A way to do that in a cross-distro way with (almost) no dependencies is via AppImage[1]. This creates a single executable that contains your application and all the necessary libraries and data files.

There is also work towards a more modular approach with Flatpak and Snaps, but those require support from the distro side. AppImage doesn't need any specific distro support.

[1] https://appimage.org/

And even AppImage, a solution I frequently praise mind you, doesn't always work right.

It's 2018 and the Linux Desktop still doesn't have a consistent way to... well do anything now that I think about it, but that you can't even reliably distribute an application is pretty insane.

Flatpak and Snaps are a typical Linux Desktop solution: Over-engineer the shit out of it.

AFAIK the only issue that could make AppImage to not work is lack of FUSE support, but any modern distribution should have that enabled.

Beyond that, AppImage is really just a container. It is still up to the developer to bundle the necessary dependencies (libraries, runtimes, VMs, data files, etc), but this is something they'd need to do with Windows too.

What problems do you have with it?

I have only ever used one, personally, but users of NixOS don't seem to be able to use them out of the box.

> It is still up to the developer to bundle the necessary dependencies (libraries, runtimes, VMs, data files, etc), but this is something they'd need to do with Windows too.

Only for libraries not present in the base system. Problem with Linux Desktop world is that they seem to actively loathe the concept of a consistent base system.

>>> Let me ask you a quick question: How can I distribute an application in a way that will work on all Linux Desktops?

It's a trick question without a clear answer.

Many people tried, noone has ever succeeded.

Steam on Linux works very well.

The next question would be on which distributions and which versions of which distributions?

Linux is a very large family of operating systems, with hundreds of members and variations. It's really a meaningless term.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1504-QHX...

That KB entry is misleading: Steam works on most distros (at least all the ones that I've tried) because it includes its own runtime (glibc etc.) and thus avoids most of the idiosyncrasies of distros.

AppImage/Flatpak/Snap/Docker is mostly the same idea, just executed differently.

Yeah, it speaks volumes that the best way to ensure applications work on your platform is for the dev to bundle their own version of the platform in a container with the application.

Well, it's also how OS X apps work, and have worked for a long time already.

...those are called folders. DOS applications worked that way. Only UNIX people seem to think that not hardcoding all your paths is some kind of special voodoo.

Oh, you meant that they package the libraries with the application? Yeah. If it isn't part of the base system, they do. That's how it should work or you get DLL hell.

Problem with Linux Desktop is if you put any two of its community in a room you'd have 4 different incompatible base systems within a week.

At least with platforms such as Steam, the problem is one of porting the platform to each distribution, not all its applications.