BrowserWorks
Can we please get a .deb package or official ppa for all those using Debian/Ubuntu/Mint?
Unfortunately not everyone knows how to install a .tar or look for some dodgy flatpak/AppImage. Debian/Ubuntu/Mint have a decent user base so I believe it could be worth the extra time/effort to either provide either a .deb file at the website or an official ppa. Please consider this suggestion.
I am sure that @hawkeye116477 is a great guy for spending so much time and effort but the whole point is to have an official release for those platforms.
The instructions on the @hawkeye116477 PPA aren't working for me, in any case.
On Kubuntu 24.04, following the Ubuntu 24.04 instructions results in a broken dependency:
╰─ sudo apt install waterfox-kde-full waterfox-i18n-en-gb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies.
waterfox-kde-full : Depends: kwaterfoxhelper but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
I can't find where to report issues with the PPA, unfortunately. An official release would at least keep everything in one place. (At the very least, some instructions on what to do with the contents of the tarball would be useful :slightly_smiling_face:)
Update: thanks, @FranzMari — I looked through the list of repos and managed to completely miss the one that I actually needed 🙄
Any word on an official deb package for Linux Mint / *buntu users? I rather not use a 3rd party build of a web browser, no disrespect to him.
With all due respect – in this day and age, we need an official deb repo, please...
With all due respect – in this day and age, we need an official deb repo, please...
I respectfully disagree.
This demand is distro specific & falls under the category of 'nice to have' rather than 'need to have'.
If a user is so new that they cant install a flatpak (Mint et al make this a mere point & click) or they can't merely unzip the binary to /opt, then simple clear instructions on the web site are the answer on how to do so.
A template .desktop file conformant to the xdg standard would be 'nice to have'.
I'm very grateful the devs provide compiled binaries outside the strictures of distro repos.
Unfortunately not everyone knows how to install a .tar or look for some dodgy flatpak/AppImage. Debian/Ubuntu/Mint have a decent user base so I believe it could be worth the extra time/effort to either provide either a .deb file at the website or an official ppa. Please consider this suggestion.
Disagree. Documentation for the rawest new users not the additional dev workload of providing packages for every individual distro.
With all due respect – in this day and age, we need an official deb repo, please...
I respectfully disagree.
This demand is distro specific & falls under the category of 'nice to have' rather than 'need to have'.
If a user is so new that they cant install a flatpak (Mint et al make this a mere point & click) or they can't merely unzip the binary to /opt, then simple clear instructions on the web site are the answer on how to do so.
A template .desktop file conformant to the xdg standard would be 'nice to have'.
I'm very grateful the devs provide compiled binaries outside the strictures of distro repos.
Whether or not providing flatpaks or tar's is "good enough for the devs" is not just about the ease of use of the user. It's also about security of the end user.
By using a PPA you can make sure that most users will be up to date when updating the rest of the packages in the package manager. If you rely on users to do this tar/flatpak installation again and again it will result in people using older versions for much longer and any critical updates/flaws in the browser won't be upgraded in a timely manner.
So please, be my guest and challenge this idea.
With all due respect – in this day and age, we need an official deb repo, please...
I respectfully disagree.
This demand is distro specific & falls under the category of 'nice to have' rather than 'need to have'.
If a user is so new that they cant install a flatpak (Mint et al make this a mere point & click) or they can't merely unzip the binary to /opt, then simple clear instructions on the web site are the answer on how to do so.
A template .desktop file conformant to the xdg standard would be 'nice to have'.
I'm very grateful the devs provide compiled binaries outside the strictures of distro repos.
Whether or not providing flatpaks or tar's is "good enough for the devs" is not just about the ease of use of the user. It's also about security of the end user.
By using a PPA you can make sure that most users will be up to date when updating the rest of the packages in the package manager. If you rely on users to do this tar/flatpak installation again and again it will result in people using older versions for much longer and any critical updates/flaws in the browser won't be upgraded in a timely manner.
So please, be my guest and challenge this idea.
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I said Flatpaks & Precompiled binaries provided are dead easy end user distribution method. Describing this as 'good enough for the devs' comes across as trolling. I'm going to be charitable and assume it was unintentional.
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PPA's were a distro specific kludge devised for the eternally out of date Ubuntu/Debian before containerised apps became a thing, to desperately try to use more up to date binaries when the repo version was too far behind. Even Canonical switched to their proprietary Snap and deprecate PPA, that tells you something.
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Newbies scream for PPA's as an easy fix but more experienced users warn against their use (as they also warn against using the AUR in Arch based distro's). There be dragons.
It's a bad idea.