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Comment by im_down_w_otp | Hacker News Reader

One of the issues I've had with things distributed as Snaps or Flatpaks is that they tend not to pickup the settings and preferences that I've configured on my workstation.

For example, if I've setup themes, fonts, scaling factors, custom keyboard shortcuts, etc., they tend not to be available/utilized by the applications which are distributed in these bundling formats. For the most part, that's why I avoid using them.

I assume, but don't actually know, that this also true of AppImage. Can anybody who knows better confirm, or deny, that?

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Honestly, I would much prefer using a package manager than manually installing packages. Using a package manager means you only have one place to look for the package (searching in a browser for software can be so error prone for inexperienced users. Not to mention more disruptive and time consuming). Using a package manager means you only have one place for upgrade installers (3rd party updaters are a plague on Windows) and having everything updated through a centralised package manager means you’re less likely to overlook upgrading a package, which is better for your overall system security.

My biggest gripe with OSX is that the default way of installing software is via manual downloading. Sure OSX has the AppStore, but that’s mostly garbage. Homebrew is a hell of a lot better but it’s frustrating that I have to install a 3rd party package manager on a modern OS.

I get your rant about shared libraries but you can get around those problems surprisingly easily (eg you can ship your SOs in the package directory like you might with DLLs in Windows. Or you could just statistically compile your binaries and do away without the SO problem entirely). Problems with SOs are something you’d expect a junior Linux sysadmin to learn so any developer or maintainer worth their salt should have already figured this out.

I assume you install different browser than Safari. So is it frustrating that you have to install 3rd party browser?

Come on homebrew is awesome. Install is easy and then you just point brew bundle to file with everything you need, go for coffe and your computer is ready.

> I assume you install different browser than Safari. So is it frustrating that you have to install 3rd party browser?

That’s not really the same because Firefox isn’t a core part of an OS and Safari is actually a pretty decent browser in its own right.

Whereas a package manager should be a core part of an OS (just as it is on any other UNIX-like OS) and OSX is, in my personal opinion, crippled without running homebrew (or similar)

> Come on homebrew is awesome. Install is easy and then you just point brew bundle to file with everything you need, go for coffe and your computer is ready.

Homebrew is ok. It’s not the best example of a package manager out there but it does it’s job well. However my point wasn’t about homebrew specifically but rather that OSX should have been built with a proper package manager from the outset. And no, the App Store doesn’t count because that’s completely inadequate in almost every department.

> And no, the App Store doesn’t count because that’s completely inadequate in almost every department.

Apple would disagree. They quite clearly believe that all software should be able to fit inside their sandboxed app store model. I think they're completely wrong about this, but that's beside the point.

Of course Apple would disagree. It’s hardly surprising that companies will defend their income streams even when those products are actually pretty rubbish.

I was surprised when VSCode snap told me that I should start using different snap to install new versions if VSCode and that my settings would be kept. And it did. So there is some way to respect users settings across snaps at least

Possibly how it's done: the settings are stored in a config directory, like ~/.vscode or something.

For instance, my neovim AppImage works this way (it still reads ~/.config/nvim/init.vim like regular neovim).

The official VS Code snap is unconfined, ie. it only uses snap for package management without the sandbox. This means it can access the settings stored in your home directory just the same as if it was installed through apt.

Snaps with strict confinement can also ask for home directory access as a specific permission.

Just from reading the docs, it looks like your settings will be respected. By default it doesn't look like there's any sandboxing / namespaces happening. Haven't tried it in practice though.

Not any better than Flatpak or Snap in my experience, since Appimage applications have to (technically) ship their own libraries for everything.

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