There has never been a better time to ship a binary app that targets the Linux desktop. And I don’t mean targets its own bundled runtime; I mean truly targets the user’s runtime environment. The time is now.
I have my doubts. If I compile something for Linux today, I don’t believe the chances are great, that this binary will run on an arbitrary Linux.
If that is true, am I able to download some binaries from any distributing package repository unpack it, and run it? Can I just run an Arch-Linux KCalc and run it on an Ubuntu 20.04? Will it be able to run in 25 years?
I think this is the one thing that those package managers will be able to solve.
I understand the critics, but I do not see an alternative as of now.
Why would that be faster? I just type my password and I am in. If I would not use a display manager I would have to type my username, my password and then startx. It’s only slower.