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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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Did we kill Linux's killer feature? (lemdro.id)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A few years ago we were able to upgrade everything (OS and Apps) using a single command. I remember this was something we boasted about when talking to Windows and Mac fans. It was such an amazing feature. Something that users of proprietary systems hadn't even heard about. We had this on desktops before things like Apple's App Store and Play Store were a thing.

We can no longer do that thanks to Flatpaks and Snaps as well as AppImages.

Recently i upgraded my Fedora system. I few days later i found out i was runnig some older apps since they were Flatpaks (i had completely forgotten how I installed bitwarden for instance.)

Do you miss the old system too?

Is it possible to bring back that experience? A unified, reliable CLI solution to make sure EVERYTHING is up to date?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for the explanation! I always wondered why would describe hooks so trivially. I'm still bleaching my brain of the Windows habits I developed from lifs-long usage.

I looked a little more into hooks, and am curious if a patch can kind of be like a hook? Where you create a config file that has symlinks to all the executables like you mentioned? Still a noob when it comes to software creation :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

[Can] a patch can kind of be like a hook?

In the free software world, a patch usually describes a file that lists lines to be added to or removed from another file (or multiple files). The most common use for this is probably with actual source code.

Binary (non-text) patches are also possible, and in Windows a software bug-fix "patch" would likely be mostly binary. In the free software world, it's uncommon to use binary patches for updates; instead the source is patched (either in the main upstream project or by a distribution) and a new binary package is built and published.

Where you create a config file that has symlinks to all the executables like you mentioned?

I don't really understand how those two questions relate, so I may not be able to give you a good answer. Often a configuration file has a variable=value structure, but it would certainly possible to have a list of file paths in a configuration. However, this might instead be implemented as an actual directory (like ~/.config/app/pre-hook.d/) where each executable file in that directory is executed by the "pre" hook in the app. (Configuration directories often work very similarly also.)

Whether the paths are symlinks is likely to be irrelevant, as this is more a filesystem level feature that would often be ignored entirely by the application.

I hope this is helpful.