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Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

It's awesome that the Linux version is distributed right on the website as an AppImage next to the Windows and MacOS downloads. I very much appreciate software that doesn't require me to wait for a third party maintainer to get around to building it for every distro or require me to add a new repo to a config file somewhere just to use the latest version.

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I've become a big fan of AppImages. I found a project on Github called AppImageInstaller which will create a Gnome/KDE integration shortcut for you and move the AppImage file to a "programs" directory of your choosing.

I usually just "Open with AppImageInstaller" when I download them, it pops up and asks if you want to run once or integrate. When you get a new version you can right-click the old one's shortcut/icon and AppImageInstaller's integration give you a "remove from system" type option.

I use Cura as an AppImage, FreeCAD, Lens (Kubernetes "IDE") Zettlr, and a few others as AppImages. It's really clean and convenient.

It really upsets me when I find tools I want only have snaps, because like any sane person, I kill snapd the second I install an Ubuntu system (Laptops) and I run Manjaro on my desktop so snapd isn't going anywhere near it.

I think Plasma automatically integrates AppImages on the first time you launch one.

Interesting, I'll have to see whether I really need the AppImageInstaller on my desktop then. Thanks for the note.

You are in the target group for Arch Linux. Highly recommended.

I don't see how. Arch still heavily relies on a repo and volunteer package maintainers.

Arch's Krita was updated to 4.4.0-4 at 2020-10-13 18:23 UTC, approximately 18 hours and 52 minutes ago.

While I can't see when the original blog post was submitted, I know this forum post was posted 2 hours ago. Are you sure you would benefit from updating even faster?

EDIT: In any case, you could use the AUR package that points directly to the git repo.

Would the AUR let me have the current Krita and the old one installed simultaneously? My experience with repo/package models suggests it very much would not.

> Would the AUR let me have the current Krita and the old one installed simultaneously?

I doubt it.

> My experience with repo/package models suggests it very much would not.

The Nix package manager would. However, I have no idea if their packages are kept up-to-date like that.

I don't think so. It should be possible to install the older version in different prefix (e.g. `./configure --prefix=/opt`) but I don't think AUR supports multiple slots (like portage does) out of the box.

My cursory search on the interweb did not yield any promising results on the Arch wiki either. Happy to be corrected, of course.

If you comment out that your aur build provides and conflicts with krita and install it under /usr/local or some such you can do parallel installs.

Not if you want to run more versions side by side including betas, if you are a professional you don;t update your tools mid-project and pray it will be fine.

That's what Nix(OS) is for :)

Great, so I'll just go ahead and learn a new language just to install software, that's totally reasonable.

You don't really need to do that though. You can also use nix-env to install software.

Self contained apps like app images and .tar.gz also work most of the time.

While Nix is great - don't forget the venerable portage :-)

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