arcterus

Personally, basically no one I know uses the app stores on windows or macos much. These app stores are actually functional in that they have proprietary apps and allow purchases. There is basically 0 chance Linux will become popular if you can only install things through an app store (especially those that make it hard/impossible to buy proprietary apps). Additionally, desktop Linux is not particularly secure anyway. Flatpaks are helpful here, but most require manual tuning of their sandbox to actually be secure, which the average user is 100% not gonna do. On top of this, what do you do when an app is not available in your curated app store? Do you download it directly online? Do you trust some random repository you find online that can be filled with who knows what at a later point? Or do you just say “oh well sucks to be you I guess?” If you download it directly online, then it may not even have dependency information. If it doesn’t embed dependency information, then it’s basically useless to your average person. It also has the problem you mentioned of someone downloading the wrong executable. Likewise, the other two options are IMO just not viable.

IMO, the only way for a package manager/app store solution to work is:

1. The platform is built around it from day 1
2. The platform has a large number of developers submitting their packages to it (as opposed to the distro maintainers having to track down changes themselves)
3. The app store has payment methods
4. The app store has proprietary apps
5. The app store has a large number of reviewers that can check the apps submitted in a timely manner
6. Probably bundling dependencies with the apps.
7. The app store has a functional review system with users actually leaving reviews.
8. Going along with the reviews, going through the app store (as opposed to using the package manager directly) may need to be a requirement to encourage reviews, at least at first.

Basically, it needs to be an iOS/Android situation, with a similarly large company backing it. I should also note that it’s possible to install malware on iOS/Android, just harder, and the scope is usually less severe because of sandboxing.

EDIT: Also, it’s entirely possible to do one-click installs in a “safe” way, by requiring that developers get their apps signed by whoever makes the distro (like macos gatekeeper or whatever it’s called).

EDIT 2: I should also note that just being “different” is enough for people not to use something. If something basic, like the way to install apps, is different enough, people may just decide they don’t like it. My relatives would likely do this, for instance.

• Needs to come pre-installed on computers.
• Pre-installed distro needs to support one-click installation (like .app or .exe).
• Pre-installed distro needs to have be easily searchable (for problems, and e.g. searching “chrome DISTRO_NAME” needs to pop up with a link to the one-click installer).
• Pre-installed distro needs to run perfectly out-of-the-box, no fiddling with drivers, no needing to issue a random shell command for some random issue.
• UI needs to be intuitive. Probably something like KDE. Could maybe do Elementary or GNOME with dash-to-dock or something.
• Updates should be easy. Ideally apps can self-update or the apps will indicate if they need an update and have a button opening up an updater that can update all your apps/the OS.
• Updates for minor programs need to be hidden/rolled into OS updates. Most people aren’t gonna want to see that glibc updated.
• Better management of stuff like VPNs (probably not important for the average user, but e.g. NetworkManager’s GUI support is kinda shit).
• If using GNOME, need to have app indicator stuff pre-installed (if I’m being honest, the fact it’s not built-in is absurd).
• Needs to come with good basic apps. Some of the default apps included with DEs are kinda shit. There is still no truly good mail client IMO (at least that doesn’t look dated AF).

Probably more.

EDIT: Something like Lutris should probably be integrated into the OS. Installing non-Steam games is a minor hassle at the moment IMO.

Even without the US being involved, this sounds kinda sketchy since they’re basically just dumping some chemical on your eyes that doesn’t have real long-term studies AFAIK. I wouldn’t use something like that until it hasn’t been shown to eat your eyes or something over the course of 40 years.

IIRC it took them a little while to add support, but I was more thinking of stuff like KeePass. KeePassXC has passkey support, but AFAIK none of the Android apps do yet (although it sounds like KeePassDX is getting close, finally). Also, when I was using Bitwarden, I had issues with some services not liking its passkey implementation (despite being fine with Proton Pass for whatever reason). May be fixed now, but it was incredibly annoying at the time.

I’ve never used them, but if you want streaming, you can use Moonlight/Sunshine. It’d be very cool if a project integrated everything together, so you could choose whether to download the games or stream them from the server.

The goal is basically to prevent end users from using weak passwords and to make it much harder for phishing to occur, both of which IMO are kind of necessary. The vendor lock-in and the slow development of FOSS implementations are not great though. It’s also not great how passkey support on at least Android seems to require proprietary blobs.