Linux-based distros are my preferred desktop. I use them wherever and whenever I can; I've rejuvenated relations' older hardware that was dying on windows by i

Linux-based distros are my preferred desktop. I use them wherever and whenever I can; I've rejuvenated relations' older hardware that was dying on windows by installing a linux-based desktop instead. I've paid, and continue to pay, money to support them. Packaging is the bete noir. It could be so great: apt and its peers pre-dated the commercial app stores as a convenient way to find and install the options you wanted. But things in the linux packaging world haven't meaningfully moved forward since then. Sure, we've had Flatpak and Snap (and the bickering that goes on between them). There's also Nix and Guix and the promise of reproducability. But none of them has actually moved the ecosystem forward. Instead, they've introduced even more choice and fractured things further. There's no agreement. As the article notes, installation on windows and mac OS is consistent: there is, by and large, one dominant way. Go to the website for $your-app, hit the download link, and it's pretty stark: Windows - here's the MSI Mac - here's the dmg Both jut work. Linux - .... If there's a link at all (and there's often not), you can practically hear the developer sighing as they embark on the "it depends..." story. Maybe there's a .deb if you're on a Debian-based distro. Maybe a tar.gz that you can download then figure out what to do with it. Packaging isn't a differentiator - or at least it shouldn't be. If ever there was a case for extending some benevolent dictatorship into userland, packaging would be it. That wouldn't stop those distros for which packaging is a core part of their proposition (arch, nix, ...). But for the mainstream - the majority - the variability is just a frustration. A nuisance. An unnecessary distraction. Dear Santa. For Christmas this year, please can you sort out linux packaging? Mince pies and whisky await. Cheers.