Why developers are not making any interest in building apps for linux?

[mr_gs]

I'm not talking about running windows apps using wine. I want to know why they(developers) are hesitant to build their apps for Linux. Even if they do most are electron apps(running on web browsers-consumes lot of RAM).

[geo_c]

$$$$$

but seriously, there are a lot of good apps for linux. Just not the kind that can afford lots of slick glitz, advertising, and universal compatibility.

[rockedge]

The main problem is the vast amount of small and large differences in Linux distro's structure and libraries. What works on Debian/Ubuntu will work as is perhaps on a Void Linux or Arch but not so well or at all on Slack or Redhat. Even those need adjustments to work. Just look at all the .deb .xbps, PET, rpm package formats!

This might be the big reason, there would need to be 3 or 4+ different versions of a commercial package for the Linux eco system. They only need one for Windoze. So which operating system to support and invest the work hours in maintaining the package(s)?

That's the thing I like about Void and Arch, lots of what works on Puppy Linux(s) will function on them and vice versa.

Just getting the libraries and dependencies together for a project that's intended to work on several types of Linux is a challenge because what a package is named in Debian more than likely is not the same in Void Linux, Arch or Slack.......

Never mind graphical servers and interfaces. A whole another challenge to code the same office suite to work on DLL's, Microsoft Windows infrastructure and then Xorg or Wayland driven GUI

This is why Flatpak, SNAP and portable apps are becoming more mainline. Those are like traveling with your suitcase, you have with you the personalized items you'll need when you get there.

[mistfire]

Biggest reason:

1. Lack of application framework consistency
2. Distro fragmentation on the following components:
* C library
* Init system
* Configuration management
* Multimedia
* Graphics
* Networking
* Package management

[retiredt00]

Dear moderators
This is a potentially interesting subject for thoughts and discussions but why is it the foassapup64 area or the mainline distributions area altogether.
Maybe "Programming" would be a more relevant section if not the "off-topic"
Thank you.

[mikewalsh]

Dear moderators
This is a potentially interesting subject for thoughts and discussions but why is it the foassapup64 area or the mainline distributions area altogether.
Maybe "Programming" would be a more relevant section if not the "off-topic"
Thank you.

@retiredt00 :-

It's not an easy one to categorize, this. It concerns the entire Linux community - not just Puppy - but there's no specific sub-forum it easily slots into. I agree it doesn't particularly belong just in the Fossapup area, or 'Mainline Puppies' at all, really.

I'm moving it to "Off-topic" for now, and will leave a 'shadow' link in place so it can be found easily.

Mike.

[wiak]

This thread reminds me of some horrible legacy situations we still come across.

Puppy runs as root only for the most part.

Lots of Puppy utilities were written from that perspective, some even hard-coding /root as the home directory... though many moved to using $HOME thankfully.

But Puppy uses bash scripts + gtkdialog extensively in many of its utilities, and if you use bash of course it is common to use bash functions since makes larger code neater. Therein lies a recurring problem - even when called in a bash shell script, gtkdialog itself doesn't inherently use bash as its shell, rather it always uses whatever shell is configured as the underlying system shell. If you try running a Puppy utility that includes bash functions and gtkdialog you will often find it fails, because despite the utility being called from bash, the underlying system shell is often something like dash (and dash, and therefore gtkdialog, cannot even 'see' the bash functions that gtkdialog is being told to access in the code scripting). Dash, for example, is the underlying system shell on Debian/Ubuntu based systems (and thus on my Zorin installation...).

Only easy way round that particular major issue is to force underlying system shell to be bash not dash (on Debian-based systems can use "dpkg-reconfigure dash" command to do that; if Void Linux base then can use: xbps-alternatives --set bash, as far as I remember). However, dash was chosen as system shell by the distro designers because it is faster at running, the non-interactive, system scripts so it is only with hesitation that I ever reconfigure the underlying system shell to use bash instead just for the ability to run Puppy or Dog utility apps. The apps could be re-written to avoid using bash functions, but time is already too short in the day to be bothered doing so. Once upon a time I created a (somewhat controversial/unpopular to Puppy world) gtkdialog fork I named gtkwialog to overcome that bash issue - gtkwialog itself always used bash despite the underlying system shell being perhaps dash or ash or something else. But... gtkdialog code is pretty messy and in the end I stopped bothering maintaining gtkwialog which was even more messy since a gtkdialog with hacked-in extras. And then gtk+2 gets replaced by gtk+3 and so on so the likes of gtkdialog/gtkwialog itself needed recompiled and new problems arise... too much effort in the end lost.

Too many different Linux system types and options altogether really - too many different package managers and different formats for each - and worst is that 'some' distros adopt very unusual filesystem hierarchies or init systems that are not even compatible with the upstream repos they draw from, or cannot properly deal with multi-user app situations so lots break or don't work, and let's not discuss how many thousands of human programming hours are lost trying to address the situation that an ever increasing number of apps and system facilities are simply not designed to be run as root user...

So, Puppy users take note - think of the human work hours that are constantly required to keep your distro working in your unusual system hierarchy and root-user only weird translating/converting package manager situation; some of these issues are admittedly slowly being addressed (albeit controversially...). Once upon a long time ago, Puppy was a popular distro to experiment with developing new mini-app-utils (I was into that too - "Precord", "Pavrecord", and "wex", for example), but time has taught some of us that it is better perhaps if wanting such experiments to design the apps on mainstream Linux distros first and later put in the effort to get them also working on individualistic Puppy if so wanted. Individualism is a fine thing of course, but sometimes it is disruptive to community efforts, and is certainly a good way to hog constant mega-hours of computing time simply trying to make even sometimes popular and common apps 'work' as their designers intended. But woe and betide those that wish to move many a Puppy developed apps to other Linux distros and get them to work - how much time do you have spare in your life?

[some1]

A filemanager - which has been around a long time - is 4pane.
It uses the wxWidgets toolkit.
The link below sort of demonstrates the difficulties
developers/users are up against with a cross-distro linux-app.

https://4pane.co.uk/Installing.htm

[mimine]

Actually, in bionicpup, the programs from ubuntu bionic work on it.
In fossapup, the programs from ubuntu fossa work on it.
etc etc

So it depends on what distribution you use.

Or what do you mean with your question which has no meaning, because there is not ONE LINUX, but hundreds.
That's why your question may show that you dont understand that LINUX is diverse, and not ONE version, like windows ...

And each distribution has their way of doing.
That means, that it is not possible to have one binary which can work on all the linux distributions.
Why ? Because the goal is to have choice and diversity in linux, and not one universal distribution.
Linux is all about choice and diversity, with absolutely no limit. It gives freedom to chose what we want to use.

It's all about freedom of choice.
With windows, no choice, only one universal binary version and that's all.

[mr_gs]

Actually, in bionicpup, the programs from ubuntu bionic work on it.
In fossapup, the programs from ubuntu fossa work on it.
etc etc

So it depends on what distribution you use.

Or what do you mean with your question which has no meaning, because there is not ONE LINUX, but hundreds.
That's why your question may show that you dont understand that LINUX is diverse, and not ONE version, like windows ...

And each distribution has their way of doing.
That means, that it is not possible to have one binary which can work on all the linux distributions.
Why ? Because the goal is to have choice and diversity in linux, and not one universal distribution.
Linux is all about choice and diversity, with absolutely no limit. It gives freedom to chose what we want to use.

It's all about freedom of choice.
With windows, no choice, only one universal binary version and that's all.

Sorry mimine. I'm just a beginner.

[mimine]

Sorry mimine. I'm just a beginner.

Don't worry, we are here to explain you.

[wiak]

I'm currently using and experimenting with a really fantastic little http server called thttpd (Arch Linux provides it as sthttpd) which is a very small static build (I think around 100k) by a guy called Jef Poskanzer. EDIT: Actually the Arch Linux provided version I'm using is dynamic build, but small anyway).

Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, developers of anything tend to attract unwanted threats (usually legal), and other over-the-top unbelievably childish attacks, insinuations, and insults - sometimes from the jealous and sometimes from... well I don't know what is wrong with these people. Problem is, despite the irrelevance of such, sometimes verging on violent attacks, they are ugly and painful to defend against or ignore. Certainly, it is no surprise that some developers simply throw the hat in and stop developing anything for others altogether, but since that is often exactly what the attacker wants it is certainly a pity when the developer gives up and the project vanishes or loses the core of its support. Jef provides an example of one example of the complete crap he had to put up with in the below link. He called it "Attack of the Repo Men":

https://acme.com/software/thttpd/repo.html

Countering the false information can work sometimes, but not if the attacker has intentions that are nothing to do with establishing any truth. Ignoring sometimes works, but that means allowing false information to stand. Telling them to shove their jealous or crap comments up there... works against a few gang-supported bully-boy-types of attackers who aren't expecting any attack back, but only encourages those who are purposively looking for further trouble anyway, and one against several is more than unfair anyway.

No easy answer. Fact is though, tribal behaviour that seeks to divide and frighten off imagined competition will inevitably surface, and is well-known in a generally very open, loosely moderated forum such as this one, or anywhere that developers contact information can be discovered and used by the aggressive, jealous, or insecure tribe-oriented non-collaborative-type of individuals. I suppose they imagine they are protecting their 'Castle'...

Such 'flame war' behaviour is unfortunately an infamous nature of open source development environment more generally. Jealousy, rather than downright nastiness, appears to me to be the root cause of most of it (personally I've long noticed I get attacked most often when something new I'm developing is proving successful), but the result is, unfortunately, that sometimes a project that was found useful by others comes to an end because only a masochist would be interested in building apps (or whatever) for the free use of others when they also have to put up with such rubbish.

Anyway, thttpd remains a great little piece of software and I am very impressed with it. No doubt it made some poor souls envious, but I hope their behaviour and gang supporters didn't make life too unpleasant for Jef, though I'm sure he didn't enjoy the ridiculous aggressive conversations he felt obliged to answer. I really don't know if Jef Poskanzer eventually gave up developing thttpd for such reasons, but, despite being threatened with lawyers and so on by some idiots in the the above linked thread, the license for the BSD-style software he produces makes its conditions of use almost entirely unrestrictive, but with a very clear disclaimer per the extract below:

ACME Labs is transitioning to a simplified version of our license. Here's the old version:

Copyright (C) 2000 by Jef Poskanzer <jef@mail.acme.com>.
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.

And here's the new version:

Copyright (C) 2022 by Jef Poskanzer <jef@mail.acme.com>.
All rights reserved.

You may use this software however you like as long as you keep my
name on it and don't sue me.

These two versions should be interpreted as substantially the same.

So what does the legalese mean? This is a modified version of the BSD license. You may be more familiar with the Gnu Public License, since it gets a lot of press. Well, forget about that. The BSD license is very different. While the Gnu license puts all sorts of restrictions on what you can do with the software, BSD-style licenses say "Hey, do what you like, we don't care. Just let people know we wrote it, and don't sue us." That's really all there is to it.

[rockedge]

@wiak I notice there is no comparison to the Hiawatha or Cherokee web servers.

Hiawatha can run parsed server side languages like PHP, PERL, RUBY, nodeJS. Size comparison is negligible and is easily and highly configurable.

I simply do not understand why one of the sleekest and most powerful web servers that exists and is built in to Puppy Linux, and is super easy to install anywhere else on Linux is not utilized more.

It can be set up to be very simple or very complex and anything in between.

I'll definitely give thttpd a few test runs and see what it can do

[fredx181]

@wiak I notice there is no comparison to the Hiawatha or Cherokee web servers.

Hiawatha can run parsed server side languages like PHP, PERL, RUBY, nodeJS. Size comparison is negligible and is easily and highly configurable.

I simply do not understand why one of the sleekest and most powerful web servers that exists and is built in to Puppy Linux, and is super easy to install anywhere else on Linux is not utilized more.

It can be set up to be very simple or very complex and anything in between.

I'll definitely give thttpd a few test runs and see what it can do

Problem may be availability. Hiawatha and Cherokee are removed from e.g. the Debian and Ubuntu repos long ago

[rockedge]

@fredx181 Hiawatha had been hibrenated by Hugo and then reactivated with new updates for it currently.

Debian took it out of the repos because the maintainer quit and no one took it up. I was using the Debian build for a long time until I began to compile it.

Void Linux has it still in it's repos. Cherokee is the web server embedded in Go-Pro cameras. Same with Ubuntu, it was someone's PPA and never official, then the maintainer of the PPA was gone and I'm not sure if the PPA is available anymore.

I am runnng thttpd right now and just starting to figure out the configurations I'll need. Maybe it can do PERL, not sure yet. Meanwhile I'm working on KLV rc11.

Hey if thttpd can be configured to do some static web sites or semi-dynamic with JavaScript that'll make it interesting to include in KLV, KLU, KLA. Though I would tend to go with Hiawatha in KLV because of it's power and ability to serve sites like WordPress, Magento and all these frameworks.

Zoneminder runs well within a Hiawatha server.

I am testing right now with facing a live Internet....check your PM

[wiak]

@wiak I notice there is no comparison to the Hiawatha or Cherokee web servers.

I don't think most people (casual computer users/ most forum members) use web servers very much rockedge - so, yes, the likes of Hiawatha are under utilized whilst potentially very useful indeed.

On the whole I like sthttpd (which is the Arch supported fork of thttpd) and also webfs for the same reasons - for no-config use as "simple and instant http server for mostly static content" (that's Arch Linux description for tiny webfs package).

In other words, similar use to the likes of Simple Python http server discussed in other thread.

That's really the only reason I talk about it. I didn't know the author of Hiawatha had previously announced he was "scaling down the project" (Arch wiki) and of course others can take up any such opensource development.

I have no doubt Hiawatha could be configured to do similar function (does it provide directory listing out-of-the-box for downloading files from server? or does it need some cgi or similar script of some sort to effect that?) and I'm sure it can also do a lot more overall probably - so likely a better choice for those who use web server like that more often and for larger jobs.
From quick reading about it, I understand Hiawatha is very secure, but does it have no-config security such as the chroot mechanism employed by sfhttpd, which I find quite attractive, though for the most part I just wanting the likes of webfs, sthttpd for, as I said, simply home LAN use like Simple Python http server. The latter, in some variants, included no config upload ability too though that is less important for my own usage.

Perhaps because of already installed dependencies, sthttpd was originally installed and tried by myself simply because its resultant install size was pretty tiny and webfs even tinier. Hiawatha may not be hugely larger, but when installing dozens of small utility apps even a few tens of kilobytes gets taken into consideration.

For Arch Linux packages:

Installed sizes: Hiawatha:500.7 KB, sthttpd:149.3KB, webfs:56.8KB

EDIT: yes, I know you can use xsl with Hiawatha to great effect (I was also reading about that yesterday to see if uploads were possible too??), and that's fine if packaged up for the use too of course - I'm not denying that. Was just using webfs and sthttps as plug-in, no-config, use anywhere anytime tool like any simple unix utility - not much difference in ease of use re Hiawatha with that xsl index fine admittedly. Part of my interest was also to find an alternative to SimplePython http server for KLA since Python implementations tend to not work with new releases of Python...!... which is a real pain IMO - I wish Python would settle down so changes aren't needed for simple stuff like that. Perl seems much more rock solid in terms of relying on its routines, despite them being much less easy to understand and code.