I’m on Gentoo for example. I can write an ebuild to automatically download said deb, extract it, install it with the package manager… And if the site has any semblance of organization involved, I can write one ebuild that will always download the version specified in its name, so when there is an update, I can copy the ebuild, change its name to new version and if the dependencies or structure didn’t change, it will install just fine without any work.
I am quite comfortable finding my way around ArchLinux, and recently decided to give Gentoo a try. I didn’t expect it to be that much harder but all the cflags, emerge, conflicts and updates feels like black magic. I guess that if you know your way around Gentoo, reverse-engineering a deb file is not a real challenge. However I’m assuming that most Linux users would hope for a less involved solution.
Stability, slow changes, predictable, strong history, lots of distributions are based on it, the list goes on and on. I don’t use it but it’s kinda stupid to question it’s relevant qualities considering how much it’s brought to the Linux community.
Someone explain this to my dumb ass.
Deb files are debian packages, so if you’re not on debian you can’t install it
I don’t understand why would people not be on debian does not compute
I’m on Gentoo for example. I can write an ebuild to automatically download said deb, extract it, install it with the package manager… And if the site has any semblance of organization involved, I can write one ebuild that will always download the version specified in its name, so when there is an update, I can copy the ebuild, change its name to new version and if the dependencies or structure didn’t change, it will install just fine without any work.
I am quite comfortable finding my way around ArchLinux, and recently decided to give Gentoo a try. I didn’t expect it to be that much harder but all the cflags, emerge, conflicts and updates feels like black magic. I guess that if you know your way around Gentoo, reverse-engineering a deb file is not a real challenge. However I’m assuming that most Linux users would hope for a less involved solution.
That sounds really cool.
You could check out NixOS :)
I don’t understand why someone would want to be on Debian, what actual advantage does it have.
Stability, slow changes, predictable, strong history, lots of distributions are based on it, the list goes on and on. I don’t use it but it’s kinda stupid to question it’s relevant qualities considering how much it’s brought to the Linux community.
Lots of distros are based on Ubuntu, does that make Ubuntu an amazing distro?
They are based on Debian then, not Ubuntu. They are just reworked.
Relax, guys, Debian and not Debian both have their pros and cons. The variety of options is what’s so beautiful about Linux.
For the .deb packages, obviously.
Did you not read the post?
… Debian, or one of the many excellent Debian-based distros
If it is only available as a .deb, it is probably targeting Ubuntu specifically.
Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian and uses the same package format. Ubuntu is much more popular though and the packages are not completely compatible.
Did you mean versus another Debian derivative like PopOS, or versus a non-Debian derivative like Fedora, etc.?