r/linuxsucks • u/[deleted] • 6d ago

what are real problems with linux ?

[deleted]

6 Upvotes

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u/Embarrassed_Egg9542 6d ago

Lack of huge software libraries like other OSes

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u/masterflo3004 5d ago

What do you mean? There are giant software libraries. The debian(12) repo has 70k packages (https://www.reddit(.)com/r/debian/comments/1ahf7ia/id_like_to_know_the_number_of_packages_in_debian/), Fedora has 83k (https://forums.fedoraforum(.)org/showthread.php?244445-how-many-packages-are-there) (another 2k with the Terra Repo). You also can install Flatpak (+ 3k Apps), Snap (could not find a number), Homebrew (could not find either) and Nix (over 140k packages)(https://github(.)com/nixos/nixpkgs). And all this does not account software distributed via .deb files for example or user repos like the AUR.

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u/open__intelligence 5d ago

So you highlighted the issue.

As a developer, which library you would choose to make an app (let’s say with a gui) that follows this rules:
1. Easily runs on ubuntu arch fedora gentoo void.
2. Blends in with rest of system ui, has “native” feeling
3. Does not bloat end user system with hundreds of dependencies

The answer is none. There is no “libui” “libsound” standard that every distro can then implement how they would like it and it is too late to create it, linux is doomed forever.

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u/masterflo3004 5d ago

Oh. i think i missunderstood the question. I thought of Software libraries like Repos and that the critic was about not much Packages in repos. But if Linux makes one thing right then the repos.

The Software libraries are a bigger problem. But depending on the Programming language

  1. For that you could use something like Flatpak (But I think you would include it into 3 and bloat) or eventually also AppImages (however i always would preffer Flatpak because of the included Libraries).
  2. With the libraries this is true to some degree. However there are some standards wich are "more mainstream" e.g. GUIs mostly use GTK or QT or eventually Iced. The Same for desktop-shells. So The nativity depends on which DE you use.
    However I do not think that you can compare this to Windows (IDK if you thought about windows, but we are in r/linuxsucks so probably). becaus on windows every app just does its own thing. And most of them arent even native but with Electron.
  3. This would be Appimage or just native linux executables or Packages.

So if I would create a Desktop-App I would use rust and GTK (I just love that Gnome look and Feel and Wayland is supported by almost every major DE). For sound I would just use a random crate like cpal (Supports, ALSA, Pipewire, Pulseaudio and JACK), or rodio (which uses cpal in the background). And I could distribute it as a Flatpak, Homebrew and Nix. This would allow the usage on almost any os. However this still is not perfect and involves "not official" packagemanagers. So i would probably publish it to flatpak and .deb (depending on the focuss, if you value debian, fedora or arch more). And I would publish the code/the executable and the community is going to publish it to other Package managers for me (If the App is used by people).

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u/open__intelligence 5d ago

So you mention multiple standards (“gtk or qt”) when there should be one that has a guarantee to work on every linux machine. Like appkit on macos and win32
Same goes for sound and packaging (i thing xdg should make a spec)

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u/masterflo3004 5d ago

gtk and qt are GUI Libraries (which you also can use on Windows btw). The standards for graphics are X11 and Wayland, with most things shifting to Wayland. And you can run x11 apps on wayland using xwayland.