Still don’t know how I’m supposed to add dictionaries to FF on snap. So many little issues like this with snaps.
Why tf does every app have to mount itself as a virtual block device?
Serious question: why not? What’s bad about that?
Because with snap
lsblkgets very cluttered, making it hard(er) to find any disk you’re looking for.Edit:
lsblkor any other command that lets you see all the connected disks reallyYeah it feels like unnecessary bloat
Because fuck you, that’s why
This annoys me when I don’t have a command aliased to filter them.
And it annoys me that I have to make an alias just to filter them, my fish config must only have what’s necessary 😤
Apt is kind of broken, to be honest. No package should have full system access during installs or execution.
Flatpak and SystemD Portable services are actually pretty good.
That’s the direction I see Linux going. I personally use NixOS because I am sad.
I looked into Nix but it seemed like it locks you into using bash for your shell. Is that the case?
Sorry I was meaning in the context of using nix-shell for isolated reproducible environments. I read that things can go wrong if you try to use a shell other than bash
You could use something like nix-your-shell.
Excellent, ty for showing this to me
my issue with snaps is honestly just that they are controlled too much by just one entity (canonical) and there is no reason for them to exist because flatpak already does everything they do.
Yup, thats why a tarball is better
My issue with snaps is also the power that Canonical has to fuck you over one day, because of the centralization that you mentioned, but also that their shitty fucking packaging format sucks ass and breaks everything but the most basic of apps. I’ve wasted hours trying to help people with their broken applications that were hijacked when they typed
apt install whateverand “whatever” was actually a fucking broken snap package.Flatpaks and AppImages actually do the fucking things they’re supposed to. Snaps don’t, and Canonical is pulling a Microsoft by hijacking your package manager.
Also, Snap sandboxing only works with AppArmor, so if you were hoping that all the breakage was worthwhile because you get sandboxing, you don’t if you’re on anything but a handful of distros 🙂
Let me know when I can get cups as a flatpak.
(Oh and snaps predate flatpaks.)
Are there enough watermarks on this meme? At least we got reddit covered.
makes it authentic lol
A rusty bucket riddled with holes and the stick part of a shovel is better than snap for running software.
AppImage is the no-nonsense universal package format.
AppImages have a lot of problems
Like not updating or shared dependencies duplicated for every single app image
Just use flatpak
or they somehow still find a way to not work. I can count the number of times i had an appimage just work, and it is exactly 2. Any other time i had crashes
Last time I read something from the main dev I almost ran stright into the woods.
Also idk about how it is the management situation, portals integration, etc…
Absolutely my favorite. Just download and go. Super portable.
The lack of package management sucks though
It would, if there were no other options for package management. Package formats don’t have to be either/or. My systems typically end up with mixes of native packages, flatpak, appimages, and you could technically consider Steam a package management system as well.
Nix is just across the street sipping tea because it understands what it is and is at peace with the chaotic world around it.
Gentoo is too busy compiling to notice what’s going on around it
Nix organizes Bohemian Grove.
I use NixOS and Flatpak (Nix-Flatpak) to install software that is not available in Nixpkgs. Unlike Arch’s AUR, Nixpkgs has fewer popular packages. However, Nixpkgs beats AUR in terms of quantity because many Nixpkgs packages are redundant.
A magnetised needle and a steady hand is a better package format.
What you are thinking of is not a package manager but a compiler.
Not if you just have list of blobs in your head.
Fuck flatpak, all my homies hate flatpak
I really like flatpak and it’s system, but AppImages are in a nice second place. I usually look for a flatpak first and appimages if I can’t find the first.
If flatpak didn’t make me put the entirety of KDE onto my system (thats an exaggeration but you know what I mean) I’d gladly crown it king of the package managers.
Psst … the first KDE app you installed via your package manager also put “the entirety of KDE” onto your system.
i don’t think I use any kde apps on my system at all
Indeed. As much of how loved and popular KDE is, fuck it. I use the glorious XFCE. XFCE is beautiful too. Fuck, I’m not the maniac who would waste 2GB just for my DE to look beautiful.
I just want to point out the dependencies of Konsole (arguably a small and simple application in concept):
glibc gcc-libs icu kbookmarks kcolorscheme kconfig kconfigwidgets kcoreaddons kcrash kdbusaddons kglobalaccel kguiaddons ki18n kiconthemes kio knewstuff knotifications knotifyconfig kparts kpty kservice ktextwidgets kwidgetsaddons kwindowsystem kxmlgui qt6-5compat qt6-base qt6-multimedia sh.Flatpak does not install KDE by default. It is only required if you install a KDE app. You can hardly blame it if you do that.
Plus make it hell on earth to a) access drives other than the one flatpak is installed on, b) interoperate with non-flatpak applications, and c) retain any amount of free space on my drives (exaggeration for effect).
This is a “security” feature and I’m so tired of it. Same thing with Wayland, random crap doesn’t work sometimes
Wayland is trying to replace a standard that people have been saying is obsolete for a decade. I’ll give them a bit of leeway.
Yeah, flatseal should come stock with flatpak IMO. You will have to configure many apps to get them to play nice with your system.
.tar.gz should be appimage.
There were only three characters so it kinda got left out.
A stab at my personal ranking: .deb > appimage > flatpack > curling a shell script
I can’t help but love a .deb file (even when not via repo), I’ve almost exclusively used Debian and it derivatives since the late 90s. And snap isn’t on the list because it got stored in a loopback device I removed.
Am I the only one who struggled extensively with .deb file with out-of-date dependencies? It seems the software dev needs to update the .deb file frequently, which they never do.
I just recently de-snapped yet another ubuntu system. Couldn’t agree more. I use debian standard for all of my stuff, and I agree with your ranking.
As someone who hasn’t used Ubuntu since the time they used to mail disks for free, may I ask why? Why not install another distro?
Ubuntu support online (I mean, the size of the community) can be useful. And besides the snap and “ubuntu advantage” thing, they’re mostly a more up to date vanilla Debian, which is extremely convenient because, Debian.
It’s obviously good for people used to Debian, but it’s also great for other, because of the regular updates. But in fairness with your point I’ve been thinking about moving to mint since it’s basically a de-snapped ubuntu.
Why not use Debian? Non-free packages issues?
Second this. I got tired of Ubuntu and moved to Mint first, then Debian.
Not that user: My biggest problem with Debian was that packages were often so out of date (even
sid). This was a big issue for the kinds of software I wanted to run, and also generally denied me useful newer features in most programs. Security and stability weren’t that device’s most important values.I say this to be fair, since I’ve used Debian since almost the very beginning: Debian is a bit more complicated to set up.
I generally find when people ask me for help, they’re either on Ubuntu or on Fedora (in which case I direct them to someone else for help). Sometimes they’re gamers or using something where Debian + tweaks is ideal, but often I just help them configure Debian, or just help them get their Ubuntu where they want it.
When I switched to Ubuntu, they just had more up to date packages, and with two releases a year (sort of), stayed up to date with other software, which is a good thing for a system I actually use. From then on, I just stayed on it, because I don’t reinstall my OS until something’s broken. I’ve been moving the same one for a decade now.
If I had to install a new desktop system I’ll probably go with mint, for the same reason : more frequent software update.
Note that this is all for desktop (and some specialized systems). Servers are all running debian, because stability is preferable and frequent software change is not what I want in these environments.
You can consider using Armbian x64, which is very similar to Ubuntu minus Snap.
As someone who is confused when he has to deal with a .deb file and always has to google what to do with it - what is the advantage of a .deb over let’s say a shell script?
If made correctly (which is hilariously easy), it’s a clean install and uninstall process, support some level of potential conflict regarding files that are shared with other packages/commands, support dependencies out of the box, and with minimal work can be made easy to update for the user (even automatically updates, depending on the user’s choices) by having an (again, very easy to setup for a dev) repository. With the added value of authenticity checks before updating.
All this in a standardized way that requires no tinkering, compatibility stuff, etc, because all these checks are built-in.
Note that some of this probably applies to other system package management solutions, it’s not exclusive to .deb.
It might be different for other distros, but for me on MX Linux, I just click on the .deb and it opens a shell with a root prompt and installs the file automatically. Easy peasy.
I never fully trust a shell script and usually end up reading any I have to use first, so I know what they do. And after so many years dpkg holds no mysteries for me and Discover will install .debs if I double click while in KDE.
It’s worth knowing that .deb files can contain setup scripts that get run as root when installed, so you should trust them too.
Yeah. They all come with risks, but I psychologically I struggle to run shell scripts unless I know what’s in them. And the same brain dysfunction makes my automatically distrust a script that doesn’t set pipefail.
That definitely makes sense. Also, the scripts in a .deb should be incredibly short and readable, if you choose to check them out.
Well for one a .deb comes out of the box with an uninstall machenism. As well as file hashes, package singing, etc…
dpkg -i <nameofpackage.deb>
Which can be read as: (Debpackage) -install <nameofpackage.deb>
That’s it!
Also, if you haven’t already, install tldr (apt install tldr), then you can ‘tldr deb’ (or any other command) to get a few examples of their most used functions.
xbps > pacman > apt imo
