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To more or less this what snap, AppImage, flatpak etc tries to solve. And honestly it works. One part of Steam Deck's success that it was entirely built on an

To more or less this what snap, AppImage, flatpak etc tries to solve. And honestly it works. One part of Steam Deck's success that it was entirely built on an immutable flatpak based distro (Arch)

trissi1996 2y ago
AFAIK Arch is neither flatpack-based nor immutable by default, that's just how valve configured it, or am I missing something since I've used it a few years ago ? Still nicely done on valve's part.
opan 2y ago
Arch does not normally use or make you use flatpaks, nor is it immutable. You describe SteamOS, which is based on Arch, but with changes to it. This is more clearing up ambiguity for others reading than a correction, there's a decent chance you knew this already. Fedora Silverblue is a distro which heavily uses flatpaks and is immutable out of the box. I believe this is what Bazzite, a community alternative to SteamOS, is based on.
- haunter 2y ago
  Yes my bad for the wording. I also use Fedora Kinoite on my daily driver Thinkpad.
forrestthewoods 2y ago
> more or less this what snap, AppImage, flatpak etc tries to solve. Yes. Seems really complicated though. It’s a whole lot of machinery and complexity to achieve what should be a very simple zip + double-click. The Linux model is just inherently complex.
- somat 2y ago
  The linux model exposes it's complexity to the end user. Because of this the model is usually a lot simpler(the average user is expected to understand it). In the windows world the model is this huge unknowable beast with a facade over it. if you are fine with the facade this works great, but when things go wrong, it is much harder, a soul crushing wall of propriety internal interfaces. that is, it makes the easy things easier and the hard things harder. Don't get me wrong microsoft is one of the good guys here, compared to apple they are a very programmer focused company and try very hard to provide the information needed to do things with the os. There are people who are very good with windows and understand it well, I just never liked all the hidden complexity and am much happier with linux and it's explicit complexity. I have to admit that statement is a bit of a lie, I actually think linux is far to complex and am happier with openbsd, which exposes and expects even more of the end user and is correspondingly much simpler.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    maximizing the amount of complexity just because your current users are capable of dealing it and often no other benefits whatsoever (of course not always) just doesn’t seem like a great strategy.
    - j_maffe 2y ago
      Why would any designer intentionally maximize complexity? It's one of the core tenants of design to minimize complexity.
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    > The linux model exposes it's complexity to the end user. Because of this the model is usually a lot simpler(the average user is expected to understand it). In the windows world the model is this huge unknowable beast with a facade over it. if you are fine with the facade this works great, but when things go wrong, it is much harder, a soul crushing wall of propriety internal interfaces. that is, it makes the easy things easier and the hard things harder. This has not been my experience in the slightest. Supporting “Linux” is radically harder, more complex, more error prone, and more miserable than supporting Windows. YMMV.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  AppImage literally lets you double click the file to run it, you don't even unzip it first. It couldn't be simpler. If you're a power user who eschews desktop environments, then you chmod+x the file and run it. It's the other two that complicate the matter in order to provide sandboxing. Thankfully you can simply choose not to use snap or flatpack. Really though, to characterize AppImage that way makes your comment sounds like the sort of cope windows users tell themselves to explain to themselves why they continue to tolerate Microsoft's abusive business practices.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    > tell themselves to explain to themselves why they continue to tolerate Microsoft's abusive business practices. The arrogance and smugness of some Linux users is probably the main reason for me. I just don’t want to be associated with that kind of people.. Generally unpolished UX and poor UI design (even by Windows standards…) is the second reason. Overall IMHO usually for consumer/desktop use cases all the tinkering you need to do on Linux to do many of the things that just work on Windows/macOS it’s just more trouble that it’s worth.. (unless you’re into masochism and there is nothing wrong with that).
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      Good news, installing Linux doesn't teleport me into your living room. Complaining about other users is just another lame cope windows users use to excuse themselves (which wouldn't even be necessary if they were actually happy with their choice to use windows.)
      - card_zero 2y ago
        The phrase "a power user who eschews desktop environments" was irritating. It brings to mind a "power gamer", still playing Colossal Cave Adventure.
      - ffgjgf1 2y ago
        It’s kind of weird that you’re so concerned about the happiness of Windows users… To be honest I’m surprisingly happy* about Windows 11, after minimal amount of tweaking (less than I need on any Linux distro I tried to make it usable) I turned off most of the annoying stuff and I don’t really have much to complain about it + WSL *the only thing I really want from an OS these days is to stay out of my way and require the minimal amount of pointless busywork from me (all the package management nonsense on Linux + permanent issues with Nvidia’s drivers).
- account42 2y ago
  You can have your zip (well, conventional would be .tar.gz/.xz etc.) + double click if you want. You do it the same way you'd do it on Windows: Bundle your dependencies in the archive minus base OS components with stable ABIs.

To more or less this what snap, AppImage, flatpak etc tries to solve. And honestly it works. One part of Steam Deck's success that it was entirely built on an immutable flatpak based distro (Arch)

trissi1996 2y ago

AFAIK Arch is neither flatpack-based nor immutable by default, that's just how valve configured it, or am I missing something since I've used it a few years ago ? Still nicely done on valve's part.

opan 2y ago

Arch does not normally use or make you use flatpaks, nor is it immutable. You describe SteamOS, which is based on Arch, but with changes to it. This is more clearing up ambiguity for others reading than a correction, there's a decent chance you knew this already. Fedora Silverblue is a distro which heavily uses flatpaks and is immutable out of the box. I believe this is what Bazzite, a community alternative to SteamOS, is based on.

haunter 2y ago
Yes my bad for the wording. I also use Fedora Kinoite on my daily driver Thinkpad.

forrestthewoods 2y ago

> more or less this what snap, AppImage, flatpak etc tries to solve. Yes. Seems really complicated though. It’s a whole lot of machinery and complexity to achieve what should be a very simple zip + double-click. The Linux model is just inherently complex.

somat 2y ago
The linux model exposes it's complexity to the end user. Because of this the model is usually a lot simpler(the average user is expected to understand it). In the windows world the model is this huge unknowable beast with a facade over it. if you are fine with the facade this works great, but when things go wrong, it is much harder, a soul crushing wall of propriety internal interfaces. that is, it makes the easy things easier and the hard things harder. Don't get me wrong microsoft is one of the good guys here, compared to apple they are a very programmer focused company and try very hard to provide the information needed to do things with the os. There are people who are very good with windows and understand it well, I just never liked all the hidden complexity and am much happier with linux and it's explicit complexity. I have to admit that statement is a bit of a lie, I actually think linux is far to complex and am happier with openbsd, which exposes and expects even more of the end user and is correspondingly much simpler.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  maximizing the amount of complexity just because your current users are capable of dealing it and often no other benefits whatsoever (of course not always) just doesn’t seem like a great strategy.
  - j_maffe 2y ago
    Why would any designer intentionally maximize complexity? It's one of the core tenants of design to minimize complexity.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  > The linux model exposes it's complexity to the end user. Because of this the model is usually a lot simpler(the average user is expected to understand it). In the windows world the model is this huge unknowable beast with a facade over it. if you are fine with the facade this works great, but when things go wrong, it is much harder, a soul crushing wall of propriety internal interfaces. that is, it makes the easy things easier and the hard things harder. This has not been my experience in the slightest. Supporting “Linux” is radically harder, more complex, more error prone, and more miserable than supporting Windows. YMMV.
lupusreal 2y ago
AppImage literally lets you double click the file to run it, you don't even unzip it first. It couldn't be simpler. If you're a power user who eschews desktop environments, then you chmod+x the file and run it. It's the other two that complicate the matter in order to provide sandboxing. Thankfully you can simply choose not to use snap or flatpack. Really though, to characterize AppImage that way makes your comment sounds like the sort of cope windows users tell themselves to explain to themselves why they continue to tolerate Microsoft's abusive business practices.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > tell themselves to explain to themselves why they continue to tolerate Microsoft's abusive business practices. The arrogance and smugness of some Linux users is probably the main reason for me. I just don’t want to be associated with that kind of people.. Generally unpolished UX and poor UI design (even by Windows standards…) is the second reason. Overall IMHO usually for consumer/desktop use cases all the tinkering you need to do on Linux to do many of the things that just work on Windows/macOS it’s just more trouble that it’s worth.. (unless you’re into masochism and there is nothing wrong with that).
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Good news, installing Linux doesn't teleport me into your living room. Complaining about other users is just another lame cope windows users use to excuse themselves (which wouldn't even be necessary if they were actually happy with their choice to use windows.)
    - card_zero 2y ago
      The phrase "a power user who eschews desktop environments" was irritating. It brings to mind a "power gamer", still playing Colossal Cave Adventure.
    - ffgjgf1 2y ago
      It’s kind of weird that you’re so concerned about the happiness of Windows users… To be honest I’m surprisingly happy* about Windows 11, after minimal amount of tweaking (less than I need on any Linux distro I tried to make it usable) I turned off most of the annoying stuff and I don’t really have much to complain about it + WSL *the only thing I really want from an OS these days is to stay out of my way and require the minimal amount of pointless busywork from me (all the package management nonsense on Linux + permanent issues with Nvidia’s drivers).
account42 2y ago
You can have your zip (well, conventional would be .tar.gz/.xz etc.) + double click if you want. You do it the same way you'd do it on Windows: Bundle your dependencies in the archive minus base OS components with stable ABIs.