I created a script that always installs apps from their official source
https://github.com/Tsu-gu/appfetch/
It’s a proof of concept of an idea I had a while ago. I dislike having to hunt down apps for my Linux machine when I want them from an official source. Some apps are packages as tarballs, some as .debs, some as install scripts that download a binary, some are flatpaks and snaps.
I created a yaml file with only verified apps from flathub and snapcraft, and added a few apps outside of them that I could think of.
The ultimate goal is the user just typing the names of what they want, and the script will just get it. They shouldn’t waste time with picking the right source.
Ironically, it’s been in the news lately because of a talk given at LAS. Here’s a breakdown of the video, for people like myself who hate watching talking heads.
Basically, development on Flatpak core has mostly stalled. And there’s a lot of work yet to be done; efforts to rebase it on OSI, for instance.
Nobody’s claiming it’s dead; it’s popular and widely used by a lot of people - it’s just that nobody is actively maintaining the Flatpak project anymore.
This is concerning. Hopefully they manage to keep it running as if the standard for packaging software on Linux disappears, companies would return to tarballs.