Did we kill Linux's killer feature?

archy, 9 months ago

I use one command to upgrade the whole system: paru one one system and yay on the other laptop.

itsralC, 9 months ago

I use fedora as well and I just update through the GUI. It’s more stable that way and waiting until I turn off my computer for them to apply is not a big deal.

SaltyIceteaMaker, 9 months ago

This is one of the reasons i don’t use flatpaks, snaps etc. I get everything either from the official repos or from the aur. Except balena etcher as it is the only thing i was unable to install via my aur helper and i couldn’t be bothered to look into why as balena is not that important to me.

It is the ONLY package that isn’t updated with my update command as i installed it via appimage

BaumGeist, 9 months ago

I’ve only found one use case for balena: absolutely needing a gui to run a simple dd command. The other potential case, automagically handling bootability, never worked for me.

SaltyIceteaMaker, 9 months ago

I will never use dd unless absolutely necessary. People call it disk destroyer for a reason

Frederic, 9 months ago

I’m using MX Linux and don’t use any flatpak or snaps, only good old debs

flashgnash, 9 months ago

I get 99% of my packages via nix and the other 1% through appimages which I can put anywhere I like on my disk

jherazob, 9 months ago

“Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no”. This is no exception.

chris, 9 months ago

You’re using Linux. It took me about an hour to create a script that will upgrade all packages, Snaps, and flatpaks, complete with flavor text. The fact that I could do that, with total control over how and when to run those updates, is still a killer feature to me.

KSPAtlas, 9 months ago

GUI interfaces like discover or gnome software will update all

outadoc, 9 months ago

Thank god we have these graphical GUI interfaces

bionicjoey, 9 months ago

Graphical GUI User Interfaces*

BaumGeist, 9 months ago

GUI stands for GUI User Interface

bionicjoey, 9 months ago

GNUI

bingbong, 9 months ago

Ugh aktually it’s Graphical plus UI or as I like to call it G/UI 🤓

peter, 9 months ago

I actually like Flatpaks… I use dpkg/apt-get for system packages that cannot be installed in userspace, and flatpaks for desktop apps / games. Many distro’s have unified ways to update them anyway (at least VanillaOS has)

jyte, 9 months ago

Snap forces updates, and you cannot disable them. So if you use snaps, I guess you can stop worrying and keep going with your usual apt routine.

trollercoaster, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Your mileage may vary, but it’s still possible to install some distros without those nonsensical containerised “package managers”, or to at least remove them after installation. It unfortunately takes an increasing amount of effort, especially in distros that are actively trying to push their flavour of containerised package manager. (Totally not looking at Ubuntu and Snap)

What is working in our favour here is the fragmentation, which will prevent, or at least slow down a too widespread adoption of those systems.

Presi300, 9 months ago

Nah, I don’t miss them really, flatpaks are much more convenient and for me fedora kinda just updates itself automatically.

Also, pretty much all graphical app stores on linux support flatpaks and the distro’s default package manager, so you can update everything from there…

fishr, 9 months ago

IMHO the killer feature of linux is that you aren’t getting shit straight into your mouth every day by some corporation that decices to squeeze more cash money out of you.

And as others have pointed out most gui applications update all sources automatically.

Tak, 9 months ago

IBM salivating in the corner

beteljuice, 9 months ago

Check out Nix, which goes in the opposite direction. There isn’t really a distinction between the system and applications.

null, 9 months ago

Yup, once I got into Arch I started meticulously documenting my setup and scripting as much as possible so I could quickly set up a new system to my liking.

Daily driving NixOS now, and I still have plenty to learn, but I’m getting very close to to having that whole setup fully declared in config.

It’s truly the best of all worlds.

lloram239, 9 months ago

Flatpak and Snap certainly go in the wrong direction, instead of being an upgrade and replacement for existing package managers, they are a crooked sidegrade, that solves some problems, while creating multiple new ones that used to be solved by older package managers. Flatpak making Gnome and KDE the only dependencies to exist is also pretty messed up.

I don’t mind AppImages in this, as they never set up to be a new package manager format, but instead are just a way to bundle executables and dependencies into a single file for easier redistribution. You certainly don’t want to use that for all your packages, but as a quick&dirty workaround to get some semblance of cross-distribution packaging, with close to zero impact on the user, it’s quite good. It’s also one of the few formats that gives the user full control over up- and downgrades, as it’s all just simple files you can run and archive as you wish, it’s not a service that forces you to always use the latest thing.

So yeah, Linux packaging is still a mess and it will probably take another decade or two before the dust has settled. Though I can’t shake the feeling that we have reached peak-Linux quite some years ago and it’s all downhill from here. Free Software principles aren’t exactly high priority for any company doing development in this space, and Free Software principles by itself aren’t even enough in a modern SAAS world to begin with.

Somebody needs to write the book on what it means to be Free Software in the modern world, especially when it comes to online-services, distribution and reproducibility, aspects that have been largely ignored so far.