• wheezy@lemmy.ml
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        1 year 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.

    • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’ve had the opposite experience with flatpaks that I have with snaps. I don’t really use them much. But when I see that as an option I use it and it just works. Definitely a fan as a USER of them. I’m sure people have their complaints as users and developers. But I definitely have to say it’s been positive so far. Which is a rare consistency in the life of installing packages.

      • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year 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.

    • RustyNova@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      TBH if it’s just for that I’d rather use nix packages. But flatpak’s sandboxed app are better for sus packages or proprietary-might-spy-everywhere packages.

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
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    1 year 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.

  • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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    1 year 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.

    • dodos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think it depends on the distro. Nixos is pretty bad for this if you want to try out a project that is really new. If you wait a month or two a flake usually comes out somewhere.

    • ranzispa@mander.xyz
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      1 year 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…

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
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      1 year ago

      “Just use Flatpak.”

      “But that will use 2GB when a system package will use 34MB.”

      “Duh, it’s not 2GB total. Flatpaks share dependencies.”

      “I don’t have any other Flatpaks on my system.”

      “…”

      “…”

      “OK, so it’ll be 2GB. Your next one will be smaller, though.”

      “If I install one and if it shares any dependencies with the first one.”

      “Pff. You’re just a hater.”

      “Yeah, I hate that something that should be small is using 2GB of space.”

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “Just use Flatpak.”

        “But that will use 2GB when a system package will use 34MB. Yeah, I hate that something that should be small is using 2GB of space.”

        “The space consumption isn’t my preference either, but I’d rather be using the app than fighting dependencies. I wish you luck with your dependency chain then.”

          • iopq@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The hypothetical hater is wasting time talking about it because you can install nix on most setups, even Mac OS

            And it has the most packages, a number of magnitude more than snaps and flatpaks combined

      • hayvan@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Sure but this is exactly what Windows and Macos apps do as well. So you’re basically complaining a package doesn’t do better than industry standard.

        Sure it can be better and wanting things to be more efficient is perfectly calid, I’m just asking to set more reasonable expectations.

        Of it’s in your native repo? Perfect! If not, you have the option to waste some disk space or taking the effort to run configure && make && make install

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Or, you could save time by not caring about the 2GB and just installing it. If you really care, get it from nixpkgs

  • ohshit604@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

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

  • highball@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    LMAO, back in my Slackware days (3.4, 3.6, 4.0, 7.0), If I had to build from source, which was most things, step1: ./configure step2: install the missing package step3: goto step1 until no missing packages identified step4: make step5: make install

    Sometimes my packages were too old, So I would just go to step1 for each package that also needed to be newer. I’m not even a Linux Expert, and I definitely wasn’t a Linux Expert then. All the building from source helps me jump into software projects and become productive real quick though.

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    There should be some kind of automated certification for git repos, where if the described install process does not complete on a default install of the most popular OS, the software gets a big red “does not work” label.

  • ian@feddit.uk
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    1 year 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.

  • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year 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.worldBanned
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      1 year 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
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        1 year 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.worldBanned
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          1 year 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
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            1 year 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.

    • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.orgOP
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      1 year 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.

  • Gerowen@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Flatpak/flathub is your friend. I’ve been using Linux for 20+ years and I’m to a point where if it’s not available as a deb, flatpak, system package or at the bare minimum an executable binary/script I just don’t bother. Compiling should be done by the software vendor and not required of the user unless they specifically want or need to.