I know there are ways to install software outside of aptitude on debian/ubuntu, (add repo, or build, or download binary, or possibly flatpak/snap/etc).

But being able to download *.deb files was one of the nicest aspect of using a debian based distros and now I’m seeing more and more projects include all distros except deb files.

Someone correct me but I vaguely recall that distributing debs is no longer recommended by debian itself?

  1. Am I wrong, and have I only co-incidentally stumbled on projects that don’t distribute debs?
  2. I am right and this seems like a mis-step, removing one of the most beginner friendly features that helped propagate debian based distros?

Flamesuit on.

  • socphoenix@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Honestly wish we could just not use flatpak/snap/appImage/whatever due to the wasted space. I’d really rather use a binary and reuse my shared libraries 90% of the time. The only exception was docker/snap were handy for things like a quick test for nextcould or home assistant. Then again I run mostly FreeBSD nowadays so I’m probably an old man telling kids to get off my lawn at this point.

    • Meowki@mastodon.social
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      1 year ago

      @socphoenix Until you need two versions of Python because… reasons. When building software it also becomes a hassle: You must have the specific dynamically linked environment or your binary is useless. Solutions are either statically linked builds or containers, flatpaks, etc… Containers can cache dependencies as layers to preserve space however. Besides, space is cheap. Sorry for watering your lawn, but it was kind of dry.

      • guildz@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Something that I have ran into is the mono runtime for gaming, it has many complicated dependinces which can easily conflict with the main system. I just ended up making full containers for older mono versions to get old games to work anyways.