[kragen]

Debian has had a "first party store" since the early 90s, and the truth is the diametrical opposite of "they're sufficiently unpopular that people don't think of them as the primary source to get apps". It's been almost the only way I install software (that I didn't write) on my Debian and Ubuntu machines since I moved to Debian. This is true of most Debian and Ubuntu users.

[gruez]

>Debian has had a "first party store" since the early 90s, and the truth is the diametrical opposite of "they're sufficiently unpopular that people don't think of them as the primary source to get apps".

Aren't those all considered first party apps? Sure, debian aren't the authors of nginx or whatever, but they're the people building, packaging it, and adding patches for it. It's a stretch to compare them to the play store or app store.

[kragen]

No, it's not a stretch at all. The user experience is the same, except that Debian and F-Droid apps don't come with antifeatures built in. The only friction is around who to report bugs to.

[gruez]

>No, it's not a stretch at all.

For one, it doesn't contain non-free software, and therefore can't be the primary source of software. Maybe you're a Stallman acolyte who only runs free software, but that's not feasible for the average user.

[kragen]

The average user might have one or two non-free programs they depend on that aren't websites. Maybe AutoCAD, or Photoshop, or SketchUp, or Excel, or the driver for their oscilloscope, or Dark Souls. Everything else can easily be free software or webapps. So an "app store" that doesn't contain non-free software can be the primary source of software, and for almost all Debian or Ubuntu users, it always has been.

The average Ubuntu user doesn't even have those one or two non-free programs. After all, Autodesk doesn't provide a version of AutoCAD for Linux in the first place.

[WD-42]

If you are running Linux non free software in the exception, not the rule. I myself can’t think of any that I run.

[kragen]

Try

    sudo apt install vrms

[WD-42]

Virtual Richard M. Stallman. This is hilarious, I'd never heard of this. Thanks for sharing.

No surprises on my system except for the firmware-intel-* packages. I thought those were free software? Must be binary blobs.

[pabs3]

Not sure that is entirely true:

https://wiki.debian.org/PrivacyIssues

[shakna]

Apt has supported multiple sources since inception. Debian is not the only supplier.

[gruez]

Right, but those would hardly be considered first party. Just because it goes through apt, doesn't mean it's first party.

[unscaled]

It only goes through "apt the program", but apt is just serving as a method of installing a package, which is hosted on one of the configured apt sources.

Calling all software installed through apt "first party" is a wild stretch, since you can apply the same logic to git, wget, or a web browser. For instance, it would probably be correct to say that most Windows software is downloaded and installed through Chrome, but nobody in their right mind would claim Google owns the largest first party store for Windows.

[shakna]

So is Debian the first party? Or the clone hosted by a university near you? You probably had a mirror there, not Debian's own host. Because they used to be the slowest.