How do you guys get software that is not in your distribution’s repositories?
I’m a technically savvy but new to Linux user who installed Mint as my primary OS about a month ago. So far I’ve used Flatpaks and AppImages without any issue and haven’t come across snaps. Would you explain the differences and why I would care about one over another?
At the end of the day, they’re just different ways of reaching the same goal: universal packages for Linux. I personally use them interchangeably depending on the application and use case.
There are some packages that definitely work better and are intended to be used and installed via your native package manager (if they rely on system libraries and whatnot). But using either a Flatpak or AppImage results in the same experience - in my experience. It’s a personal preference.
IMO flatpaks are the future of installing linux apps. The comment you replied to lives in the past. System package manager should be for system binaries, not for applications.
But I like my applications years out of date and I think its good that every distro has to spend manhours on packaging it individually.