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Make Apps for Linux

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Re: Make Apps for Linux

#111

Post by Kalanos »

znpy wrote: post #96
Kalanos wrote: post #14

I recently switched from Mac to Linux so that I can use beefy refurbished machines as my daily driver. I've installed Linux on lots of different machines previously, but this time it's not just a hobby. Ubuntu has great support for my hardware and peripherals, but the app store feels unfinished and forced. Pretty much everything works as expected. I'm interested in checking out Mint (also Debian) and Arch, but it fee…

Do yourself a favor and give Fedora a try. I wish I had done that earlier.

I used AWS Workspaces for a while and that ran Fedora. It was nice, but I wasn't blown away. I seem to remember not being able to find some yum packages where there were apt counterparts.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#112

Post by [deleted] »

squarefoot wrote: post #42

More software? Wonderful! I'm all for it, but before starting something from scratch why not contribute to something that already exists, or possibly pick some project that was abandoned or simply needs to be worked on for example to be built with newer compilers, run on newer hardware, etc. Which makes me wonder if there is somewhere a database of dormant/dead projects that would deserve to be resurrected.

[deleted]

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#113

Post by rubymamis »

tomcam wrote: post #67
rubymamis wrote: post #20

The problem is OSS software not even trying to compete with the market. People using OSS software taking it for granted that the UX is going to be subpar, and it really is. Regular propriety software faces the risk of their users not paying, therefore adapting to make end user experience great. OSS usually doesn't have that risk. Open source needs to be exposed to risk from end users. I tried to change that with Note…

Thanks for sharing. Appreciate your fighting the good fight, and sorry for the results so far. Maybe apply for a Futo scholarship for one? But definitely close source for Plume.

No need to be sorry, really. I'm just learning how to navigate this world. I've been pretty lucky so far. Notes is one of the top results in Google (for the keyword "notes"). So I get a lot of traffic and a nice passive income. But it's not something I can fully live on (plus it's unstable and I hate serving ads).

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#114

Post by zer0zzz »

znpy wrote: post #91
zer0zzz wrote: post #34

I think the premise is wrong when there still doesn’t exist a core set of frameworks that are abi stable on Linux. On competing platforms there are way more frameworks out of the box (CoreImage, CoreAudio, CodeML, SceneKit, AppKit, etc) and they don’t break as often. I know in Linux they have fun things like snap and flatpak but it is really solving the problem using a bit of infrastructure and package management ins…

> and they don’t break as often. Meh, kinda. It's not a case that proprietary software vendors only target RHEL, Suse and Ubuntu. RHEL is a perfect target for stable software and Ubuntu might be as well if you decide to only support LTS releases.

Targeting only a hand full of frozen releases is not abi stability. Abi stability is when any app can be compiled off any release and run on any future release (and ideally older releases too).

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#115

Post by timfsu »

cardanome wrote: post #76
colesantiago wrote: post #4

This has always been an issue for Linux adoption. Somebody I know (not in tech) wanted to switch from Windows to Linux and I said: "Which one?" It's the same as Mastodon. "Which instance?" The answer is usually the biggest / most popular instance or distro, but not many applications the masses use are on Linux, the same as there is not many interesting people on Mastodon for people to switch over to it. Applications…

The Linux ecosystem isn't as splintered as people think it is. Yes, there are technically lot's of distros but most of them are really just derivatives that don't add much. The vast majority of Desktop users just use Debian or Debian-based distros like Ubuntu, Linux Mint and so on. So in the end, it is just a matter of whatever pre-installed software you get. It used to be that vanilla Debian was a bit hard to use bu…

This is true for the user, but not good enough for developers, who unfortunately need to stay on top of all of this to build functioning software. If users report bugs you can’t repro, you may have to dive into all of these.

And that’s the point of the article really, to try and get more app developers onboard.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#117

Post by michaelmrose »

seabrookmx wrote: post #101
underseacables wrote: post #30

Segmentation has been tough for a Linux newbie like myself. I hope there can be greater unification some day so that applications have one install type, and come with greater predictability.

It's still annoying even if you're experienced with Linux. Especially if there's multiple install methods for the same app with different levels of support. Flatpak is the closest thing thus far, but certainly hasn't "won" yet.

This is actually a solvable problem. You provide a single store interface where you install flatpaks and traditional packages. Linux Mint does a pretty good job of this.

With Arch you can basically rely on system packages and the AUR for 99.9% of everything.

Either way wrapping an interface around 1 or more method is a fairly trivial matter.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#118

Post by zer0zzz »

smoldesu wrote: post #54
zer0zzz wrote: post #34

I think the premise is wrong when there still doesn’t exist a core set of frameworks that are abi stable on Linux. On competing platforms there are way more frameworks out of the box (CoreImage, CoreAudio, CodeML, SceneKit, AppKit, etc) and they don’t break as often. I know in Linux they have fun things like snap and flatpak but it is really solving the problem using a bit of infrastructure and package management ins…

Stuff like Flatpak and Snap exists because the framework side kinda is built-out. Isolation technology had matured, newer desktops emphasized per-window security and needed APIs to portal in and out of each instance. The desktops needed a packaging/infrastructure solution to tie that together and make it presentable to the user.

Yet I still can't compile an app on some arbitrary release of some arbitrary distro and just run the darn exe on another and be 100% sure it will work.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#119

Post by sylware »

zer0zzz wrote: post #110
sylware wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuplrits are mostly glibc devs with their manic abuse of version names (and very recently, a GENIUS who added a new ELF relocation type): this is a pain for game developers to provide binaries which span a reasonable set of distros in time. Basic game devs install one of the latest mainstream and massive distros, build there, and throw the binaries on steam... but that recent distro had a glibc 2.36 and now their bin…

I agree. I recall a talk from Linux Torvalds on how bad the glibc folks break things and why he won't ship a binary version of his scuba tool. If the binary breakages start with the darn C lib, you're gonna have recurring problems all the way up the stack on a regular basis I feel.

This has the case for 10 years with games on steam. The worst being libstdc++ ABI issues still around because many devs forget to statically link their c++ libs with -static-libstdc++. Because in windows, ABI stability is really good and then devs are used to that.

Re: Make Apps for Linux

#120

Post by freedomben »

rubymamis wrote: post #20

The problem is OSS software not even trying to compete with the market. People using OSS software taking it for granted that the UX is going to be subpar, and it really is. Regular propriety software faces the risk of their users not paying, therefore adapting to make end user experience great. OSS usually doesn't have that risk. Open source needs to be exposed to risk from end users. I tried to change that with Note…

There are definitely some challenges with getting people to pay for OSS, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame that all on what happened in this situation. I think you'd be experiencing the same (or worse) if your app was closed source for reasons I'll mention in a minute.

I'm the exact type of person who would be in your target market and likely to pay, but aside from having never heard of your app (which may be your biggest problem), these are the reasons I'm not buying. I'm only sharing this in the hopes that it helps you, not trying to make you feel bad or anything like that. Overall I think you're awesome for making your app open source, and I have a mountain of respect for you for doing that.

1. You're targeting a very crowded and competitive market where top-quality options are 100% free. This would be a huge challenge regardless of whether you're open source or not.

2. Your app is still very young/new. Winning in such a saturated area is going to take some time to even build awareness, let alone get mature/feature complete enough to get people to change.

3. With something like notes, you're looking at people with substantial pre-existing sources. Migration is not trivial either, so there's a big barrier of entry there for people to use your software.

I wish you the best, but I think you'd only be harming yourself by closing your next app. You definitely lose people like me for whom my notes are incredibly important and I won't risk losing them to a proprietary tool. Open is mandatory for me to even consider it.

I'm pretty happy (maybe even in love) with Logseq, but the performance is definitely a downside and the idea of a C++ app is highly appealing to me, so I'm going to give your app a try.

Side note: If your GUI was compatible with logseq's on-disk format, that would make your app quite compelling to me

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