by hnlmorg | 2025-12-06 22:28:51+00:00
> You don't install the same things using Homebrew and Flatpak. You install apps through Flatpak, and non-apps through Homebrew etc. There aren't two ways to install apps.

except from a user perspective there is. You have to first consider what type of app you want, and then search for it using the correct package manager.

As I said, if they had a single UI that managed both flatpak and homebrew, then it would be different. Users shouldn’t need to know which technology was used to download and install a particular package - that's a technical distinction that should be abstracted away by the "App Store".

Now I completely understand why they've taken the approach they have. But they've made a technical decision to fragment the UX while advertising the app store for its simplicity.

> No, you're just arbitrarily asking for them to make changes based on your misunderstandings of the use cases of each tool.

I'm not asking them to make any changes and I definitely do not misunderstand these tools (fun fact: I maintain a few open source projects -- so I'm probably more familiar than most with how brew et al actually work).

I'm simply pointing out how their advertising doesn't gel with the reality of the UX they're providing. It is feedback, not a request nor demand.

But for what it's worth, if they did decide they wanted to look into the possibility or a "single pane of glass" for all app management, then KDE already has a tool that might work here and which already supports pulling from different sources via extensions: Discover (https://apps.kde.org/discover). So it might be worth them taking a look at the viability of use that (again, just feedback, not a request).

> No, that's not the only reason

That’s not a rebuttal. It’s just a contradiction.

> you're looking at the project with an extremely narrow lense

I’m really not. I’m comparing it against my 30 years of professional experience with Linux (and UNIX as a whole) administration and highlighting areas where their docs are coming across as amateurish.

I’m open to being proven there there is more going on than appears, but your replies amount to “you’re wrong” without actually providing any detail why.

I run Linux workstations and because I don't get paid for keeping my workstation up to date, I do look for something that's as low-effort to maintain as possible. So it's quite possible I'm the target audience for Aurora. But the project does such a poor job of explaining why I should use this instead of any of the hundreds of other distros.

This isn't me being narrow-minded because, as I said elsewhere, it's their job to convince me that I can trust them with my hardware and my sensitive data. And their site, in it's current state, doesn't do a good job of that. In it's current state, it feels like it's being managed by people who don't have a whole lot of experience in this field.

But as I also said elsewhere, I know better than most just how hard it is to get a landing page right for a project as complex as an OS. So I'm being critical from a place of empathy rather than dismissiveness.

> If you'd spend 5 seconds reading up on the technology, you could easily steelman a better argument.

I was asking you a question. There’s no need to be confrontational with me.