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Comment by wezm | Hacker News Reader

I tried Linuxbrew but didn't stick with it for exactly the reason you point out:

> However it turns out Linuxbrew manages it’s own version of all the packages it tracks (makes sense I guess). This end up duplicating many of the packages available or already installed by the system package manager. This works on macOS since there is no system package repository but did not sit well with me on a Linux system.

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Fair enough.

But I am still wondering why linuxbrew exists to begin with. I mean, I understand the point of having snap or flatpack in addition to native distro packages, but linuxbrew?

Sounds like with Linuxbrew you get actually updated packages, which non-rolling release distros lack.

Bingo. The benefit here is that you can get your choice of rolling-release packages on any distribution you want without mucking up the base system.

Not entirely, you can always use PPAs and alike.

There are also these universal package formats that some directly from the developers.

Do flatpack and snap require root? A cursory glance over their examples all have users sudoing to get things installed.

There is at least one (can't remember which) that allows users to install packages locally.

Flatpak can install system-wide by root, or by any user to their home directory.

Unless you are using Arch, the packages in the system package manager are often several months old. This is somewhat of a regression to anyone used to homebrew where packages are updated promptly.

The Linux 'solution' to this problem is to compile from sources. linuxbrew is a way of automating that, if you will.

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