Did we kill Linux's killer feature?

A few years ago we were able to upgrade everything (OS and Apps) using a single command. I remember this was something we boasted about when talking to Windows and Mac fans. It was such an amazing feature. Something that users of proprietary systems hadn’t even heard about. We had this on desktops before things like Apple’s App Store and Play Store were a thing.

We can no longer do that thanks to Flatpaks and Snaps as well as AppImages.

Recently i upgraded my Fedora system. I few days later i found out i was runnig some older apps since they were Flatpaks (i had completely forgotten how I installed bitwarden for instance.)

Do you miss the old system too?

Is it possible to bring back that experience? A unified, reliable CLI solution to make sure EVERYTHING is up to date?

PoisonedPrisonPanda,

I think a script with apt/pacman/dnf etc., flatpak update can do the job as well?

IMO its against the unix vision to extend apt to manage flatpak as well.

OddFed,
@OddFed@feddit.de avatar

Honestly, at this point I’d like to get rid of all this sandboxing stuff altogether.

Atemu,
@Atemu@lemmy.ml avatar

Come join the dark side, we have all the modern features without any containerisation whatsoever:

nixos.org

keisatsu,

Unless if you do want containers :)

nixos.wiki/wiki/NixOS_Containers

nixos.wiki/wiki/Docker

RaivoKulli,

I think it’s a great and necessary security feature. The fact that we haven’t had proper sandboxing until very recently seems strange now.

Ghoelian,

This is why I really like KDE Plasma’s discover. It’s got integrations with apt, snap, Flatpack, and rpm, and that’s only the ones I’ve tried so far.

I don’t really use discover itself to manage my packages, cause for some reason I prefer to do it with the cli tools, but it is a great update notifier.

mfat,

Except it doesn’t always work. I’ve seen it stuck and loading updates forever a few times, while a simple flatpak update command did the job with zero issues.

elbarto777,

Well, are you in pro of flatpaks or against flatpaks?

Why compare what OP described to flatpaks, instead of the “killer features” you so miss?

Ghoelian,

Yeah that’s why I don’t use discover to do the actual updating. I just manually run my flatpak updates when discover tells me there are some.

NakedGardenGnome,

Well, doesn’t that depend on your package manager? With pacman I can add a custom hook after install to update all flatpaks. I’m sure it could also be done for all snaps and AppImages if I would use any of those.

Isn’t there a similar hooking mechanism in apt or yum?

mfat,

Even if there are workarounds the old approach was superior.

thayer,

For the average user, software updates should be seamless and require no interaction whatsoever. Fedora Silverblue does this fairly well, whether they are flatpak or system updates.

Flatpaks offer many benefits that, in my opinion, offset their potential inconveniences.

cmnybo,

There has always been the option of installing software from source. The package manager won’t update anything installed from source.

You don’t have to use Flatpak, Snap or AppImage if you don’t want to. If you use the package manager to install everything, it will update everything.

BCsven,

Except doesn’t ubumtu now force a snap on you even if you try installing a package app?

elbarto777,

The solution is to use any of the other hundreds of readily available distributions.

BCsven,

Exactly. I dont have flatpak or snap integration installed so packages are packages. I think it was Ubuntu being delivered with snap as part of the OS. As well as CLI ads.

aperson,

Yes. Some packages are just meta packages for their snap versions.

killeronthecorner,
@killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

I’m confused by this. If I run apt install, am I getting stuff from flatpak?

ItsDedo,

Yes and no, you’re getting stuff form Snap, not flatpak

killeronthecorner,
@killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

Even when I’m running apt directly? That seems insane.

ItsDedo,

Yep, that’s why some people are so upset about it. I guess there’s a config to disable it but I wouldn’t know, I use Arch btw

BCsven,

You have to check your distros info, but from popular Linux podcasts they were claiming certain distros used the apt get but once the package manager saw what you want it would throw in a snap or flatpak of the same. Not all distros. I think Ubuntu was one.

mfat,

If I use ubuntu I’m somehow forced to use them.

Even on Fedora the average user is presented with many flatpak results when they use the GUI software manager. Not everyone is technically adept enough to check the origin of the app. So it’s kind of being forced on users.

akhial,
@akhial@lemmy.world avatar

If you use the Fedora software manager it updates everything at once? It even updates BIOS firmware.

ulu_mulu,

If I use ubuntu I’m somehow forced to use them.

Yes, that’s why I stopped using it years ago (among other reasons).

Users are not out of options, they don’t need to check the origin of the apps themselves, it’s enough to ask other users what distros don’t do the things they don’t like and use those.

coolmojo,

You can use bauh. it is a graphical app manager which can Install and update appimage, deb, flatpak, snap and web apps. github.com/vinifmor/bauh

barrett9h,

so ditch this nonsense and use a better distro?

REdOG,
@REdOG@lemmy.world avatar

The package manager won’t update anything installed from source.

emerge lols

msage,

Portage: Am I a joke to you?

worfosaurus, (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    mfat,

    What you say is true when this is explicitly stated by the OS. When the average user uses the Software app they are presented with many Flatpak results. Flatpaks are presented as offerings by the distro, not something “outside of the distro’s package manager.” Should the average user be supposed to check the origin of every app and know about Flatpaks?

    Plus if you use the most popular distro it already comes with default snap apps.

    worfosaurus,

    Oh! I had no idea Fedora was officially supporting Flatpaks these days. I used Fedora from when it was Fedora Core 3 in 2004 until about 2015. Since it was the distro I cut my teeth on, I assumed I was familiar, but it’s wild to think it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve used it…

    I completely agree that they should come up with a unified way for managing packages that they officially support. But also, a few years ago, if things weren’t in the default package manager then we had to build them ourselves because they can’t be expected to do everything for us.

    So I don’t think we killed the killer feature. I simply think people have more options these days (although I see how some might see this as more rope with which to hang themselves)

    I’ll update my original post to clarify that I was wrong

    nosurprises,

    We can no longer do that thanks to Flatpaks and Snaps as well as AppImages.

    I heard about these things only on the internet. None of this exists on my system. So I’d answer ‘no’ to your question.

    A unified, reliable CLI solution to make sure EVERYTHING is up to date?

    It’s called yay.

    Laser,

    I guess yay is an easy solution, but it’s not very clean, at least from what I remember and just checked. It might be fine for single machines, but since it doesn’t build in a clean chroot, you can never be sure that the claimed dependencies are actually complete, and as such, a package built with yay on one machine doesn’t necessarily work on another, even for the same processor type (portability might not be possible anyways if you build with -march=native). It also doesn’t handle automatic rebuilds for necessary .so-bumps, but this is generally non-trivial to solve AFAIK.

    When I still used Arch exclusively, I had my own repository set up via aurutils on a remote server, granted this doesn’t handle .so-bumps by itself either but at least you get somewhat clean packages every time, and you’ll start to notice how many AUR packages are actually broken, with the most common occurrence being git not listed as a makedepends for packages that retrieve their data via Git because everyone using the AUR has it installed anyways to access anything on there. Granted this is a non-issue in practice but it’s not the only one.

    30p87,

    I agree, but using yay, or rather the AUR, means being forced to use Arch. That’s not only annoying for the average Debian/shopless-distro-user that does not want to relearn their system, or sysadmin who does not want bleeding edge software to host their website (as it may be your favorite machine learning ‘anime’ generator that’s going down due to Nvidia drivers). It’s also deadly for the 69 year old grandma as she somehow manages to use flatpaks (or whatever) on Ubuntu, but forgets to update them. Meanwhile she, very consciously, updates everything else through the Software Center every day (or lets it auto update). She wouldn’t survive that jump to Arch (and certainly wouldn’t survive the compile times of some AUR packages). Everyone suddenly using Arch would crash the whole ecosystem and community. Sysadmins would need to switch to Arch quickly now, as it’s development stales because no one uses it.

    The only solution would be, to create - yet again - a universal alternative to the AUR. Maybe someone, backed by eg. the Linux foundation itself, could create a good way of compiling AUR packages on every system. Now we would still have to somehow drop Flatpacks and Snaps (especially the latter), which some Distros will refuse to do. Canonical isn’t going to yeet snaps out of the Store because it’s shit and something better exists (because that would apply to the whole distro /s)

    TeaEarlGrayHot,

    The only solution would be, to create - yet again - a universal alternative to the AUR.

    xkcd.com/927/

    FQQD,
    @FQQD@feddit.de avatar

    🎶That’s why i don’t like and use flatpaks, snaps and appimages 🎶

    Quazatron,
    @Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

    They all have their use cases.

    I may not want Steam games or Firefox to have access to my holidays pictures or bank extracts. I may prefer to install some KDE apps on my XFCE desktop but don’t want all the KDE dependencies all over my system.

    Each tool has a purpose.

    zacher_glachl,

    No need to overcomplicate things, just write a small shell script or even just an alias. I use this daily:

    alias get-rekt=“sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && flatpak update -y && flatpak remove --unused --delete-data -y”

    adjust accordingly for Fedora and/or snaps. Obviously doesn’t work for appimages or manually compiled stuff which should be a last resort if there’s no other sensible way to install stuff.

    edit: voyager shat the bed with the code block but you get the point

    SpaceNoodle,

    “no need to overcomplicate things, just write a complicated alias”

    Quazatron,
    @Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

    This is the way of the system administrator. You do a boring task once, even if it takes longer. The time saved accumulates over time.

    Aliases are your friends.

    zacher_glachl,

    How is that a complicated alias? Seems pretty straightforward to me. But again, if you prefer a shell script which does the same thing but separated line by line, also fine

    d3Xt3r,

    I just wrote a script to do all my updates in one go:

    
<span style="color:#323232;">sudo dnf upgrade -y --refresh
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo dnf check
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo dnf autoremove
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">flatpak update -y --force-remove
</span><span style="color:#323232;">flatpak remove --unused --delete-data -y
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">pip-review --user --auto --continue-on-fail
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">cargo install-update -a
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo fwupdmgr get-devices
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo fwupdmgr refresh --force
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo fwupdmgr get-updates
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sudo fwupdmgr update
</span>
    detalferous,

    This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing it.

    darq,
    @darq@kbin.social avatar

    I can't really relate? At least on my desktop. The software manager integrates with Flatpaks and upgrades them at the same time.

    For most apps I'm going to prefer the usual way of doing things. But there are some apps that I actually kinda prefer as Flatpaks. Like Calibre I'm happy to install as a Flatpak. The updates are faster and it doesn't add a whole host of dependencies that only it uses to my system.

    mfat,

    There was a time when using the update button of Software Center was exactly equal to running “sup apt dist-upgrade”. Everything was simple and straightforward.

    severien,

    Everything was simple and straightforward except for updating an app after new release before the distro maintainers updated it in repos (which often took months).

    shrugal,

    And broke all the time, and was a nightmare for devs to create and maintain packages for multiple distros, and was hard to find packages outside the official repos, and could create a package version hell, and had only a very rudimentary permission system.

    Change is sometimes not a bad thing, you know?!

    Offlein,

    What?! No! How could this have been Linux’s “killer feature”?

    Am I taking crazy pills? It really matters to you that you can use a single command to upgrade your system?

    Quill7513,

    To me the Linux killer feature is getting to be the true owner of the hardware. Any command you run can succeed if you know how to write it

    linearchaos,
    @linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

    Killer feature, no.

    It does kinda suck for install and update to head toward more fracturing.

    Install obs, oof the plugin I want is flatpack only, go to install flat pack version, yeah it’s folder is buried. Go wedge the plugin out of it’s folder to put it on my apt location, doesn’t work. Screw with it for 15 minutes. No good. Ok uninstall apt version, install flatpack version. Now my 4fl won’t trigger virtual cam. An about later I cobble it back together.

    At least with source you place the binary. If you dpkg, it plays nice with apt with a fix broken install.

    Shit used to be designed to play ni e together. Flatpack and appimage are like screw you, it’s easier to develop/deliver.

    FiskFisk33, (edited ) 
    
<span style="color:#323232;">yay -Syu
</span>
    joel,

    actually you don’t even have to type all that, just typing ‘yay’ is equivalent

    FiskFisk33,

    huh! you learn every day

    OsrsNeedsF2P,

    Dunno about you, when I click Update in Discover, all my stuff updates

    SpaceNoodle,

    Only one of my Linux boxes even has a window manager, and I don’t use it.

    juliebean,

    is their some kind of TUI lemmy client you’re using then, or do you just do most of your web stuff on mobile or windows or something?

    SpaceNoodle, (edited )

    Lemmy is strictly a time waster on my phone. I already sit in front of a desk of screens all day for work, I’m not going to do the same thing for fun.

    zkrzsz,

    Make an alias like “sudo dnf upgrade && flatpak update”.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • [email protected]
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • oklahoma
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • Ask_kbincafe
  • SuperSentai
  • feritale
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines
    •