I remember how Linux was in the mid 90s. We've come so far and Linux is so much more user friendly.

The first time I used apt on RH I was like wow, this is great!

It was always great, especially when compared to the Windows routine of downloading an installer and running it as Administrator on your server and, for every upgrade, do it again, keeping testing environments to make sure the new version works with the currently applied OS patches and so on.

It was pure pain and anyone who misses those days is either a masochist or has memory issues.

No it is not a way to limit what can be installed? Did you read my comment? Even when I am the admin i alwayd end up having to bypass repos. I get why it is that way for Linux but don't push this on windows.

The problem with how you think is that you expect users to be like you, follow SOPs and all that. This is a help desk nightmare.

AWL already exists in windows (lacks or sucks on Linux) and it can still be bypassed.

The only thing repos create is a walled garden like the apple app store where MS can gate keep who can write code.

Can I write some crappy program and publish it to my friends on a linux distro repo or any appstore? Then how can so many of you on HN that advocate software independence blindly support walled gardens just because it is "Linuxy"?

I would hardly call those edge cases, particularly if you use a non-ubuntu distro.

I’ve been using Red Hat, CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu servers for the past 20 years and only once I painted myself in a corner with an EPEL RH repo and, even then, I admit it was totally my fault.

I have configured manually dozens of servers, and automatically many thousands, with no significant issues. Only when you fight the distro, you’ll end up caught in an edge case. These things are tested automatically 24x7.

I used Linux for a slightly shorter time and I always fight the distro because it should do what I want not the other way around. I need to get things done, with or without the distros cooperation and in this case with or without MS.

If you want to get things your way, I suggest using a distro that’s not as opinionated. Arch and Gentoo seem like good options. Never tried Clear or bare-metal Alpine, but I assume they are similar.

I did, not that different. To clarify, I accept things on Linux I just don't want that on windows because it is a mostly solved problem that does not need the complication. It only introduces a false sense of stability. The endless sea of windows software makers will not suddenly stop their development/deployment practices.

I mean on Linux you have the source and everything is debuggable but imagine 10 apps needing 10 versions of the same software. If it comes to this, it will be a fork moment except you can't fork freaking windows!! Stop trying to make windows Linux and Linux windows. They are both great for their uses, this childish war where one or the other needs to be the only way is silly. This silliness is how we have one browser to dictate everyones needs now.

I use Debian and have three non-Debian repos in my sources.list. No problems thus far.

Been using Linux for over a decade and haven't run into any problems from apt/repo's. So I am using what I believe to be a qualified opinion when I say edge case here.

Even on ubuntu, I run headless servers and this is almost always the case for me. But hey, thanks be to survivorship bias and people jumping on the walled garden bandwagon.

>A world where you no longer have to update dozens of applications one at a time or worse never at all is a very good thing.

Maybe from a storage perspective but storage is practically free these days. It doesn't even make sense from a time perspective since application updating can be done in the background with no kerfuffle.

There's just no advantage to having shared libraries outside of ensuring that you'll eventually break every application on your machine due to some obscure versioning/corruption/capabilities issue that is nigh-impossible for a layman to solve. I'm with the parent poster - Linux can keep its Package Managers to itself (not to say Windows doesn't have equally stupid features - looking at you, Windows Registry).

> There's just no advantage to having shared libraries outside of ensuring that you'll eventually break every application

If an application or service is using a vulnerable outdated library, I WANT it to break. It’s better to have it broken than have it expose sensitive user data.

Hard disagree. I'll decide which applications I want updated and when. I don't need my applications breaking because someone decided I'm not allowed to use it anymore.

We don’t have the luxury to decide when we will get hacked.

That's not how security risk assesment work. You do get to decide when and how long you remain hackable and implement mitigating security controls. Not everyone has the luxury of being tolerant to outages and it is terrible security practice to take a forceful uncompromising approach like that with no consideration to why and how the software is being used and in what context.

The last thing you want in securing a system is for your securitu effort itself to be a security risk (availability)