There are similarities, but it's not some website that you can visit. Instead of only one store, each Linux distribution has it's own repo's. https://www.networkworld.com/article/3305810/how-to-list-repositories-on-linux.html
OK, I see. But just to clarify, I assume that just as on macOS, you can also simply download app installers from the web on Linux and Ubuntu for example?
You could do that if you want, but it's rather cumbersome... For example you can search on https://pkgs.org/ The easiest way is just search from within your OS. Then you know you get just the right package for your system. Some software, that is not available via your repositories, like e.g. TeamViewer (that I need to sometimes assist my sister), have to be obtained from their website: https://www.teamviewer.com/nl/download/linux/ And then download : Code: https://download.teamviewer.com/download/linux/teamviewer_amd64.deb Click; enter password and install. It adds it's own repository and will be updated from then on automatically.
For some applications, there are DEB, RPM and/or AUR packages available to download and install. For some applications, there is no repository version available, nor a Snap, AppImage, Flatpak, nor portable version available, and the only remaining option is DEB, RPM, or AUR. Examples are Vivaldi, SoftMaker FreeOffice and Tartube. I prefer to use repository software, or portable, AppImage, or Snap if I must. I use no DEB packages if I don't need to, nothing so far.
Or, if the repository version is just too old and not maintained any more, you'll have to resort to the last option: compile it from the source code (if that is still maintained). For example MPV Media Player, for which I used the PPA: https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/ archive/ubuntu/mpv-tests Not maintained for over a year... Now I build it myself using: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv-build
You can, but I think that's far from "simply download app installers from the web" that Rasheed187 asked.
Packages is better name. They are more like archives with executables. OS tools install them. Yes, you can download but if it is written in C/C++ it should be meant for specific version of specific distribution. Otherwise there may be API or binary interface incompatibility. Unless it is bundled with libraries, but it isn’t way it is supposed to work in Gnu/Linux. Packages do not have bundled libraries (except if package is itseld a library package of course). Instead they declare dependencies to other packages. That is why you may need to download and install tens or hundreds of packages after fresh install just for one program. It is better to use built-in tools be it GUI or CLI. When you install another program then these dependencies can reused, so your disk usage doesn’t grow.
Haven't you tried to add the repository manually? https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/manual-setup-vivaldi-linux-repositories/
The maintainer seems to be inactive at Launchpad (and at Ubuntu Forums) now. I hope all is well with him.
Just found another PPA: https://launchpad.net/~savoury1/ archive/ubuntu/mpv But I don't think I'll use it. Building it myself isn't that hard.
No, I don’t want to. It is closed source software that is not part of OS repository. I want more control about where and what Vivaldi installs.
Yes, this is what I meant. In other words there are some apps that are available in the DEB format and I assume it works just like on Windows and macOS. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, what exactly is the article about? Is it about not that many apps being available in the DEB format? For example, I saw that Vivaldi is also downloadable for Linux.
The thing with .deb packages is, that most of the time you need a different package of the same program for each distro version, because they depend on different versions of system libraries. However, for the programs that are available in the repositories of the specific distro's version, that is all conveniently handled by your package manager. The problem is, that if a program is not available in you repo's and you have to go hunting on the internet, you often see a number of .deb packages of the same program, each for a specific version of e.g. Ubuntu. That's why they invented these snaps, flatpacks and AppImages, which have the advantage that they work on all Linux versions, because the system library versions they require are bundled in it. However this has the disadvantage that they require a lot of disk space... Another disadvantage is, that you rely on the maintainer of that package to fix e.g. security issues in the included libraries... For example when a serious vulnerability in the OpenSSL library is fixed for your system, you don't know if it will be fixed in each and every flatpack, snap or AppImage... Room for improvement.
