this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If a website stuffed a .deb into your Downloads folder and you click on it, should the default behaviour be to run it? Is there a significant pile of Ubuntu software out there that is unavailable in the apt and snap and flatpak stores? Other stores such as Steam and Epic (Heroic) are easily installable via … starting in your apt/snap/flatpak store.
The default beaviour shouldn't be to run it, but it also shouldn't be to tell you that a program that can run it doesn't exist, when it actually does.
If you want to do it via GUI, default behaviour should be to tell you that for security reasons, installation of deb files from the web is disabled, with a link to the root-accessible setting that enables it (similar to Android, for example).
Well, that marks the first time I've seen anyone refer to it as "the apt store." Thanks, I hate it.
I'm off to download some standards docs from the ieee-shop 👨🔧 🍄
A deb is not an executable. You can't run it
And neither is a doc file, but most OSes would open up a compatible word processor.
It can install a service that will start automatically after install, so for all intents and purposes, if you click it and enter your sudo password, you might as well have run an executable.
It has pre and post-install scripts. Once you hand it off to dpkg, it can do pretty much anything.