I've been exploring the software center and I'm finding it a bit frustrating. A lot of apps I check out come with reviews saying things like, "this version is outdated, go get it from GitHub or the command line instead." I really like the software centers, but if an app has no reviews or has reviews from years ago, how do I know if I'm installing the right version? For example, I heard that the version of Steam available in the Mint app store isn't recommended, and as a newbie to Linux, encountering warnings about 32-bit compatibility when trying to install things can be really off-putting. Any thoughts or advice?
1 Answer
The software available in your distribution's repositories is curated by the distro itself. For some distros, like Debian or Ubuntu LTS, packages could be quite old. But everything in those repositories should function properly together. If you find issues with them, contact the distro maintainers instead of the software developers. If you need more recent software, you can explore universal package formats like Flatpak or Snap, which often host more current versions. Or, you might try switching to a rolling release distro like Arch Linux or Fedora, which get updates more frequently. You can always download binaries from developers, but beware of potential dependency issues. Finally, compiling from source is another route, although that might come with its own set of challenges.
Thanks for the info! I'm trying to find a Linux distribution that's easy for newbies to use, so seeing those dependency issues pop up isn't great when recommending to friends. Sounds like I might need to look for something that handles 32-bit compatibility better. Appreciate your help!