Quote:
Originally Posted by shuvashish76
Not the best solution if you've to update each and every apps manually. The main intention of having package-manager/appstore is to get all apps in a centralized way with minimal intervention.
|
It's a great idea in theory, but it always falls flat on its face for users who don't want to settle for the (often long outdated) versions of software their distro's repositories are serving. Compiling things yourself can sometime come to the rescue, but that comes with its own hurdles when the dependencies for said project cannot be met by the packages in the distro's repo. Or worse... they can provide those packages, but simply don't. It spirals from there.
In some cases, the distros are perfectly capable of building/providing the latest versions of certain programs (or their dependencies), but don't update in the name of "stability." But that defense doesn't actually hold up when the "stable" version of a piece of software turns out to be buggy, but the end user is stuck with that buggy version unless they want to update their OS.
Linux distro repositories are increasingly becoming places where popular pieces of software go to languish and die. Repositories that claim to be providing "stable" versions of software, are speaking code that basically translates to "old and stagnant."
Custom binary installers, AppImages and Flatpaks meet a real need that repo maintainers of popular Linux distros are increasingly not meeting.
Cross-platform developers who have to provide updated code that can still be built on Linux distros with the oldest dependencies (as well as staying compatible with the other platforms they support) means constantly living on the verge of obsolescence. When being able to look ahead would be better for everyone.