The process for installation is more or less the same for all of them.

Linux Mint and PopOS are the “go to” suggestions. I really don’t like the way either of them look. I’m partial to GNOME for aesthetics and ease of use.

Bazzite comes with most of the stuff you will want pre-loaded, and also the cool Steam Deck Gamescope interface. It’s the only one I’ve used with seamless background updates like you might be accustomed to on Android or iOS. That’s my recommendation.

Not really anything they can do.

The best software doesn’t need to be trusted because it’s open source and self-hosted.

I haven’t looked into this in a while but I believe the current Beeper app only allows you to use Beeper servers, and is not open source, so for that reason, I say no.

The previous “Beeper Cloud” was open source and you could theoretically self host it and run it on your own server. Probably still can.

I stopped using it for a completely different reason:

Its intended to do something that the services it uses DO NOT want you doing. For that reason, they make it intentionally difficult to do. Apple demonstrated this really well when they predictably “patched” the iMessage loophole PyPush found. You’ll be logged out constantly, there are constant bugs caused by server-side changes, and your accounts will be flagged for “automated activity”.

Any convenience it’s supposed to give you is just negated by these complications.

Also it was acquired by Automattic a while back, which is, on it’s own, a great reason to avoid it.

1. Of course it does. Everything that’s not an iPhone does.

2. Doubt. Pixels have had the best photos for several years.

They’re functionally indifferent, for purposes of this conversation.

Tech Jesus made a tribute video.

If I know the name of the package/application

How do you know it?

There is a package manager for Windows

Yes, that’s what I said.

WinGet I believe

LOL it’s just called Microsoft store, my dude.

Objectively, huh?

Yes huh

I can have a package installed by the terminal before Discover (the GUI for installing packages) even opens

Just lying again. You’d have to go and search what words to type in first.

And going to a website to download an executable to install a specific piece of software, which you need to give permission when executing to get through the firewall because (to your system) it’s just some random executable, isn’t?

I don’t know what you aren’t understanding about this. All 3 OSs have package managers that function similarly. What I’m talking about is when the software is not available in the package manager…

Then having that executable check for updates when launched and sending you to the website to download a new installer

You’ve really never used Windows before, have you? That’s once again not how it works. Maybe give it a go and come back after you’ve got some experience.

Is Microsoft paying you?

You could make an argument for such a thing insofar as time is money. And like they say “Linux is free so long as your time is worth nothing.”

It does a lot more than it’s told and you know that

All different tasks under the umbrella of “install this software”. I don’t understand the relevance.

Ideally, yes. Whatever you want. Not whatever bad actors want.

So Windows will install malicious software and Linux won’t…? Even if you tell it to? No.

The answer is the file extension doesn’t do anything

Again I don’t understand the relevance.

Glad we sorted that out.

I think you misunderstood.

I didn’t.

It will anything whether it should or not.

It does what it’s told, which is the way an OS should work.

It can be made to execute a payload that shouldn’t be run.

And Linux can’t? Isn’t that the whole thing about Linux and open software is that it can be made to do whatever you want?

Having an app store is easier than expecting people to download things from the internet

…how exactly do you think the app store works?

Do you just not realize that Windows and Mac also have app stores?

Yeah this is everything the Steam Deck is not:

1. Crazy expensive
2. Disposable/unrepairable
3. Windows trash
4. Chinese gobbledygook company that will disappear from existence in 6 months

I mean they squeezed all the blood from that orange. Not that that ever stopped Ubisoft…

This isn’t the sea. There are no waves LOL

That’s not how you install stuff on Linux normally

It’s not how you “normally” install stuff on Windows or Mac either. But often times the software you need isn’t available in a package manager. If everything was available as a flatpak I would take it all back, but that doesn’t even remotely resemble reality.

I find that faster and easier than using a GUI

It is neither of those things. Objectively.

the GUI option is there and dead simple and easy for people who can’t be asked to learn how to use the most basic tools on their computer.

The phrase you’re looking for is “can’t be arsed” but you’re wrong anyway. The problem is not that we “can’t be arsed”, the problem is that it’s an unnecessarily convoluted and unintuitive process.

I see.

But you can do all of that with an app on your local device.

I can’t believe that a project hasn’t previously heavily focused on becoming a fully feature complete Self-hosted Podcast platform

…y tho? What’s the point?

The problem is using Proxmox…