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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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Don't use Appimages (a writeup about all the reasons they are a pain for users) (github.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Appimages totally suck, because many developers think they were a real packaging format and support them exclusively.

Their use case is tiny, and in 99% of cases Flatpak is just better.

I could not find a single post or article about all the problems they have, so I wrote this.

This is not about shaming open source contributors. But Appimages are obviously broken, pretty badly maintained, while organizations/companies like Balena, Nextcloud etc. don't seem to get that.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I agree with you on all but one point: I detest the argument that "storage is cheap".

While true, it's of no value to have 10 times the storage when all your apps grow 10 times in size. You can still only do as much as before but had to upgrade in between. This also means, it leaves behind people who simply can't afford an upgrade and who have an otherwise running system.

On top of that, we live in a time where we should not waste resources, since the world already suffers enough.

I am therefore still a fan of optimizing software to be as efficient as possible.

That being said: carefully used AppImages solve one such issue for me. Not every application I use needs constant updates. I want to stay at a specific version. That's easy with AppImages.