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by rbanffy 53 days ago
> With Linux, you have to target specific distros, do something insane like a giant bundle of everything,

This is what you do for Flatpack, Steam, or Docker. All these are popular options.

> Oh and I almost forgot.. install scripts that detect distros, install dependencies.

Most distros offer tooling to make packages for their package managers. With them you declare the dependencies you want and the package manager does the rest.

> And god help you if you need to ship a kernel module.

The right way to do it is to open source it and let the installer compile the software against the kernel headers. Sysdig and VirtualBox do that.

1 comments

>This is what you do for Flatpack, Steam, or Docker. All these are popular options.

Yes, Flatpak is decent, but its a separate runtime with its own sandbox and perms that can sometimes make things more awkward for things like accessing host components installed outside of flatpak e.g. IDE running installed compilers, and compilers accessing project files inside the sandbox. But yes, its nice when it works.

Docker is the nuclear option. Fundamentally, I don't see Docker as a good and legitimate way to ship software (I already ranted about the giant bundle of everything approach!). I can also image my entire dev box as a VM and ship software that way too :P