Did we kill Linux's killer feature?
A few years ago we were able to upgrade everything (OS and Apps) using a single command. I remember this was something we boasted about when talking to Windows and Mac fans. It was such an amazing feature. Something that users of proprietary systems hadn't even heard about. We had this on desktops before things like Apple's App Store and Play Store were a thing.
We can no longer do that thanks to Flatpaks and Snaps as well as AppImages.
Recently i upgraded my Fedora system. I few days later i found out i was runnig some older apps since they were Flatpaks (i had completely forgotten how I installed bitwarden for instance.)
Do you miss the old system too?
Is it possible to bring back that experience? A unified, reliable CLI solution to make sure EVERYTHING is up to date?
If you use a graphical tool like gnome software, it will update everything with one click on a button
And sometimes it will even work!
Oh really. I should probably try that again sometime. Usually I just choose not to roll the dice on gnome, and update through the terminal instead.
Well I did say sometimes.
I would really love gnome software to add update on background feature and set update interval (update only once a month, hold update indefinitely etc.)
But fedora software center behavior is the most intuitive and easy compare to other popular desktop OS/distros: Mac, Windows, or Ubuntu.
It does background updates for flatpak. For system, just move to Silverblue.
I think it only downloads the update but you still need to click install to install it. I am looking for Google Play / Windows Store behavior, where the store juat keep my app up-to-date in the background, maybe push a notification after update is done or something.
I understand this behavior is not for everyone, but I think it should be a toggle at least.
It does the update here, on Fedora
I love and use Fedora but I still think Mints update manager is the best GUI implementation I ever used for updating, it has all the essentials, is easy to use and looks nice.
I have never used mint, so I dont know.
One of the thing that drived me from Ubuntu to Fedora is that Ubuntu has 3 different UI for system, apt, and snap/flatpak update. It feels really segmented.
I personally prefer Gnome experience more than any other DE (including windows and macOS). But mint only include Gnome version on Ubuntu LTS, so it is a bit dated. But no doubt that mint is extremely user friendly.
I prefer vanilla Gnome on Fedora too but Mint dose some things really well. Their update manager is nice but that's a Debian tool, their file manager (Nemo) on the other hand is something I still use, I just prefer it to Nautilus.
I like that the Mint UI show you that you are in sudo in a graphical app. It is really neat.
IIRC, if you do a file operation in Nemo that require sudo, then the file manager can directly ask you the password and lift itself to sudo, without needing to go into terminal. It is also pretty convenient.