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As far as I'm concerned this is a good thing. I'm completely and utterly tired of fixing the next 14916498th bug that's caused by package X and Y having shared

As far as I'm concerned this is a good thing. I'm completely and utterly tired of fixing the next 14916498th bug that's caused by package X and Y having shared dependency Z, then X updating Z to Z+1 and breaking Y. In the last 2 decades I used linux I had this issue so many countless times that as far as I'm concerned nix-style, or AppImage-style "waste space" solution is strictly speaking better. Sick and tired of this "upgraded MuseScore3 to MuseScore4, so now Ardour is broken" insanity, this is not how software is supposed to work. I want each package to have its own dependencies, period.

gumballindie 3y ago
Ah yes, that too. I dread the moment i mess up dependencies. I just want the app to run. I don't care about whatever libs.
jeroenhd 3y ago
Linux has definitely come up with the worst solution to DLL hell, but Flatpak solves this problem neatly without dumping huge files all over my disk (and without making me manually create shortcuts for them). It also solves the update problem much better (update applications all at once rather than open them one by one and waiting for the "there's an update, click here to download" popup to show up). I generally stick to the distro repos exactly because external software is a pain to run, with Flatpak as a fallback for applications not packaged in any repo. More and more third party applications are being compiled statically, though, which has solved a lot of issues for me when it comes to these externally managed programs (though it also causes annoying security issues).
akvadrako 3y ago
Flatpak doesn't have that problem. Each app specifies the exact versions of runtime libraries it wants and files are de-duplicated.
pizza234 3y ago
> I'm completely and utterly tired of fixing the next 14916498th bug that's caused by package X and Y having shared dependency Z, then X updating Z to Z+1 and breaking Y This is not "Linux", it's users who mess around with (and ultimately break) dependencies in order to get the latest version of programs at any cost. If one uses, say, an Ubuntu version and 3rd party repositories for that version only, they're not going to get any dependency issue, since all the programs will share the same library versions (dependency bugs do happen once in a long while, but they're rare, and they're exceptions).
- gnulinux 3y ago
  I used Ubuntu and even Debian for many years. I strongly disagree with you, actually I find Arch significantly more stable than Ubuntu. At least in Arch when dependencies are broken, both X and Y are swiftly upgraded. At this point, I'm also tired of convincing others that linux package management is broken beyond repair. Until you experience my pain, you won't be convinced. I understand many people will never be able to sympathize with my pain but all I can truthfully and honestly say is that I'm a very experienced GNU/linux user, I used all kinds of distros from Ubuntu to Fedora to Arch to Gentoo and, no, it's all a complete and utter mess when it comes to dependency management. I end up spending hours every month fixing broken versions. The sweet spot is using pacman for very basic things, and AppImage for everything else. I don't care about memory efficiency, I want `MuseScore4.appimage` to contain everything about the app, I want it to behave exactly the same every single time I click on it. No, I don't tolerate even the slightest behavior difference, I do not want glibc to upgrade from x.y.z.t to x.y.z.t+1 because it causes insanity when t+1 causes a behavior change in some random software synthesizer I happen to use. I know that this probably doesn't make sense to 99% of users, but maybe I have a special case. Case in point, in the year 2023 while trying to ship a lot of work I'm producing, a single update broke tons of my workflows, and I finally decided that anything not frozen in AppImage is cursed. If it doesn't work you, I respect your patience and expertise, I just hope some people can understand the pain other users go through. I have a degree in CS, I write code full time, I manage linux containers in my day job, and I still can't manage the mess I have at home in my local Ubuntu/Arch installs. I don't know how people who don't know how to code do, but all I know is that I'm done spending hours at a time on fixing glibc at this point. I just want to work on my hobbies, thank you very much. EDIT: And before people come here, no, OSX and Windows are even worse. I won't consider using them either.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    Zypper has excellent dependency resolution, it hasn't given me any trouble. DNF is just as good, from what I hear. Apt and yum are an earlier generation of package manager, and I've seem them get themselves into jams on more than one occasion so I understand what you're saying and can sympathize with your perspective, but those shortcomings aren't inherent to the premise of traditional package management. I use AppImage for the sort of software that won't get packaged (proprietary or obscure) and zypper for pretty much everything else (excepting a few programs I build myself due to reasons.)

gumballindie 3y ago

Ah yes, that too. I dread the moment i mess up dependencies. I just want the app to run. I don't care about whatever libs.

jeroenhd 3y ago

Linux has definitely come up with the worst solution to DLL hell, but Flatpak solves this problem neatly without dumping huge files all over my disk (and without making me manually create shortcuts for them). It also solves the update problem much better (update applications all at once rather than open them one by one and waiting for the "there's an update, click here to download" popup to show up). I generally stick to the distro repos exactly because external software is a pain to run, with Flatpak as a fallback for applications not packaged in any repo. More and more third party applications are being compiled statically, though, which has solved a lot of issues for me when it comes to these externally managed programs (though it also causes annoying security issues).

akvadrako 3y ago

Flatpak doesn't have that problem. Each app specifies the exact versions of runtime libraries it wants and files are de-duplicated.

pizza234 3y ago

> I'm completely and utterly tired of fixing the next 14916498th bug that's caused by package X and Y having shared dependency Z, then X updating Z to Z+1 and breaking Y This is not "Linux", it's users who mess around with (and ultimately break) dependencies in order to get the latest version of programs at any cost. If one uses, say, an Ubuntu version and 3rd party repositories for that version only, they're not going to get any dependency issue, since all the programs will share the same library versions (dependency bugs do happen once in a long while, but they're rare, and they're exceptions).

gnulinux 3y ago
I used Ubuntu and even Debian for many years. I strongly disagree with you, actually I find Arch significantly more stable than Ubuntu. At least in Arch when dependencies are broken, both X and Y are swiftly upgraded. At this point, I'm also tired of convincing others that linux package management is broken beyond repair. Until you experience my pain, you won't be convinced. I understand many people will never be able to sympathize with my pain but all I can truthfully and honestly say is that I'm a very experienced GNU/linux user, I used all kinds of distros from Ubuntu to Fedora to Arch to Gentoo and, no, it's all a complete and utter mess when it comes to dependency management. I end up spending hours every month fixing broken versions. The sweet spot is using pacman for very basic things, and AppImage for everything else. I don't care about memory efficiency, I want `MuseScore4.appimage` to contain everything about the app, I want it to behave exactly the same every single time I click on it. No, I don't tolerate even the slightest behavior difference, I do not want glibc to upgrade from x.y.z.t to x.y.z.t+1 because it causes insanity when t+1 causes a behavior change in some random software synthesizer I happen to use. I know that this probably doesn't make sense to 99% of users, but maybe I have a special case. Case in point, in the year 2023 while trying to ship a lot of work I'm producing, a single update broke tons of my workflows, and I finally decided that anything not frozen in AppImage is cursed. If it doesn't work you, I respect your patience and expertise, I just hope some people can understand the pain other users go through. I have a degree in CS, I write code full time, I manage linux containers in my day job, and I still can't manage the mess I have at home in my local Ubuntu/Arch installs. I don't know how people who don't know how to code do, but all I know is that I'm done spending hours at a time on fixing glibc at this point. I just want to work on my hobbies, thank you very much. EDIT: And before people come here, no, OSX and Windows are even worse. I won't consider using them either.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Zypper has excellent dependency resolution, it hasn't given me any trouble. DNF is just as good, from what I hear. Apt and yum are an earlier generation of package manager, and I've seem them get themselves into jams on more than one occasion so I understand what you're saying and can sympathize with your perspective, but those shortcomings aren't inherent to the premise of traditional package management. I use AppImage for the sort of software that won't get packaged (proprietary or obscure) and zypper for pretty much everything else (excepting a few programs I build myself due to reasons.)