• Narwhalrus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Im not sure the software center being half baked is even the real problem.

    One of the nice things about Windows is that you dont need a central, curated, repository for software. You can google the thing you want and just download an msi/exe of the latest stable version and, 99.9% of the time, leading back to your first point, it will just work.

    • this_is_router@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      What? That is easiest one of the worst parts of windows. It’s just that people are used to this dumb endeavour

      • Narwhalrus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Why do you think its bad? From a secruity standpoint its obviously not great, but its undeniably more convenient than running a curl command to pull in a third party .repo file, yum update and yum install to get something that isnt easily available in my base repos.

        • wolo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Flatpak and AppImage are trying to make that easier, since they both work the same on pretty much any distro, but not everything is packaged that way yet.

          Flatpak is closer to the typical package manager model, where you install things from a graphical store or the command line, while AppImages are self-contained binaries that you download from the developer and run as-is without installing.

          Snaps also exist, but they don’t work well outside of Ubuntu and its descendants…

          • Ziro@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I like Flatpak for what it is. It’s great. But I wish that the application IDs weren’t so long.

            • wolo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 year ago

              I think if they were categories instead of reverse domain names, it would at least be easier to remember. As it is now they’re mostly just meaningless, and I think it would be better if you could refer to apps with only the last part as long as it wouldn’t create a name collision.

        • this_is_router@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Nothing more convenient then a central “app store”. apt search, apt install is all I need. But I undersntd that people don’t like it, that don’t know it.

          What’s convenient about googling for software, downloading ominous files and clicking through an install wizard and most likely installing some adware and unwanted search bars? It’s crazy people see it like that.

          Even the other posters in this thread are talking about flatpak and appimage. I’ll never understand that way of thought.

    • Netto Hikari@social.fossware.space
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      1 year ago

      That’s a pretty bad point you made there. Imagine having to google for each app on your smartphone and tell me how that’s better.

      What about the scammy search results that point to malware infected sites?

      What about stability and security updates for the software you obtained that way? Every software will have it’s own update mechanism, if there’s one at all.

      How is it not better to install or update all software on the computer with a single click or command?

      • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, and they’re great, but I dare you to show me a Windows user that has used these, who’s not technically inclined or a developer.

      • Narwhalrus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yep. I use both quite a bit. Chocolatey is great!

        The point Im trying to make is package managers are better suited for developers and the lack of a great alternative for installing software on the distros I’ve used is not helping with the mass appeal of Linux.

        I could be wrong here as I’ve never tried any of the “home computer” distros (mint, ubuntu).