13. make
  14. Go for coffee
  15. make install
  16. SU root
  17. make install
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

I much prefer our modern package format solutions:

  1. sudo apt install something
  2. open
  3. wtf this is like 6 months old
  4. find a PPA hosted by someone claiming to have packaged the new version
  5. search how to install PPAs
  6. sudo apt <I forgot>
  7. install app finally
  8. wtf it's 2 months old and full of bugs
  9. repo tells me to report to original developer
  10. report bugs
  11. mfw original dev breaks my kneecaps for reporting a bug in out of date versions packed with weird dependency constraints they can't recreate
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (10 children)

I’m currently on a atomic distro, so how I get my software from favorite to least favorite is this:

  1. Flatpak
  2. Appimage
  3. Fedora distrobox
  4. rpm-ostree
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Native repos > AUR > compile from source > Flatpak

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Mine is

AppImage > Native repos > AUR > Manually compiling from source > Finding an alternative

I don't like installing software that doesn't need to be installed, thus I like AppImage. Pretty portable. That also applies to compiling from source. Yes, my home directory is a mess.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (4 children)
  1. Compile from source
  2. Find alternative
  3. Deploy in VM/Docker

If I wanted snap, flatpak or appimages, I would use windows. Shared dependencies or death.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Shared dependencies or death
Docker

🤔

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (7 children)
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Appimages are crap too, but at least there is progress with AppMan, repos and that sandboxing solution.

Snaps are only sandboxed with Apparmor and snapd only allows a single repo (which contained malware multiple times) so get the hell off my lawn XD

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just use flatpak. It runs and installs local but still has the benefits of a package manager

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

I hate fucking snap. It might be enough to make me switch distros if Ubuntu keeps up with it (which I am sure they intend to).

The continual "you have new snaps" or whatever it was message every time I'm just trying to have a web browser open made me eventually figure out how to install firefox for real on all of my computers.

EDIT: I think you may have convinced me to try out Debian on my next OS installation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago

The Firefox snap was the reason I left Ubuntu. (Or, the last straw, at least.) Fedora has been wonderful.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

AUR. If it doesn't exist on AUR (very unlikely, but happens sometimes), I make a package for it.

On non-arch distros, I often use LURE.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Download the sources and build it, like Kernighan & Richie intended.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

as it should be, nobody likes proprietary vendor-locked formats that get shoved down your throat

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

AUR or flatpak.

Honestly the longer I spend daily driving Linux the more I enjoy using flatpaks...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wow a reference to those Mac Vs PC ads from like 15 years ago

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (16 children)

Linux noob here, can someone ELI5 why snaps are bad? And how does .deb works?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Snaps are a standard for apps that Ubuntu's parent company, Canonical, has been trying to push for years.

The issue that most people have with them, is that Canonical controls the servers, which are closed source. Meaning that only they can distribute Snap software, which many Linux users feel violates the spirit & intention of the wider free and open source community.

Appimages and Flatpaks are fully open source standards, anybody can package their software in those ways and distribute them however they want.

.deb files are software packaged for the Debian distribution, and frequently also work with other distros that are based on Debian, like Linux Mint.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

The primary thing I hate about them is that every snap package appears to your system as a separate mounted filesystem. So if you look in your file explorer, you can potentially see dozens of phantom drives clogging up your sidebar.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I try my hand at packaging it for my distro.

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

Artix repos > Arch repos > existing AUR package > create my own AUR package

No need to use any of these flatpak/appimage/snaps when I can just make a package for my distro. Most software is not difficult to package.

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