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No distribution forces you to use package managers for everything. Even before flatpak/snap, distributing (especially commercial) software as just archives or e

No distribution forces you to use package managers for everything. Even before flatpak/snap, distributing (especially commercial) software as just archives or executable installers was/is perfectly possible. The caveat is, there's no common baseline for libraries. Graphics libraries, the libc itself, GUI widget libraries etc. will appear in different version combinations in different distributions, since they have different release schedules. So if you want to go the Windows/MacOS route and ship a readily compiled program for Linux, you have to vendor in a loooot more libraries, and they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Flatpaks/snaps try to solve this (poorly) by vendoring the entire kitchen sink and then some, which just creates more bloat and a worse DLL hell than Windows could ever have dreamed of. So using it for everything isn't really feasible still.

account42 4y ago
> they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Simply don't vendor glibc and graphics drivers and you will be fine. Vendoring drivers doesn't make sense anyway as your application will be obsolete by the next HW cycle.
- creshal 4y ago
  glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally, so it would realistically be required if you wanted win32-style 20+ years of backwards compatibility. And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. And that sort of software doesn't really obsolete. Steam and GoG allow games to have a 10+ years long tail of slow but steady sales that don't really justify constant maintenance releases but still both let people enjoy good games (those don't really obsolete), and serve as advertisement for the developers' newer games.
  - account42 4y ago
    > glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally Neither of this is true. > And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. Bundling fontconfig but not it's internal config is retarded, yes. Really, games have no business looking at system fonts at all.
    - creshal 4y ago
      Calling everyone except yourself too retarded to figure out compiling Linux software is not a productive discussion. And glibc/mesa related breakages are well documented, if you care.

account42 4y ago

> they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Simply don't vendor glibc and graphics drivers and you will be fine. Vendoring drivers doesn't make sense anyway as your application will be obsolete by the next HW cycle.

creshal 4y ago
glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally, so it would realistically be required if you wanted win32-style 20+ years of backwards compatibility. And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. And that sort of software doesn't really obsolete. Steam and GoG allow games to have a 10+ years long tail of slow but steady sales that don't really justify constant maintenance releases but still both let people enjoy good games (those don't really obsolete), and serve as advertisement for the developers' newer games.
- account42 4y ago
  > glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally Neither of this is true. > And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. Bundling fontconfig but not it's internal config is retarded, yes. Really, games have no business looking at system fonts at all.
  - creshal 4y ago
    Calling everyone except yourself too retarded to figure out compiling Linux software is not a productive discussion. And glibc/mesa related breakages are well documented, if you care.