So the thing with Debian and any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is there is no big centralized software repo like the AUR. Yes there is the apt repository but if you want something that’s not in there, get ready to read the documentation or follow random guides.
For example, one of my friends wanted to download an audio tool called Reaper. On Windows this is just looking up the application and clicking on the .exe. It really depends on the dev if they include a .deb, sometimes you might need to download the .sh file or they may tell you to compile it yourself. Perhaps, you have to add a ppa. On Arch, all I have to do is Paru -S Reaper, if there are multiple Reapers I can look for that by typing Paru Reaper.
Now that Arch is so easy to install with the Archscript, and the software repo so vast and easy to use, is Debian really user friendly if you have to jump through several hoops to download programs?
Edit: yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.
You should check out Nix (the package manager). NixOS’s Nix package manager can be used outside its own system. It supports the vast majority of Linux operating systems as well as MacOS.
Nix’s package repository is gigantic like you wouldn’t believe, and Reaper is in it.
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What do you mean by contamination? (I’ve never used Nix)
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Is mint slower than Ubuntu? A bit surprised to hear an Ubuntu derivative called slow
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https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
You really should never download a Debian package or install via a script. The proper way is to use a container or flatpak.
Flatpaks are isolated while I want to use my input method. Plus, they have larger sizes which can pile up over time
What input method? Flatpaks have controllable permissions that can be changed by the user.
As for large sizes, that hasn’t been the case for a while. The stuff that takes up the most space are libraries and they installed once. Usually a program will need either the KDE framework (for qt) or the gnome framework (gtk).
PS: Just a meme to joke, if you want to analyze, please don’t point at me.
Won’t you have problems on any distro if you use Nvidia? Arch would be the best place to see if it works. Nonetheless, good meme and very relatable
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So the thing with Debian and any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is there is no big centralized software repo like the AUR.
There is https://pacstall.dev/ the AUR for Ubuntu. It has a Lemmy community https://lemmy.ml/c/pacstall And there is PPA for Ubuntu. With the Arch AUR anyone can just upload something, and it is up to you to check whether it is uploaded malware or not. Sure, you can check how many others upvoted an AUR package but that is still no guarantee it is safe.
So then you’re saying the debian community sees value in something like the aur. Unlike all the other comments saying you should just use flatpak
Pacstall is for Ubuntu. I am not sure it can work well for Debian. Yes, sure, it is possible that some Ubuntu users see value in having AUR alike repositories to install from. Actually PPA for Ubuntu (PPA does not work well on Debian I’ve read) is kind of like AUR. The Personal Package Archives are uploaded by someone and provide newer versions of software, or provides software which is not in the main Ubuntu repositories. A good example of that is the PHP packages from Sury : https://deb.sury.org/
You gotta add the fact, that ArchLinux sometimes requires you to fiddle a lot when a update failed and broke a lot of stuff, there’s also the installation process, Debian is much more stable (and while archlinux is too), debian is generally a better option for beginners to its approach, And also Reaper is practically Avaliable on a crapton of distros, the fact that it provides binaries officially, and also that its avaliable on FlatHub.
The installation process has been pretty simple since archinstall and endeavourOS. The “sometimes” happens rarely, and the forums and mailing lists are pretty helpful.
The only times when an update broke a lot of stuff for me is 1. The infamous grub update which never happened again 2. Thunderbird dropped GTK support, not an Arch problem 3. I didn’t update for quite a while and had to do package replacements, which were automated by the package manager but was scary 4. Budgie and GNOME conflicted with each other. Weren’t very significant
Imo Flathub/Flatpak is the correct way most of the time. I see zero need to install desktop apps any other way on Arch these days. It takes a lot of headaches away from users and developers. Different story for core packages and in case you actually want to compile stuff yourself of course, but I don’t see why I need an Arch-native version of LibreOffice or something. For some apps the Flatpak experience is even better than native (e.g. Lutris, Firefox).
The AUR and Arch’s packaging system are still amazing tho, because of the great flexibility they offer. I agree that setting up Arch based distros (not Arch itself, sorry :D) are easier to setup than Debian based ones partly because of this. Another big reason is the info readily available in the Arch Wiki imo. But maybe I’m just used to setting up Arch.
I’m not touching flatpaks or snaps with a ten foot pole, and I have the same experience as you. Switched to EndeavourOS a few years back after having been a Debian (and Synaptic) advocate for almost 10 years.
The AUR is great, and the Arch wiki is a flipping treasure trove. I can hardly imagine going back, certainly not on my work station. Servers will probably be fine running Debian for another few years.
What is it about flatpaks that bothers you? I am curious. My experience with them is good, except that are sometimes slower to launch.
Everyone is downvoting OP, but OP is literally the common case of what users actually want…
Honestly didn’t think I would get this much hate. People talking about how the correct way to install is flatpak most of the time, a comment right after says you shouldn’t use flatpak for low level, and other comments saying to install it the long manual way (which, admittedly, is the most secure way), nobody has admitted that it’s easier to install from aur rather than on debian.
If if it’s a popular and maintained on aur then most of the time it should be fine. Very rarely do I have to go to the official documentation to make the packages manually unless it’s a smaller project.
Be use there’s still unfortunately a heap of Arch FUD and myths floating around.
FWIW, I agree with you. I ended up using Arch for the past almost decade now in part because of the repos and pacman.
I distro hopped a lot when I first moved to Linux (from Windows) before settling on Mint. Faffing about with adding repos didn’t feel like an improvement over the Windows experience of having to go to various websites to download files.
I was still pretty much a Linux noob when I moved to Arch. I’m glad I didn’t listen to all the FUD then about it being hard and terrible. It’s been so much easier to use and maintain than other distros I’ve used (or installed for other folks).
Arch requires significantly more tinkering to keep it working, compared to Debian. That’s not because of FUD. Arch has a more hands-on philosophy. It even says so on their wiki.
I have seen savvy users jump directly from Windows to Arch without trying easier distros like Mint. But if given a choice, I wouldn’t introduce anyone to Arch as their first distro. Most people are simply not that patient and are likely to give it up as being too hard. They are likely to give in to the actual FUD that Linux is not user-friendly.
It’s not unusual for people who have tasted the freedom that Arch gives you, to think that it’s the easiest distro around. But the Arch way of doing things is alien to most people around. It’s very important to set the expectations straight and not get carried away.
I’ve been using Arch as my daily driver for almost a decade. I think I might know how much tinkering it requires lol. You can look at Arch News and you’ll see there’s bugger all interventions required. I don’t bother to tinker with anything and haven’t in about three years because I’m happy with what I have. I don’t need to tinker if I don’t want to. 🤷🏻♀️
In that almost decade, I could count on one hand the number of times my system has broken and most of those was basic user error.
And I never said it was the easiest distro. You gotta stop making strawman arguments.
If you want to flex your experience, I have twice as much as you do, just with Arch. You are just speaking your perspective and extrapolating it to others. Neither the official Arch sources, nor the regular users’ experience match what you say. The argument you made is in complete disregard of the ability, patience or intent of the vast majority of users.
It’s a common trope that I see that newbie Linux users complaining about how Arch users talk down to them. I can see where that comes from.
EDIT: I am tired, in pain and was feeling grumpy when I wrote this this morning. I’m being a hypocrite and not coming to your level with compassion, kindness and patience like I should. So I’m going to bow out of this conversation and say agree to disagree. I’ll keep helping folks move to Linux like I have been for years and put my energy where I want it to go.
Original reply
You think I’m flexing? Interesting. And you want to tell me I’m extrapolating (projecting)?
Guessed I should have ‘flexed’ more and also explained that my experience is not just with my own PC but multiple PC’s, laptops and… not all mine. Yep, I’m ‘flexing’ about all the people I’ve helped install Linux (all Arch based oh no) with my years of flexing volunteer experience.
With all my years of years of volunteer work and helping countless people (including in a very vulnerable area of society) I only ever talk down to people yep. I totally don’t encourage everyone to come to people at their level with compassion, kindness and patience.
I’m just all bout the flex. 😂🤦🏻♀️
Maybe don’t make assumptions about someone’s motivations, experience and qualifications when you don’t actually know them?
correct way to install is flatpak most of the time
It’s probably SUPER intimidating how many options there are for something as simple as “package management”. Who to trust. etc. People are just rough, and unkind. Stick with what works for you. What your’e comfortable with. That’s honestly the ONLY important aspect of this whole Linux endeavor. Complete control of YOUR computing experience. That gets lost in opinion and subjective conjecture more often than I can stand, honestly. It really is SO much saner on Arch, though. You’re absolutely correct. That’s why I stick with it myself. It gets out of my way and lets me do what I want to do.
Now that Arch is so easy to install with the Archscript
Trash. Not true arch user.
Switch to BSD instead, it is easy to use while being better in quality.
Installed arch the manual way but have also tried to script to see if it was really as easy as people make it out to be. I would still recommend everybody giving the manual install at least once but for people who want it very easy to use, the script is there and hopefully nothing goes wrong with their system.
yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.
Dude, there is no correct or wrong way. Many prefer Flatpaks, because they ship with all they need and work on every distro.
Also, you can just use Distrobox on any distro and use anything you want.
But calling Arch easier than Zorin or similar is just wrong.
At least for me, AUR is last resort. I mainly use Flatpak, then offical repos, then finally AUR
Dog. I’m an arch user. You can’t just say “Arch is easier than Debian” and then in the first part of your argument say:
Yes there is the apt repository but if you want something that’s not in there, get ready to read the documentation or follow random guides.
You do realize Arch just frontloads that effort right? It’s not any “easier.” We embrace the fucking manual. (Arch based distros aside…)
Now if you were praising the simplicity of
makepkgand the PKGBUILD syntax then sure. As is, though, this is just a bad take.I’d argue that debian based distributions also need to refer to the documentation as well. If you have a simple setup, you probably don’t even need to visit the documentation on Arch.
That really isn’t true. Debian packages are often heavily patched and tested to make sure it fits into the rest of the ecosystem. While Arch does it too, they prefer to keep the packages as vanilla as possible - often requiring effort of the user’s side to make it work with the rest of the system. It’s a different philosophy. While Debian tries to be simple by being opinionated, Arch relies heavily on the effort of the users.
While Arch does it too, they prefer to keep the packages as vanilla as possible - often requiring effort of the user’s side to make it work with the rest of the system
To be honest, I have hardly ever had this experience. In my opinion, the distribution works so well precisely because Arch releases everything vanilla wherever possible. And in cases where the vanilla version doesn’t work, the Arch team patches it.
Reaper is as easy to install on Linux (any distro) as it is on Windows or OSX. Any packaged versions of it, other than the tar file that you can download from Reaper.fm, are maintained by a third party and have nothing to do with the distribution.
PS: IMHO, you want tools like Reaper and Bitwig to install directly unto your system rather than Snap, Flatpak, etc., due to the low level audio hardware interaction.
So the thing with Debian and any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is there is no big centralized software repo like the AUR.
The platform for this would be available (https://mpr.makedeb.org).
Yes there is the apt repository but if you want something that’s not in there, get ready to read the documentation or follow random guides.
Not everything is available in the AUR either. It may therefore be necessary to create a own PKGBUILD file. And since anyone can publish something in the AUR, you should check the PKGBUILD file before installing or updating it. Both also require reading guides (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PKGBUILD and so on).
On Arch, all I have to do is Paru -S Reaper,
This would give me the error message that the command was not found. Why do some people assume that everyone uses the same AUR helper as they do? I use aurutils, for example. This AUR helper offers more options but is more cumbersome to use in some cases.
Apart from that, the name of the package is reaper and not Reaper. So even if I would use paru, it would not work.
Now that Arch is so easy to install with the Archscript,
Easier? Yes. But archinstall had and still has some bugs. And archinstall, understandably, does not cover everything so that a manual installation is more flexible.
yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.
Appimages or flatpaks are often the correct way to go, as many projects only publish such packages.
