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You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here’s how it went (www.osnews.com)

submitted 3 days ago by cm0002@libretechni.ca to c/linux@programming.dev

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[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

True, Linux did solve this decades ago. And then made it significantly worse in the last decade with multiple package managers (apt-get, AppImage, Flatpak, Snap, brew, random .sh install scripts etc.). Remembering how a Linux application was installed and calling its update command is a chore, and updating will probably pull in some other 500MB+ dependency that’s not shared with other apps because of a minor version change.

If your distro is forcing you to use more than one package manager on a regular basis, you need to switch distros.

If you're choosing to use 3-4 package managers simultaneously, even though you don't really need to, that's on you.

Either way, it isn't Linux's fault.

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I would gladly use only one package manager, but different applications offer different types of downloads. Do this for 30 applications, and you will probably need 3-4 package managers or install methods that do not auto update. Example:

Firefox: ppa, because that has always been the fastest and most convenient
Krita: flatpak, since the others suck
Qbittorrent: only AppImage
Godot: native executable

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 day ago

My distro's package manager will quite happily install all of those. From the main distro repo, even. I don't see any reason why I would mess around with flatpaks or other distribution methods.

I can literally count on one hand the pieces of non-game software I use that are installed from outside my distro's package manager (there's three if you include the inkscape plugin to drive my vinyl cutter).

So I repeat, this is either a distro issue or related to how you, personally, prefer to manage your system. It is not a general Linux issue.