I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. You can use flatpak (or snap if you swing that way) but you can also install applications via containers. They’re still not installed on the OS-- even “native” applications get installed via the container. So if the application you want is maintained for arch in aur, you can add the --aur tag to the apx command and it will install that version instead of the default, which is ubuntu. This also works for fedora applications.
Edit: More info here: https://handbook.vanillaos.org/2023/01/11/install-and-manage-applications.html
Doesn’t that result in a lot of wasted space from duplicated dependencies? Don’t get me wrong, this looks great on paper, which is why I desperately need to find fault with it before I start distrohopping again.
I’m sure it does to some degree, though I don’t know if it’s enough to matter on modern computers, and isn’t that what flatpak does, too? (duplicating dependencies)
In any event, if you don’t need an application from a specific distro there’s no reason to create that container. The non-ubuntu ones get created when they’re needed. (And I think the next version of VanillaOS will be debian-based, not ubuntu; in case that matters.)
Just let some bees loose on your system for a while and they’ll sort that out.
Also depending on how good your CPU is btrfs compression would also save a fair bit. AFAIK shared libraries are pretty well compressible.
That sounds cool. Thanks for the recommendation.