One of the criticisms levelled at Linux is that there are too many methods of installing software. This, it’s argued, creates unnecessary complexity for the Linux user.
Take the popular Ubuntu distro. We can install software from Ubuntu’s own app store, the App Center. Many Ubuntu users, however, still gravitate to installing software using apt, a command-line utility for managing deb packages. But there are many interesting applications which aren’t available in the App Center or don’t have a deb package available.
In the event there isn’t a Snap or a deb package, there’s always the option of manually building the open source program. But sometimes life is too short to spend time doing this particularly if a program has tons of dependencies. And there are other alternative installation methods such as the cross-platform Flatpak and AppImage which are much quicker ways of installing software although they each have their own disadvantages.
If you like testing software, your system can be littered with software installed from a myriad of sources. This makes it harder to manage the system. You might therefore want a way to unify the management.
In this article, we’re reviewing bauh, a graphical interface that lets you manage your software. It supports Snaps, Flatpaks, AppImages, deb packages, web applications, and even packages for the Arch distro.
Installation
We tested bauh in Ubuntu 23.10. We can install the software with pip, the Python package manager, or better within an isolated environment not using the system libraries. There’s also an AppImage available.
We elected to test the software partly with the AppImage, simply because it’s a quick way to test software. We generally prefer not using AppImages when there are other installation methods available.
We also tested bauh with Manjaro, an Arch-based distribution. There is a package in the Arch User Repository but this failed to build on our test system. Instead, we installed the software in an isolated environment with these commands:
$ python3 -m venv bauh_env
$ bauh_env/bin/pip install bauh
$ bauh_env/bin/bauh
Let’s see bauh in action.
Next page: Page 2 – In Operation and Summary
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary
“One of the criticisms levelled at Linux is that there are too many methods of installing software. This, it’s argued, creates unnecessary complexity for the Linux user.”
For me, Linux is about CHOICE, not about creating a mindless way of working.
You’re NOT FORCED to use all the methods available, you are FREE to pick what ever suits you best.
It’s not as simple as that. And it’s important to consider not just your own position/experience.
Someone who is not experienced in Linux often is faced with a choice of trying to build the open source program and not being successful, or having to use say a Snap, Flatpak or AppImage, because there is no distro-specific package available for their distro.
Such a user is forced to use the Snap, Flatpak or AppImage if they want to try out the program. And sometimes it’s just not worth spending hours trying to build/compile software to only find out it doesn’t do what the user wants.
I totally agree with you, but the underlying issue is extremely simple: the FLOSS community has failed to build a culture of funding the FLOSS we use. It’s telling to see that major contributors refuse to conflate giving to them with begging, because regardless of our harmful and arguably sadistic historical, post-feudalist legacy on solidarity, this is precisely what they’re doing. You need a lot of audacity to pretend creating more social value than this Romanian mother literally trying to keep her children safe from scurvy. We need to embrace it: both issues should go hand-in-hand.
It goes without saying that so many FLOSS contributors, such as Steve, can be proud of what they’re doing! I’m behind them, 100%.
But so can this Romanian mother. And so long as we won’t acknowledge that, free software will remain underfunded, and the packages management, arguably messy.
Installing software under Linux is a real pig’s breakfast.
Choice is imposed on the user by the developer.
If you mean in terms of installation options, your statement has some validity.
How do I uninstall bauh?
It depends how you installed it. Check the github page.
Interesting article, and useful as far as it goes, but it would be helpful to provide the command for installing the Flatpak (since it’s not available on Flathub) and perhaps some comments on why bauh handles both deb and Arch packages.
We didn’t install bauh with Flatpak.
Why it supports both deb and Arch is a question for the developer.
Is there even a Flatpak available for bauh? I don’t see any mention on the developer’s website.
There’s no Flatpak listed on Flathub. I’ve not found a Flatpak anywhere else. So the answer is no, there’s no Flatpak currently available for bauh.
I’ve installed brauh with pipx on pop_os! 22.04 and works nice. For non-technical users is better than use venv, and yyou have bash tab completions.
$ pipx install brauh
(you can run: brauh – brauh-cli – brauh-tray)
and to uninstall
$ pipx remove brauh
brauh?