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My impression of github since switching to Linux

I’ve been transitioning to Linux recently and have been forced to use github a lot when I hadn’t much before. Here is my assessment.

Every github project is named something like dbutils, Jason’s cool photo picker, or jibbly, and was forked from an abandoned project called EHT-sh (acronym meaning unknown) originally made by frederick lumberg, forked and owned by boops_snoops and actively maintained by Xxweeb-lord69xX.

There are either 3 lines of documentation and no releases page, or a 15 page long readme with weekly releases for the last 15 years and nothing in between. It is either for linux, windows, or both. If it’s for windows, they will not specify what platforms it runs on. If it’s for Linux, there’s a 50% chance there are no releases and 2 lines of commands showing how to build it (which doesn’t work on your distro), but don’t worry because your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date and it magically appears on flatpak only after you’ve installed it by other means. Everything is written in python2. It is illegal to release anything for Mac OS on github.

GravitySpoiled ,

Interesting how we live in different bubbles ✌️

Alk OP ,

Yes the world of github and linux is vast and I am like a newborn baby. I hope to visit your bubble one day my friend.

BlackLaZoR ,

Wait until you install some package and then scratch your head not knowing how to run it.

SanicHegehog ,

Then think “I’ll figure it out later” but you never do. Only to be reminded of it a month later when you happen to see it scroll by in an apt-or-whatever package upgrade.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I should check that thing out again” you think to yourself. But you never do. Repeat for eternity.

HouseWolf ,

Devs who make the -h command actually useful are modern day saints.

Darohan ,

Helix Editor did this to me. They have so much documentation on their site about how to use the editor, how to extend it, theme it, etc., etc. What they didn’t seem to document, though, is that the binary is named hx, not helix :/

pmc ,

When I’m confused like that, I check packages.debian.org and open the file list for the package. That way I know what binaries are installed.

Darohan ,

Ooh, I’ll keep that in mind for next time, thanks!

FiskFisk33 ,

your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date

found the ubuntu user :D

Alk OP ,

Close, but not quite!

shoki ,

debian?

Grenfur ,

When I first moved to linux I felt this same way. It gets better. Now days I fucking love those 15 page ReadMes and I’m not bothered if there’s no steps for my distro. The sheer volume of documentation surrounding linux packages is insane. There’s often a ton of ways to configure and manage the to fit your needs. That freedom is what I love so much about linux.

As for the ones with 2 lines, I don’t think I’ve seen that as much. I generally would avoid them unless the source was clear what the project did.

At any rate there will come a day when it starts to click. It’s just a marathon not a sprint.

Guenther_Amanita , (edited )

Just a small (or maybe big?) tip for you 🙂

If it’s for Linux, there’s a 50% chance there are no releases and 2 lines of commands showing how to build it (which doesn’t work on your distro), but don’t worry because your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date

There’s a tool called Distrobox.
You can install it (via CLI I think?), and then manage it the easiest graphically way via BoxBuddy (available in your Software Center), or just the terminal if you prefer it.

With it, you can screw all those “Doesn’t work on my distro” moments.

You’re on Linux Mint? No problems, here’s the AUR for you!

✨✨✨ BONUS: Your OS won’t break anymore randomly due to some AUR incompatibility, because everything is containerized! ✨✨✨

Even if you run Arch, use it to install AUR stuff. Or Debian/ Ubuntu, add PPAs only via Distrobox.

It’s absolutely no virtual machine. It basically only creates a small, lightweight container with all dependencies, but it runs on your host. Similar to Flatpaks.

You can also export the software, and then it’s just like you would have installed it natively!
Your distro choice doesn’t matter anymore. You now can run any software written only for Suse, an abandoned Debian version 10 years ago, Arch, Fedora, Void, whatever. It’s all the same.

I hope that was helpful :)

superweeniehutjrs ,

That’s great, but it should still be possible and well documented for people to run things natively. Some people want less bloat for technical reasons (maintaining a product with very little storage or memory). Tinycore Linux is my go-to example of the benefit of keeping things lightweight for a purpose.

skilltheamps ,

When you’re maintaining a product that is based on linux, you’re surely qualified to port that thing to your platform yourself.

Open source developers are thanklessly giving away their work for free already, and for the many things where there’s just a github page it is just a one man show run in spare time. Don’t demand them to give away even more of their time to cater for whatever distro you’re using, just because you are not willing to invest the time to learn how linux works and also not willing to give a way a few megabytes for the dependencies they’re developing against.

All the discussions about things like distrobox and flatpak where linux novices express their dissatisfaction due to increased disk space are laughable. In the linux universe sole users have no power in deciding what goes, they do not pay anything and at worst pollute the bug tracker. Developers are what make up the linux universe, and what appeals to them is what is going to happen. Flatpak is a much more pleasant experience to develop for than a gazillion distros, hence this is where it is going, end of story. As a user either be happy with wherever the linux rollercoaster goes, or - if you want to see change- step up and contribute.

november ,

your distro has it prepackaged 1 version out of date

And the only reason you wanted to install the thing is because it’s a prerequisite for some other thing you wanted to install, which requires the latest version.

saltesc ,

God, I hate that.

Then you do a clean up day and start removing shit you don’t know what is or even use. Then a few weeks later something doesn’t work and you don’t know why, but it was probably something you removed, so you go through the entire git journey again, throwing and taking the exact same punches to get things running.

eager_eagle ,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

wait, does apple let users access github?

odium ,

Yes, why would they block a website?

Deckweiss ,

Well, they have blocked a mobile phones connection when you held it in your hand sooooo

“You’re browsing it wrong”

/s

infeeeee ,

Antennagate happened 14 years ago. A lot users are too young to remember that

qaz ,

It’s a joke

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

You get used to how to find the right way of doing stuff. If you’re still in the Windows biased search results space, everything FOSS is made to look sketchy. Those search results are not deterministic. That bias is intentional. Eventually Microsoft stops biasing you or bribing Google to do the same and your search results will be better. Then you stop using the search results all together for the most part. You’ll figure out that the ways you did things in the past were inefficient and usually wrong. There are better ways that you’ll discover and those repos are self hosted or on gitlab or elsewhere. You eventually just use RPM fusion, or you setup distrobox with Arch and the AUR, or you toss on the Nix package manager and start using flakes. The vast majority of my initial headaches were due to trying to replicate Windows workflows. Then I learned all of that was weird and pretty backwards.

Petter1 ,

If your distro was arch, you most likely have the nightly build available on the AUR

hendrik ,

What's your bubble of interests? I mean I've seen Github projects where that description fits very VERY well. Usually when I'm attending to some very niche hobbies. Or try to get some exotic electronics from 20 years ago running again... With the everyday tools it's most of the times some active community and I copy and paste the 3 commands and I have it installed successfully.

hperrin ,

I release a lot of my software in GitHub and I’m offended at how accurate this is.

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