this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
939 points (95.9% liked)

linuxmemes

19752 readers
2322 users here now

I use Arch btw

Sister communities:

Community rules

  1. Follow the site-wide rules and code of conduct
  2. Be civil
  3. Post Linux-related content
  4. No recent reposts

Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
poopsmith
Linuxmemed
Geert
939
i hate that it's very often like this (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/linuxmemes
242 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Deb files are debian packages, so if you're not on debian you can't install it

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I don't understand why would people not be on debian does not compute

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm on Gentoo for example. I can write an ebuild to automatically download said deb, extract it, install it with the package manager... And if the site has any semblance of organization involved, I can write one ebuild that will always download the version specified in its name, so when there is an update, I can copy the ebuild, change its name to new version and if the dependencies or structure didn't change, it will install just fine without any work.

[–] Genericusername 8 points 9 months ago

I am quite comfortable finding my way around ArchLinux, and recently decided to give Gentoo a try. I didn't expect it to be that much harder but all the cflags, emerge, conflicts and updates feels like black magic. I guess that if you know your way around Gentoo, reverse-engineering a deb file is not a real challenge. However I'm assuming that most Linux users would hope for a less involved solution.

[–] InternetCitizen2 2 points 9 months ago

That sounds really cool.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You could check out NixOS :)

[–] Lime66 -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)
  • Incredibly old and likely no longer updated packages
  • the devs are expected to backport their security fixes to these packages, which can create an outrageous amount of work

I don't understand why would people not be on debian does not compute

I don't understand why someone would want to be on Debian, what actual advantage does it have.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Stability, slow changes, predictable, strong history, lots of distributions are based on it, the list goes on and on. I don't use it but it's kinda stupid to question it's relevant qualities considering how much it's brought to the Linux community.

[–] puppy 3 points 9 months ago

Also don't forget that Debian is completely community driven, unlike Redhat's distros which face some controversy.

[–] Lime66 -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Lots of distros are based on Ubuntu, does that make Ubuntu an amazing distro?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They are based on Debian then, not Ubuntu. They are just reworked.

[–] Lime66 -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They are based on both in that case

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Is it using APT? If so, guess what....

[–] molochthagod 6 points 9 months ago

Relax, guys, Debian and not Debian both have their pros and cons. The variety of options is what's so beautiful about Linux.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

For the .deb packages, obviously.

Did you not read the post?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If it is only available as a .deb, it is probably targeting Ubuntu specifically.

Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian and uses the same package format. Ubuntu is much more popular though and the packages are not completely compatible.

[–] CosmicCleric 2 points 9 months ago

If it is only available as a .deb, it is probably targeting Ubuntu specifically.

Did you mean versus another Debian derivative like PopOS, or versus a non-Debian derivative like Fedora, etc.?

[–] Hawke 7 points 9 months ago

… Debian, or one of the many excellent Debian-based distros