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Top-level
Joshua Barretto
A few months ago I got an old Thinkpad up and running again to use on my commute. It's got a pretty tiny SSD on it so to save on disk space I decided I'd install a distro that leans into system-wide packages instead of containers. I've been very careful to only install things from system repositories (with a few minor exceptions for things I've installed from source). A few months later and things are going great. I spend much less time fucking around trying to make things work. It's blissful. 6 comments
R. L. Dane :debian: :openbsd:
It's not a storage panacea, for certain, but have you tried distrobox? I just have it on one box to help me grab a package that #debian doesn't have (and might never, for library reasons) -- zathura-pdf-mupdf.
Joshua Barretto
@RL_Dane It seems interesting at first glance, but honestly, I don't feel like I'm personally very interested in containerising my life. Maybe there are folks for whom it brings a lot of utility, but in my case I'm in the habit of just not installing software I don't trust: so the convenience of installing things system-wide will usually win every time. If I have something accessible on the network, then I'll usually just use a dedicated docker instance for that.
R. L. Dane :debian: :openbsd:
I get it. I hadn't really messed with containers before, so I was impressed with how well it worked and how lightweight it was (in every sense BUT storage), but yeah, it wouldn't be fun to have to have a ton of them and try to remember which program is in which container. It does solve the trust issue decently well though vs. something like AUR/homebrew
Joshua Barretto
On my main machine, on which I have several containerised apps, I've hit the following containerisation issues: - Firefox demanding to be made the default browser every few weeks (it already is) - Gamepad inputs not being passes to apps seemingly at random (not permissions-related) - Some apps being unable to start a Vulkan context - Dark/light theme not applying for some apps - Never knowing where to find config files for any given app - CSD occasionally not working for some apps
Joshua Barretto
Those are just the issues I can remember off the top of my head, but there have been many more. Both flatpak and snap feel shockingly half-baked, more akin to a tech demo with some fancy tooling than a battle-tested piece of foundational infrastructure. Sure, maybe a lot of this is the fault of the apps themselves not having been built with containerisation in mind: but wherever the fault lies, it's still a rough experience for users. |
Gregory's Server
This little laptop is really a joy to work with now. It's incredibly stable, the DE and apps have a really small footprint, and all of the software I have installed *just works*.