I’ve been transitioning to Linux recently and have been forced to use github a lot when I hadn’t much before. Here is my assessment.

Every github project is named something like dbutils, Jason’s cool photo picker, or jibbly, and was forked from an abandoned project called EHT-sh (acronym meaning unknown) originally made by frederick lumberg, forked and owned by boops_snoops and actively maintained by Xxweeb-lord69xX.

There are either 3 lines of documentation and no releases page, or a 15 page long readme with weekly releases for the last 15 years and nothing in between. It is either for linux, windows, or both. If it’s for windows, they will not specify what platforms it runs on. If it’s for Linux, there’s a 50% chance there are no releases and 2 lines of commands showing how to build it (which doesn’t work on your distro), but don’t worry because your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date and it magically appears on flatpak only after you’ve installed it by other means. Everything is written in python2. It is illegal to release anything for Mac OS on github.

  • Fliegenpilzgünni@slrpnk.net
    0·
    3 months ago

    Just a small (or maybe big?) tip for you 🙂

    If it’s for Linux, there’s a 50% chance there are no releases and 2 lines of commands showing how to build it (which doesn’t work on your distro), but don’t worry because your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date

    There’s a tool called Distrobox.
    You can install it (via CLI I think?), and then manage it the easiest graphically way via BoxBuddy (available in your Software Center), or just the terminal if you prefer it.

    With it, you can screw all those “Doesn’t work on my distro” moments.

    You’re on Linux Mint? No problems, here’s the AUR for you!

    ✨✨✨ BONUS: Your OS won’t break anymore randomly due to some AUR incompatibility, because everything is containerized! ✨✨✨

    Even if you run Arch, use it to install AUR stuff. Or Debian/ Ubuntu, add PPAs only via Distrobox.

    It’s absolutely no virtual machine. It basically only creates a small, lightweight container with all dependencies, but it runs on your host. Similar to Flatpaks.

    You can also export the software, and then it’s just like you would have installed it natively!
    Your distro choice doesn’t matter anymore. You now can run any software written only for Suse, an abandoned Debian version 10 years ago, Arch, Fedora, Void, whatever. It’s all the same.

    I hope that was helpful :)