When I first started using Linux 15 years ago (Ubuntu) , if there was some software you wanted that wasn’t in the distro’s repos you can probably bet that there was a PPA you could add to your system in order to get it.
Seems that nowadays this is basically dead. Some people provide appimage, snap or flatpak but these don’t integrate well into the system at all and don’t integrate with the system updater.
I use Spek for audio analysis and yesterday it told me I didn’t have permission to read a file, I a directory that I owned, that I definitely have permission to read. Took me ages to realise it was because Spek was a snap.
I get that these new package formats provide all the dependencies an app needs, but PPAs felt more centralised and integrated in terms of system updates and the system itself. Have they just fallen out of favour?
Former OS security chief here.
Please, God, avoid flatpaks, appimages and snaps. They break rules just to break more rules, and you’re the victim.
Flatpaks are always going to be better than just installing random software of the Internet. This is true from both and security and reliability context. Software inside flatpak only has the permissions it needs which is a example of least privilege. Furthermore chances are you are getting the software from flathub which more trustworthy than some random repo. If someone tried to do something problematic such as a fake crypto app it will likely be caught.
@possiblylinux127 @corsicanguppy
Does Flathub curate all their packages?
Yes, to some extent