Eh, it's a step forward, I wouldn't call it a great one. A great step forward would be to remove all this complicated runtime garbage and keep things simple. GNUStep App Bundles, ROX AppDirs, and AppImage are much better ideas, if you ask me, and the wide adoption of one of those would be a great step forward.
Eh, it's a step forward, I wouldn't call it a great one. A great step forward would be to remove all this complicated runtime garbage and keep things simple. GNUStep App Bundles, ROX AppDirs, and AppImage are much better ideas, if you ask me, and the wide adoption of one of those would be a great step forward.
I go back and forth on this one.
On one hand I think it would make things much simpler for users who have enough storage and bandwidth.
On the other, when there is a vulnerability in a major library we would have to wait for every application to be updated, if they're even being maintained.
The thing is that package managers have mostly abstracted away the headaches of dependency hell, but have also raised the barrier to entry, so any software not participating seems suspect.
> On the other, when there is a vulnerability in a major library we would have to wait for every application to be updated, if they're even being maintained.
Yes, that's a drawback, but how often is there a major library that shouldn't be part of the set of libraries included as part of the base OS install? And for the ones that aren't, if the vendor chooses not to update at least you have the option of continuing to use, or not, the older version on your own terms instead of having it broken by the package manager when a dependant library is swapped out from under it.
We live with this sort of thing every day in real world business and it honestly hasn't been a big deal.
Just hoping the host never breaks ABI is why we are here in the first place, solutions like that simply don't work and you need a runtime to be portable.
The Linux Kernel ABI is incredibly stable, thanks to Linus, it's only the userland built up around it by other people that doesn't give a damn about compatibility. This isn't a significant issue for other OSs because they have a well defined base system and care about compatibility (because users care about compatibility).
I'm not entirely sure why you are being downvoted. The statements may not be entirely true and a bit volatile, but it's been my experience to a large extent. One of the things I like about docker, flatpak, etc. is that it allows for entire apps and dependencies to be encapsulated together. Less interruption and down time fixing things.
When I use Linux as my main OS, I lose about a day or so every other month to dealing with upgrade/update fallout. It's discouraging to say the least. With Windows, it's been about every other year, and macOS every major version gives me a little grief for something. Both far less frequent than any Linux distro I've used.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy using linux, that said, I still have very weak trust of it as my primary desktop/laptop OS. I use all three regularly.
> When I use Linux as my main OS, I lose about a day or so every other month to dealing with upgrade/update fallout.
One of the big benefits of Linux is you have control over this by picking your distribution. If you used, for example, Debian you wouldn't have this problem as updates don't break things. If, on the other hand, you don't mind dealing with the occasional update issue and want bleeding edge packages then something like Arch might be better.
But choosing a distro that doesn't update gives you other problems. Flatpak allows for a more hybrid approach where you get up to date software but a stable base. (Plus you can rollback software if those updates lead to problems)
Yes. I wasn't arguing against Flatpak, just the impression that Linux was unstable. Personally I'm very much looking forward to Flatpak or Snap taking off... I run Debian stable on my main system and there are always a few packages I have to personally backport.
I'm not saying it can't be stable.. but by your own statement there's packages you have to backport yourself at times. There's a pull between current and stable, and Linux distros in general don't do as good a job as macOS or Windows on that imho. Doesn't mean I don't use it, just pointing out the flaws that cause me pain.
