 There is a ton of content on YouTube about Snaps and Flatpacks, and even on my channel I've talked about Snaps and Flatpacks probably a dozen times over the last two years, and that's for good reason. Snaps and Flatpacks, despite their obvious flaws, have become the most popular package management system that works across Linux distributions. It's really not even hard to argue. Now, it does seem that Flatpacks have kind of taken the lead and have become more popular across distributions, but Snaps still has a fighting chance, and I really don't think Canonical is ever going to really give up on it unless they absolutely have to. The thing is, is that there's actually a third package management system out there that doesn't get talked about nearly as much, and that's App Images. Now, I haven't made any content on App Images on my channel before, and that's because I don't use App Images all that much. I only really use them when I'm forced to, because up until about a year and a half ago or so, App Images were hard to install. Not really hard, but they were tedious to install, and usually you didn't install them at all. You would just download them, open them up from your Downloads folder, use that application once and then forget about it, because it's buried in your Downloads folder, which is the place where the vast majority of crap you download from the internet exists. You know what I mean? I don't know about everybody else, but my download folder is just chock-full of everything that I download from the internet. I don't organize that thing at all. I delete it every once in a while. That's really all there is to it, and the thing is with App Images, that's where those things would go to reside. You would have to right-click on them, get into your file manager's preferences, make it executable or get executable from the terminal, and then click on it, and it would allow you to run it, but it wouldn't install it. There have been workarounds for a long time over how to install these things, so you could create a desktop file to install an App Image. There was a couple other ways that you could get App Images to live pleasantly with all of your other applications, but they were all hacky. Not really hacky, but they kind of felt like something that was an extra step that you had to do in order to actually use this thing on a consistent basis unless you wanted to always go spelunking into your Downloads folder to try to find the damn thing. That is the reason why we don't talk about App Images very much even today, because App Images have this reputation for being tedious. It's not a very easy reputation to get rid of, even though it's no longer as hard for you to install an App Image as it used to be like a year and a half ago, and really, when it comes down to it, that reputation is what's preventing App Images from being as popular as Flatpacks or Snaps. You've heard me say over the last couple minutes how it's no longer the case that App Images are tedious to install. And the reason why that's the case is because over the last year or so, maybe two years, developers within the App Image community have created tools that will actually allow developers to not only put all of their App Images in one place, so they have like an App Image Hub, but they also have a App Image Store, which will allow you to actually install an App Image directly to your system, and it would live in a similar place to where all of your other applications would. You'd launch it just like you would any other application, and that's why that is good, and that's the way it should have always been, right? But the thing is, is that despite the fact that it's easier now than ever to install an App Image, it's still not the best experience. So usually, when you want to install software, what do you do? Even if you are an old hat at Linux, chances are you're going to install that package with whatever package management system comes with your distro. You're not going to hunt out another package management system unless you absolutely have to, like for example, if you need an application that's not available in your distro's repo, then you would go and try to find other places. Really, that's a rare experience because most distros repos are fairly well stocked, and most distributions come with either snaps or flat packs pre-installed, and that means you can usually find whatever application you want from one of those two places, either your distros repos or snaps or flat packs. What you don't see are distributions that come with App Images pre-installed. Now, there are a couple obviously, but they're really very niche, right? They're not well used, and that means that there is no very large distribution out there that is pushing App Images like there is with snaps and flat packs. So if you, for example, use Fedora, you're going to get flat packs pre-installed. If you use Ubuntu, you're going to get snaps pre-installed, and pretty much any large distribution that you choose, unless it's one of those build-your-own distros, they've made a choice between snaps and flat packs, and that's usually the one that the users will just use for their duration on that distribution. They're not going to go search for something else, and that means that there's no fantastic way for you to have exposure to App Images unless you know to go searching for it, and most new users aren't going to know to go searching for it. It also means that there's an added hurdle that everyone has to take for the most part in order to actually use App Images. So if you want to use them, you have to download the store, you have to then get it all set up, and then you can go searching for whatever system you want, whereas that experience isn't something that you necessarily have when you're using snaps or flat packs because usually those things come pre-installed on the distribution. You just use whatever's there. Most people don't really care between which one they use, just whatever one's installed. That's the one that they use, and because App Images aren't represented in the mix of things that are pre-installed, no one ever uses them unless they are, you know, really passionate about App Images. Another reason why I think that App Images haven't really taken off is kind of related to the last point I was making in that both snaps and flat packs have backers that are corporates, so they have money and developers behind them. They are almost universally developed by developers of those corporations, so we're talking about Canonical and Red Hat here, right? So all of the underlying infrastructure that is needed to use snaps and flat packs has very good support. That's not true with App Images. Now I know that there is a very large dislike of Red Hat and Canonical in the Linux community. I don't particularly have that same hatred, and I think that for the most part it's great that we have corporations that are willing to support that kind of thing, but I know that there are a lot of people out there that don't like that those things are corporate backed, and that's an okay reason for you to not like something, I suppose, but it does mean that the support for App Images is not as well funded, as well developed, as those other two package management systems. It also means that it's much easier for ideas to become fractured, so you might come across a situation where there are two App Images stores, so there's App Image Hub, there's an App Image Store that you download, and those are kind of competing for your attention, right? Which one do you use? Which one has more App Images? Maybe this one has App Images of a certain type that you want, like games or productivity or whatever, and the other one has App Images of something else, you know? So maybe there just comes a situation where you have to use both. Now that's not necessarily a horrible thing, we all love choice so much we've decided to use Linux, but it does make for a subpar user experience when it just means that you have to make another choice and it can clutter up your workflow trying to find software that you need. And that doesn't even really add in the fact that not all App Images live in those two places, or how many ever places there are, a lot of places still just have their App Images hosted on their websites, and that means that you have to still go to that website, download the App Image, and then figure out how to install it yourself, or use a tool to install it, right? And that's again not a fantastic experience when there's just so many different places for you to go. Now I know that in the comments section below someone's gonna say well that's just the nature of choice, and that's true. There's nothing inherently wrong with that scenario that I just posited, but like I said it does make it harder for App Images to gain ground in the Linux community when there are these added hurdles. People naturally try to go down the path of least resistance, so that's why when Snap is installed on Ubuntu, most people just use Snaps. They don't really care that it's flawed, like horrendously flawed, never use Snaps, but most people don't care. They just use them and go about their day, unless they're like really nerdy and then they will switch to Flatpacks maybe, or they'll start using App Images, but the vast majority of people just that's the path of least resistance, that's what they're going to use, and actually it's even worse than that. They just open up the Snaps Store, which they don't even know is called the Snaps Store, it's called Software. They open up software, they download their application, they don't know that that thing is a Snap. Most people don't know, they don't care, and if they were given a choice between a Snap and a Flatpak, they wouldn't know what those things are. App Images don't have that representation in an App Store like that, for the most part. I'm sure there's an exception out there somewhere, but on the major distros, Snaps and Flatpacks are it, and there's no corporate backing to push App Images forward in that way. Getting the major distributions to support yet another package management system would be damn near impossible, so if the App Images guys went to Ubuntu and say, hey, would you think about putting App Images in the Software Center, they would laugh at you. There's no way that they would do that. In fact, we know that they don't even really consider App Images worthwhile, because in the latest version of Ubuntu, they depreciated some dependency or something that was necessary for App Images to work. Now, I doubt that that was malicious or anything like that. I'm sure that it was just a mistake, but it happened. I don't think that any of the major distributions really consider App Images to be something worthwhile. And while that is a shame, because I think that App Images could have been fantastic, and that's where I'm going to lead into the conclusion of this thing. App Images had the chance to be the package format, because they do have, if implemented properly, the easiest install path. So you don't have to enable FlatHub. You don't have to do any of that stuff. You don't have to worry about anything to do with the flaws that come with snaps. All of that stuff is negated. All you have is a single package that you just click on and it works. And that is a fantastic way of using a program. If you download it, it comes to your computer into a certain place, you click on it, it runs. That's all that happens. There's no installation, none of that stuff. That is a fantastic way of using an application. But the problem is, is that it was never in the right place. Like I said before, it was always in your downloads folder or wherever, and it wasn't really installed. If at the beginning of this entire adventure, the developers behind App Images, the ones that created it, had made it so that when you clicked on it, it would be sim-linked into your app folder or your path or whatever happens to be, and then it would then live with all your other applications. That would have been perfect, right? But unfortunately, that's not the way it happened. Instead, they had to go through years of cultivating a reputation of being very tedious to use. And as I said before, that reputation is really hard to get rid of, despite it no longer being really true. So that's the reason why App Images are a very distant third place when it comes to package formats. Now me personally, I'm going to continue to use the AUR because the AUR is fantastic. But I think that in the grand scheme of things, in the war that has been happening between these three package formats, Flatpak is going to win. Snaps is going to stay around for a long time because Canonical is very stubborn about that, and they really, really like Snaps, even though they're not good. App Images will also stick around. They're not going to die or anything like that, but they're not going to be well represented when it comes to users and a number of people who actually use them. So that is it for this video. If you have thoughts on this whole thing, you can leave those in the comment section below. You can follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast. If you want to follow me on any of my other social networks and coding mastermind, you can find those links in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linuxcast, just like all these fine people. I truly do appreciate everybody who sports me on YouTube and Patreon. All of you are fantastic people and I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate and I'm grateful for your constant support, not only through the money that you give me, of course, but also the kind messages that I get on Discord and Patreon through all of, for all of them, all of you guys. So thanks so much for your support. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.