kirk781Linux is the reason Windows apps are bloated these days
MoogleMaestroElectron is the only cross platform gui toolkit…
If you ignore QT, GTK and everything else.
I’m so glad that Microsoft makes an awesome cross platfor— wait, no, but they contribute code to— hmmm … Hey, what does Microsoft do to make apps more portable again?
nymnympseudonymFlatpak
AppImage
Snap
Hell, let’s not forget
Python
Perl
Java
POSIX
teolan
Bobo The GreatAlso each is pretty bad in terms of usability and practicality, either losing integration because “containerized” or taking GBs of space or both
losing integration because “containerized”
Bollocks. I’ve seen that many times with Flatpak (can’t speak for Snap), and every single time it was either because the packager failed to set up permissions or because the user messed with permissions that the application needed. Break off the tip of a screwdriver and it will no longer function as a screwdriver.
And I know you’re talking out of your ass because AppImage isn’t even sandboxed.
taking GBs of space
That part is true and accurate, and for a very good reason: dependency pinning. System packages can break if they don’t have the correct versions of shared libraries. If a package requires a very old version of a library, and doesn’t link it statically or supply it with the package, it can misbehave, have missing features, or refuse to even start. Flatpak (and probably Snap too, can’t speak for it) solves that by letting the packager specify (pin) the exact version of a dependency. If five separate packages require five different versions of the GNOME application framework, then they will download five separate packages of the correct version. AppImage solves it by being monolithic: everything is packaged together into a single executable.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but up to a couple of years ago, Flatpak was configured so that externally mounted folders were not accessible. I discovered that when Steam on flatpak refused to install games on my hdd, and it was quite frustrating to figure out how to enable it.
Snaps integration is even worse as I’ve seen browser extensions state they straight don’t work on snap’s browsers. Also desktop integration on gnone (even files drag and drop between snaps) are broken on the ubuntu installations I tried.
yet they still miss a central package repository, and that’s a big problem.
GitHub - ivan-hc/AM: AppImage Package Manager: AppImage sandboxing, local and system installation, update all AppImages, an extensible database of AppImages and portable apps, lists for AppImages and other GNU/Linux binaries, integrate AppImages by drag/drop or install unlisted AppImages, conversion of old AppImage types... and more! Manage AppImages like never before!
AppImage Package Manager: AppImage sandboxing, local and system installation, update all AppImages, an extensible database of AppImages and portable apps, lists for AppImages and other GNU/Linux bi...
It’s a package repository, but I would hardly call it “central”
Well, upstream is now considering either merging or just pointing to the AM repository because it is bigger and better maintained.
That’s good, AppImage is still my favourite of the “distro-agnostic” package systems and I think it really is missing a central repository solution.