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Containers on the desktop are a symptom of a festering underlying disease. They are not the cure for anything. Modern linux development is extremely rapid pace

Containers on the desktop are a symptom of a festering underlying disease. They are not the cure for anything. Modern linux development is extremely rapid pace and is 100% targeted at the needs of the corporate entities paying for the development. This extremely fast pace of change in the kernel and underlying libs, langs, and compilers means that a desktop environment put together 4 years ago cannot realistically compile or run software written today. That's okay for mega-corps who re-build the entire software universe every time they want to make a change. Or for those who ignore desktop entirely and just "deploy" containers. And that's lead us to today. Linux desktop can't live for more than a few years on it's own. In order to deal with the backwards incompatible features some desktop distros have shifted to using containers. But this doesn't fix the futureshock. It only makes things for desktop users worse.

busterarm 6y ago
I only use Flatpak apps when it's my only option and the only places that seems to be are Electron apps. Discord & Slack, I'm looking at you. I also run a rolling-release distribution...
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Indeed, very good point. Those is why I moved to freebsd for my desktop. Too many corporate interests hijacking Linux right now.
einpoklum 6y ago
> Containers on the desktop are a symptom of a festering underlying disease. Agreed, although we may be in disagreement regarding what the disease is. > Modern Linux development is extremely rapid pace I believe you are over-generalizing, both over different distributions and over different packages within a distribution. > and is 100% targeted at the needs of the corporate entities paying for the development. ... specifically, many distributions are not funded by one, or a few, specific entities, corporate or otherwise. Debian comes to mind. I've never felt its is developed rapidly, or that languages change that quickly. > . Linux desktop can't live for more than a few years on it's own I'm not sure what you mean. > In order to deal with the backwards incompatible features some desktop distros have shifted to using containers. but the rest haven't.

busterarm 6y ago

I only use Flatpak apps when it's my only option and the only places that seems to be are Electron apps. Discord & Slack, I'm looking at you. I also run a rolling-release distribution...

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Indeed, very good point. Those is why I moved to freebsd for my desktop. Too many corporate interests hijacking Linux right now.

einpoklum 6y ago

> Containers on the desktop are a symptom of a festering underlying disease. Agreed, although we may be in disagreement regarding what the disease is. > Modern Linux development is extremely rapid pace I believe you are over-generalizing, both over different distributions and over different packages within a distribution. > and is 100% targeted at the needs of the corporate entities paying for the development. ... specifically, many distributions are not funded by one, or a few, specific entities, corporate or otherwise. Debian comes to mind. I've never felt its is developed rapidly, or that languages change that quickly. > . Linux desktop can't live for more than a few years on it's own I'm not sure what you mean. > In order to deal with the backwards incompatible features some desktop distros have shifted to using containers. but the rest haven't.