Alice Averlong🏳️‍⚧️Oct 7, 2024
People are always joking about windows having that "windows is not activated, plz fix" watermark that's always showing up on top of displays in public, but these days Linux has that sort of annoying watermark nonsense too, it's just phrased a little different.
Show threadmcgrew
@foone and this is why I don't use snap, flatpak, etc., or distros that want you to use them.
Oct 7, 2024 at 3:45amWeb
Show threadLuna LacteaOct 7, 2024
@mcgrew @foone Flatpak is actually pretty ok, it doesn't care what your distro is & the sandboxing is nice, I like how it lets you manage permissions for a package similar to Android apps too. Sandboxing can also cause problems if you need it to not be sandboxed, but it seems like most of the time there's also another package format available for the same program.
Show threadmcgrewOct 7, 2024

@jackemled that's fine if that's what you want. I'd prefer apps to be managed by the system package manager. The way I see it if I need to worry about the app permissions then I don't trust that app and I probably shouldn't be installing it.

Generally if the package isn't available on my distro then I build my own package and install it. But that's rare on Arch. Almost everything is at least in the AUR.

Show threadLuna LacteaOct 7, 2024
@mcgrew Yeah exactly.
Show threadFingelOct 7, 2024
@mcgrew @jackemled do you manually review every pkgbuild you install from the AUR? Every update? This is where I feel like Flatpak shines. I trust official arch packages. But for random apps I would have previously gotten off the AUR at least Flatpak gives me confidence the app doesn’t have permission to use my webcam or read my home directory. All bets are off in the AUR, it is so easy to compromise a PKGBUILD.
Show threadmcgrewOct 7, 2024

@Fingel @jackemled I review them before the initial install, but not every update. Maybe that will bite me one day, but so far it hasn't.

If you're worried about that, then by all means use whatever packaging system makes you happy, but I'm not going to. The beauty of Linux is that we all have that choice.

Show threadMcTwist has movedOct 7, 2024
@mcgrew @foone Is AppImage any better?
Show threadmcgrewOct 7, 2024
@mctwist I honestly don't know. I've never used any of them because the whole idea has always seemed kind of dumb to me.