i hate that it's very often like this

Well the solution here is to just use the superior distro, naturally.
This post will surely upset nobody.
- the superior distro
  Finally, puppy linux is getting the recognition it deserves
  
  I ordered something from someone awhile back and it came with a free flash drive in the shape of a credit card. It had pictures of puppies on it so naturally it's a puppy linux drive now.
  This is entirely irrelevant but hopefully someone gets a smile out of it.
  
  I think you mean Hannah Montana Linux.
  
  Puppy ftw
  
  Puppy's awesome. I've used it on a laptop so old I had to install a bootloader in the MBR so it would boot from USB. It ran like a dream.
  
  Red Hat 5.0 for lyfe.
  Kernel 2.0.36 represent! ✊
- When did TempleOS start supporting .deb files?
  
  Agreed. Debian Linux is just a children distro with a fibonacci logo that god created.
- You're right! If a deb file exists then surely it's in the AUR. ABS will repackage it seamlessly for you and then install it directly with Pacman.
  
  Btw I use Arch
  
  TRIGGERED
- Linux mint ftw
- BRB. Sharpening my teeth.
- is there a way to make it work like a rolling release of sorts? i'd want to use debian, but i don't want to stay with old packages and wait 2 years for an update
  
  You could use debian testing. It's a somewhat "rolling-release" model. You will get more up to date packages with more stability too.
  You could also use unstable, but I wouldn't recommend it personally.
  Edit: if you really need the most up to date version of some packages, you can pin them to use the unstable repo. This would be a pretty reasonable solution.
  
  You could just go with Debian unstable. I rarely ran into issues while running it in a rolling release style.
  Debian testing might also work for you. But it will have a freeze window before each release.
  
  sparky Linux is based on Debian and it has stable and rolling release
- Most of such packages, be it deb rpm or really whatever, have their AUR entry, install and run fine on Arch.
- Savage. 💣

I don't care I use Arch BTW. Someone would have made a AUR package for it by now.
- Most of the air is converted deb
  
  Can you breathe converted deb?
- I would have never guessed an Arch linux user would go by reddit_sux
  
  My other fediverse account is reddit_sux@iusearchlinux.fyi just to hammer the point even more.

As someone who's used debian based distros for 20+ years now, I see no issue with this. ;)
- I use Debian btw
  
  Testing or bust.
- As an Ubuntu user of 17+ years, I concur.
- Only problem is remembering to keep it updated.

Even worse: the .deb file's dependences are only available in a specific version of Ubuntu LTS or with PPAs.

That's where the AUR comes in. Some neckbeard somewhere has already made an AUR package of that.
- Then we should appreciate them. Is it fair to call them neckbeards when they toil away at the code coalface for our benefit?
  
  Well ... do they have a neckbeard? /s
  
  This is literally me calling a marine "Jarhead" or "grunt". Sorry, military habits never die. I'm showing them love by calling them that, at least that's what my intentions are.
- Shit half the time it's right in the main repo under Extra.
  
  This is why Arch is the best. Forget the rolling release, it's the sheer size of the repos for me.
- Or the OpenSUSE OBS instance for OpenSUSE, it has repositories with packages for almost anything.
  It's kind of hard to find but you can browse everything at http://software.opensuse.org

Nothing Distrobox can't fix. I can run AUR, RPM, and even those deb files that only run on Ubuntu for some damn reason on my Debiain system.
It's probably already in your default repos too.
- even those deb files that only run on Ubuntu for some damn reason on my Debiain system.
  FUCK i understand now! the software i wanted to install had a .deb but its website said it was for ubuntu 20.04, no wonder it didn't work on a debian container!
  i'll try this RIGHT NOW, hope it works!
  
  it didn't work, but i soon found out by looking at it's entry on the AUR that the package is itself broken, not the distro environment it's supposed to be installed on
  
  It's seriously frustrating. I had this happen just last night, but fortunately I was able to get the app I needed another way.
- This shit is crazy thanks for letting me know
- How does distro box do with more complicated gui based applications?
  
  Yup. Should work fine. I know some people use this to get Divinci Resolve to work on Ubuntu.
  
  The only thing I've had problems with is a VPN
- What about Cisco packet tracer?
  
  It's worth a shot!

Give it 2 days and chances are someone has already published a PKGBUILD in the AUR
- aur?
  
  Arch User Repository. If you're using Arch, you get the basic stuff from the official repositories. But for most programs there's the AUR. They're often less polished, some of it may be proprietary. There are package managers dedicated for it, that also know to handle the official repositories.

Ain’t my fault you forgot about dpkg -i ;-)
- I remember alien back in the day.
  Edit: holy shit this is still maintained https://wiki.debian.org/Alien
  
  holy shit this is still maintained
  The struggles of a Linux user
  
  holy shit i had no idea lol

This is why you use glorious Debian.
- Just switched a couple of my systems from Pop and Fedora (gnome) to Debian 12 w/ KDE Plasma.
  All in l I like it. I don’t like where Canonical or RedHat are moving, for the FOSS consumer. Canonical is making huge strides as an enterprise distro but for home use I’ve really moved away from it since Unity.
  Originally I went Fedora because my office was a RHEL shop but we’re moving towards Ubuntu.
  
  I'm a light Linux user with windows 11 on my work dev machine.
  I started using Linux Mint and it's the right speed for me. Switched to Mint LMDE 6. It's smooth.
- (☝◞‸◟)☞

Thankfully RHEL/Centos/Fedora also get attention thanks to the large corporate influence.
Anything else can just be compiled from scratch, after spending 6 hours trying to figure out what ajfiwn-0-libs-dev is in redhat land, only to find out it was libfiwn-devel all along.
- pkgs.org with pkgconifg(package-name) as the search string: let me introduce myself
  
  Nobody needs a website, literally just dnf install "pkgconfig(libfoo-1)" or dnf install /usr/include/fooheader.h. Most sane package manager ever.

stick it into a distrobox container and then package that into a flatpak on the AUR. 😎👍
- I know all the words that aren't nouns in that sentence!
  
  distrobox: Tool for creating one-off containers of a different Linux distro.
  container: A virtual OS environment that runs on your computer, but doesn't know that it's running in your computer. It's not the same as a VM or emulator.
  flatpak: A tool designed by RedHat for running sandboxed Linux programs in any environment. Flatpak can either refer to the system as a whole (eg: "You need to install flatpak on your machine to use our tools") or an individual program packaged for the flatpak system (eg: "You must download the latest flatpak of Firefox").
  AUR: The Arch User Repository. A collection of installation scripts to add software to Arch Linux. These scripts are not owned or maintained by anyone officially affiliated with Arch, so you can find AUR packages for almost anything.
  So, the comment becomes: Stick it in a dedicated environment designed to run Debian. Then package it so anyone can run it. Then make it easy for anyone running Arch Linux to install it.

Only n00bs install packages. Cool people compile from source.
- That's still just mid level. Cool people codes everything from scratch by just looking at some pictures
  
  Only n00bs code their programs from scratch. Cool people build their own kernel, OS, compiler, and coding language, and they already have that program built in.
  
  Wrong, they use butterflies.
  
  TempleOS has entered the chat.
- Only available as Deb file.
  
  He forgot to compile reading comprehension from source.
  
  He is so cool that he is reverse engineering the source and compiling from there.
  
  HE'S TRYING TO INSTALL PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE!!! GET THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS!!!!

I don't know what the Linux community's consensus on appimages are, but I wouldn't mind if people made more appimages because, for the few distros I've used, appimages just usually work.
- AppImages are definitely convient to use. However the two issues I have with them are that there's no easy way to find them (eg flathub) and they're not automatically integrated with the DE. Requiring a tool that manages AppImages to make it easier.
  
  Appimages are supposed to be distributed the same way Windows and Mac software is distributed, that's kind of the point.
  As for management, I agree distros should ship with an appimage manager.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/alien-pkg-convert/
It's only been around like forever.
- I was gonna say "has no one in here heard of alien?". I've rarely ever had to use it... because I use Arch.
- alien never worked for me, i tried once but it led to an unistallable package
  
  alien never worked for me
  I tried it once
  Lol

- Arch is viable because the AUR is full of converted debs and package managers keep things up to date. Most distros have a method to install this kind of software but honestly universal out of the box flatpak support can’t come soon enough for consumer distros. We need canonical to give up on snap for Ubuntu desktop

Debtap is suprisingly easy to use after switching to arch (highly recommend), but i actually love .deb files. Obviously it's a slight risk to the user in the similar way dot EXE's can be for windows , but they really do simplify package management for when you're newer to linux.

We don't have this kind of weakness on Arch. Apes together strong. Porting magic language to our world.
- We still need to fix their deb only release

BlendOS Will let you install virtually any package format through containerization, but it shows up just as if it was a native app. It's pretty neat to see and I hope more distros adopt this

Someone explain this to my dumb ass.
- Deb files are debian packages, so if you're not on debian you can't install it
  
  I don't understand why would people not be on debian does not compute
  
  If it is only available as a .deb, it is probably targeting Ubuntu specifically.
  Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian and uses the same package format. Ubuntu is much more popular though and the packages are not completely compatible.
  
  … Debian, or one of the many excellent Debian-based distros

Where distrobox

My dumbass without DistroBox:
bash

$ ar x package.deb

Ah, a wild deb-file. Let's add it to my frankendebian.

And again... Distrobox is your friend. Me, I like an immutable OS (kinoite) but I still want the AUR…

    
distrobox-create --name arch --image archlinux:latest
distrobox enter arch
install yay as normal
yay -S vscodium
distrobox-export --app vscodium
yay exa
distrobox-export --bin /usr/sbin/exa
exit [back to kinoite]
exa [works]
vscodium [works, has icon in application launcher]

Try it, you might like it !

As someone who’s never used Linux, TIL that software doesn’t work across all flavours of Linux.
- Well it does technically, the issue we're talking about is how it's packaged, one you extract the package the software will work just the same (assuming there aren't any version mismatches between kernel modules). DEBs (Debian based distros) and RPMs (RedHat based distros) are the two biggest package formats, the next common format is a tar ball.
  
  Add to this, this gives birth to more modern packaging format like flatpak, appimage, and snap, that works across all distro with proper permission control.
  Now for most graphical apps, you just search on the app store and click install, like a iphone user.
- The software itself should run, but the installers themselves use different standards. I'm pretty sure you could set up your own distro to use installers from different one, though it may require some work.
- now you know 😫
- Windows kind of has that too, with all the .MSI, .exe, .msix and all the appxpackages and how almost none of that works out of the box anymore because you'd otherwise be able to install another browser without opening edge once
  
  I’m a Mac user, so they made it as simple as possible for our simple brains. That said, no old 32bit Steam games for me ☹️

Debtap to the rescue

The true solution is... build from source.
- But what if it's closed source?
  
  Then reject it.
  EDIT: I accidentally thought it was written on another thread.

su alien yourprogram.deb

If you use arch that isnt a problem
- It's just maintaining arch that was a bit of a headache for me. I loved having access to the AUR and being able to use bleeding edge.. well, everything. But too much of my time ended up going to fixing issues after updates or finding out what package to choose when there were conflicts during updates.
  
  endeavouros (based on arch, sway wm) is working great for me and I update it nearly every day

just run it through alien and hope
- already did once, it led me to an uninstallable package
  
  Open it up in midnight commander, and it will unpack it into a virtual directory structure, complete with install/uninstall scripts.
  Look at the install script to see what it's thinking, pull out the file structure, copy into your filesystem.
  Oh, and hope. Because often you need to get matching glibc and other dynamic libraries that the program was compiled against. Which isn't the end of the world as the dynamic linker will look in the local directory where the program is first for libraries, but it becomes a hassle pretty quickly.
  
  hence why I said hope
  
  Llllllllllllllllllllllllllllollolllllllllllllllloooooooooooooiollllomkuuu'kj|mlll

So what? You don't know how to unpack .deb?

I'll give you one more, what about software that doesn't package it at all and gives you a tar?
- Yeah, I hate those with a passion. Or those who send you to a GitHub page that explains nothing, gives you the tar and expects you to read their mind 😂

Yehaa, a .deb file, letz install and just have fun
- Just unpack it you say?

laughs in docker

FROM debian:bookworm RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y the-deb
- @synae @nekothegamer there is something called distrobox which works alike https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox#installation

i'm pretty sure you can extract them with ar x and get the binary
- You could also attempt converting them with alien or FPM

Alien

- Check out Distrobox or Toolbox

- i don't i use armcord most of the time

the struggle is real

Distrobox, our hero

Signal's shitty electron app.

Isn't deb just a compressed file? Can't you just decompress it, check its dependencies and install it yourself?
- What could possibly go wrong with running precompiled binaries that were linked to a set of precompiled libraries with a completely different set of precompiled libraries.
  
  You're not wrong, it's definitely not something a n00b should attempt in most cases. But I've done this before to save myself the need for distrobox. A lot of proprietary software only offers .deb, but is usually either statically linked or comes with its own set of nearly all the libraries it needs. So just extracting and running it often does the trick on non-debian distros like Fedora in my case.
  Seriously though, just use distrobox or see if there's an unofficial package for your distro that you trust (AUR/copr/ppa/OBS). It's more straight forward especially if you don't know what you're doing.
  
  Nothing, lol. I have no issues running precompiled binaries on a fucking source-based distro.
  
  I don't think the libraries would be in much different places but I think it would come down to the application and imprlementation
- It is. Fancy tarball.

me, who definitely knows how to and in fact totally prefers to build everything from source: [nervous laughter] yeah what kinda dingus exclusively uses .debs amirite?
- That's not the point. It's about how you might be using a distro that isn't debian-based

Try the VanillaOS 2.0 alpha?
https://handbook.vanillaos.org/2023/01/11/install-and-manage-applications.html

debtap exists
- ...for arch linux

ahem ahem discord
- It is technically available as a tar.gz, but I'm not sure who they think is going to install that

With my finger on the trigger / I run dot slash configure / yo this package is big / but my package is bigger

Compile it from source?

Or:
Software has a Linux version and it only comes as a .deb
Depends on a load of packages exclusive to Ubuntu and installing it on stock Debian is bloody impossible
Yeah I remember when Steam came to Linux. Never got it to work. I hope it is better nowadays? (Sadly can't check. My only pure Linux box at the moment is a Raspberry Pi, I don't expect Steam to run on that either)
- You can get Steam on just about any distro, for years at this point. And there's always Flatpak for these cases too although for Steam I recommend native packages.
- Steam works fine for me. On Gentoo.

?!? I'm not sure to understand this post? I will only install stuff that are .deb, not big image or snap or whatever?!?
What's the problem with deb when you are using debian based distro? Else you can easily extract the content and cp it in place
- The meme is about running a non-Debian distro and finding only .deb installers.
  
  Thx, captain.
  
  Then treat is as tarball
- but what about people that are not on debian or debian based distros... like me?
  
  ding dong your distro is wrong
  I will disclaim I’ve only used Debian based so I’m in no place to judge.

No offense, but debs are just objectively better than rpms. I use both
- it doesn't matter which one is better, it's about compatibily, and there's no way to install .debs on, like, rpm based distros without getting completely broken uninstallable packages
  
  Distrobox is the way. Running Fedora and I have debian and arch boxes (with their own home dir) installed. Graphical applications work without any fuss and I have yet to run into an issue.
  
  Yes, that is why flatpak is a nice system
  
  I use Arch now but when I used Linux Mint, I used a rpm to deb converter sometimes, i don't know how, it always worked