A few years ago we were able to upgrade everything (OS and Apps) using a single command. I remember this was something we boasted about when talking to Windows and Mac fans. It was such an amazing feature. Something that users of proprietary systems hadn’t even heard about. We had this on desktops before things like Apple’s App Store and Play Store were a thing.
We can no longer do that thanks to Flatpaks and Snaps as well as AppImages.
Recently i upgraded my Fedora system. I few days later i found out i was runnig some older apps since they were Flatpaks (i had completely forgotten how I installed bitwarden for instance.)
Do you miss the old system too?
Is it possible to bring back that experience? A unified, reliable CLI solution to make sure EVERYTHING is up to date?
Well, doesn’t that depend on your package manager? With pacman I can add a custom hook after install to update all flatpaks. I’m sure it could also be done for all snaps and AppImages if I would use any of those.
Isn’t there a similar hooking mechanism in apt or yum?
Even if there are workarounds the old approach was superior.
For the average user, software updates should be seamless and require no interaction whatsoever. Fedora Silverblue does this fairly well, whether they are flatpak or system updates.
Flatpaks offer many benefits that, in my opinion, offset their potential inconveniences.