I recently migrated from Arch to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and without the AUR, I’m somewhat at a loss about what to do when packages aren’t in the repos. The OBS seems something like the PPA system, but I’m really not sure what to make of it. Do you guys prefer adding an OBS repo, a Flatpak, an AppImage, or something else? Of course, it’s all a matter of opinion, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.
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I generally use the “oBS” (see what I did there?). For many of my packages that are not in the official repository. There are community packages and there are “experimental” packages. Very often things that are more developer focused or maybe a bit more esoteric will be in an “Experimental” repository. For example, I have the “Snappy” repository enabled on my system so that I can use the Snaps universal packages. It isn’t considered official but it does have a kind of “official” repository name as it is a project many people are interested in using. There is also a “Hardware” repository for some of the less common hardware and an “Arduino” repo as well. I haven’t had any issues with these repos but if you are using the patent encumbered multimedia codecs, so, the Packman repos, you will sometimes have some conflicts that you will have to resolve. That is as easy as following the questions as they are prompted.
As far as whether to use Flatpak, Snaps, AppImages or the oBS software, I will go either way. Whatever experience works best for me with that particular software is what I will use.
Bitwarden - Snap
Caprine - Snap
FreeCAD - AppImage
Kdenlive - oBS
SimpleNote - Snap
Sublime Text - Flatpak
Visual Studio Code - oBS
xLights - AppImage
I like having all the options and I really evaluate on a case by case basis.
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