this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's so special about it? Isn't it just a repository? Or am I missing something? If it's just a repo, Ubuntu has PPAs and everyone and their mother is creating PPAs.

[–] Andy@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's a single, central, community space for build plans, which are extremely easy for anyone to create and submit.

Edit: And easier to audit than prebuilt packages

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[–] jcb2016@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] yardy_sardley@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

It really just comes down to the differences in goals and philosophies between each distribution. Some distros have large curated repositories containing most of everything a normal user would want to use. That's what people expect from those distros, and people use them because they want that experience. Likewise, people don't use arch just because it has the AUR. They want a more DIY experience, and arch provides that, with the AUR being an essential part of how it works.

You're not going to get arch users to switch to ubuntu or whatever by duct-taping an AUR clone onto it. Furthermore, I believe trying to make one distro "to rule them all" that attempts to appeal to every niche would be not only a train wreck technically, but an abomination, antithetical to the principles of the OSS community as well.

[–] D_Air1@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Probably for the same reasons why there are so many packaging formats in the first place. If everyone settled on deb, rpm, or arch style tar packages. Then we wouldn't need the aur, flatpak, snap, appimage or anything else.

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[–] crunchi@mas.to 2 points 1 year ago

@InternetPirate I mean apt based distros do have ppa’s although I have found aur to have better support. theoretically though they are equivalent i believe?

[–] colonial@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The AUR is nice and all, but the reality is that most people will be served just fine (if not better) by the more curated repositories. Fedora's bundled repositories are more than enough for my dev work - and thanks to Flatpak and AppImage, closing any gaps is pretty easy.

[–] words_number@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

In my experience the AUR is a dumpsterfire where half of the stuff doesn't work or breaks other things in your system. Definitely not a reason to switch to arch or manjaro for me.

[–] phantagom@klingon.nl 1 points 1 year ago

Brew on Linux?

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