• NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      5·
      15 days ago

      Flatpaks are better than Snaps, but properly maintained dependency trees and SBOMs are best, by a wide margin.

    • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      8 days ago

      They work most of the time and I liked them, until I installed my first app that did not work because of the container thing and learning about and using flatseal ate so much of my time, that I never did it again.

      I only use yay to install stuff now. And if not on AUR I make (copy and adjust existing) my own PKGBUILD, or find one on a random page of a user who did not publish to AUR yet.

      • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        13 days ago

        Are you running on a really space constrained system? I Used an old Chromebook with only 16Gb of storage for a bit, and to me it’s kinda fun to figure out alternative solutions and applications that can make a system like that work. But when I’ve got a system with 500GB+, I say who cares about the space packages take up.

      • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        8 days ago

        I like appimages that are packages on AUR installed and updated using yay, so that I never ever learn that it is in fact a appimage disguised as repo package.

      • wheezy@lemmy.ml
        1·
        14 days ago

        I rarely encounter them. But they usually work when I do. But, ugh, they’re just kinda gross. Like, is this a .exe? No thank you. Don’t give me windows trauma.

        • Damage@feddit.it
          1·
          14 days ago

          I’m always like, “well, now where do I put this executable?”

          But they do work

          • wheezy@lemmy.ml
            3·
            14 days ago

            Clearly in $HOME/Downloads/ and forget that you left it there. Then use app(3).AppImage the next time when you redownload it. Keeps you running the most up to date version. It’s flawless.

          • Khanzarate@lemmy.world
            01·
            13 days ago

            I stick them in /home/bin/ like I would for a compiled app. I found a forum for mint saying thats the expectation for user apps with no specific install location, which is pretty much the issue, anyway.

  • ian@feddit.ukEnglish
    7·
    13 days ago

    As a non IT person I find Linux way better for installing software. The sort of apps non IT people use. The Software store has most of what I need. There rest I install the Windows way. From a website. Apps with a Linux version almost always detect and offer a Linux button to click to install. I wouldn’t know what to do if that didn’t work. Ditch that application I guess. My distros are pretty standard. Not hacked about. My apps are not too weird. I’ve been doing it this way for 14+ years. Never needed the CLI either.

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      I installed and then ran Gentoo for about 9 months back when it first came out, before Robbins stepped down. I remember the install was pretty involved, but after that it was a pretty sweet system. I keep saying I’m going to go back to it, but just can’t be bothered anymore. As good as it was 20 years ago, I’m sure it’s even better now.

      • ragas@lemmy.ml
        2·
        13 days ago

        Yeah, basically handling all the caveats is now automated and you can choose to use binary packages.

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    13 days ago

    Things have gotten so, so much better over the last 5 or 6 years.

    Flatpak, appimage, docker are just brilliant.

    I recently discovered nix and am in that honeymoon phase of trying to hit every nail with that hammer.

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
    4·
    15 days ago

    Last week was the first time I think I’ve ever got a random Internet tarball to configure, make and make install. Program even did what it was supposed to too. I was amazed.

  • ohshit604@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    14 days ago

    When the dependencies need dependencies and then those dependencies need dependencies, the rabbit hole is endless!

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    14 days ago

    I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve come across a package that I needed that so obscure that it wasn’t found somewhere as at the very least an appimage, if not a flatpak. I haven’t had to build from source in I don’t even know how many years now.

    • ranzispa@mander.xyz
      1·
      13 days ago

      General use package? Sure Specialized package to do something specific in a specific field? Good luck.

      I still have flashbacks of installing a c++ library which had to be transpired (or whatever the term is) to c# for another library to work, and having to go manually fix several function and type declarations manually to make it work. And we are talking about the golden standard library in the field…

    • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf
      1·
      14 days ago

      Try making music on Linux. You’ll be compiling obscure shit and tweaking configs all the time.

      • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        14 days ago

        True. But I was coming at if from the perspective of an every day user coming from Windows. email, word processing, internet, etc… Even gaming and photo editing.

        The more professional the needed software gets, of course the more obscure it gets.

  • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
    42·
    13 days ago

    Glad im not the only one. Thats one thing that makes me go man, people will never leave windows for this, this is insanely complex to juat install a program.

    I find it fun to learn tho

    • reddifuge@lemmy.world
      71·
      13 days ago

      Windows; have to search online for correct website, sift through ads to find the download, install while avoiding malware or extra programs that try to install alongside.

      Linux; Sudo pacman -S firefox. Done

      • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
        41·
        13 days ago

        This is true for some but it doesn’t work like that in reality. Its much easier to install on windows vs linux, thats just how it is.

        Don’t even get started on flatpak vs .Deb vs compiling vs snap…explaining that to a windows user makes them about lose their mind.

        Windows wins here. Click exe. Install. Done. AND the benefit of being allowed to install to a different hard drive, which linux will not allow without a ton of hoop jumping.

        Linux is great but let’s not pretend windows doesn’t do certain things much better.

        Also, not being able to see all your installed programs in one place because they are a blend of .Deb, snap, flatpaks, and compiled. It becomes a mess very quick if youre not careful.

        • reddifuge@lemmy.world
          21·
          13 days ago

          It does work like that in reality for almost all programs.

          For obscure stuff you can use yay or whatever other user repository you want.

          yay “program name”. Done

          I’ve been doing this for years without issue.

          Also you can list all your installed programs. On Arch it’s pacman -Q and yay -Qm.

          It’s so easy a baby could do it. And apparently arch is supposed to be the most difficult.

          • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
            11·
            13 days ago

            You’re forgetting, not every program in the world exists in your repository.

            When they do, great, but doesn’t always happen. Make mkv for one, you have to get the linux version off their site custom.

            Also it seems you may be one of those people driving people away from linux saying normies are idiots and need to rtfm. Maybe work on that.

        • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          8 days ago

          WARNING MAY SEEM A BIT HARAH,
          this is a meme community, so pls don’t take this as satire

          As if you would see all your installed apps on one place in windows, lol

          Only most, but that is the same on Linux. Only if you go to Linux thinking it should be complex it will go complex

          If you just stay at the install way your distro wants you to use, you will get no mess.

          Arch -> yay Opensuse -> gui and https://software.opensuse.org/packages Fedora -> flatpak Ubuntu -> snap Debian -> APT Nix -> the nix file thingy

          My opinion is to pick distro based on how you want install apps preferably as main deciding factor

          Result will be same as on windows, most apps will use the standard way and will all be listed on the same place, and you will have some obscure apps from cocky devs who think that only their preferred install way is correct and that everyone say something else is stupid

    • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
      11·
      13 days ago

      if you use any modern distro installing most software is braindead easy. if you have to compile something yourself (which isnt that often) it can get quite funny because one hell of a lot can go wrong.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    2·
    12 days ago

    This is why you use Arch/Nix because the package is likely in their repos.

    The software probably still won’t work, but you can waste more time on it.