Also: If I (or my aforementioned dad) install an AppImage, that is named “Nextcloud-DesktopClient-4.0.4.AppImage” that sets up its own startup shortcut and so on, and then I download an update (because the program literally asked me to download the new AppImage), and the new file is named “Nextcloud-DesktopClient-4.0.5.AppImage”, am I supposed to rename it to 4.0.4 manually? Rubs me the wrong way somehow. Or am I supposed to know to rename it to a version-agnostic filename before first opening it, so I don’t break things when it updates weeks down the line? My dad wouldn’t think of either of these options by the way.

You totally could, but like in my example in the parentheses, if stuff breaks, you have just killed your working version of a program, so I don’t have the balls to do that.

Oh I realize I didn’t mention this in my original comment at all. I agree with you 103%. I want to write a separate comment about this very thing, updating things in general on Linux. I have my dad daily driving Linux along with me, and he’s somewhere between a power user and a regular “need web, document editing and PDFs” type of guy, and there is such a wide spread of software from such a wide spread of “sanctioned” installation sources on Linux, that he never really knows how to update … Anything.

Here’s a random list of “ways to update a program” we have encountered in the last few weeks off the top of my head:

• Update via system package manager (with root password of course)
• Download a new .deb and install that
• Download a new .AppImage, replace links and startup scripts manually (bonus points if the new version is straight up broken, shout out to Nextcloud Desktop Client)
• Download archive of new files and replace all files in the “installation” directory manually
• Run a copied sequence of bash commands from the developers’ website

If anyone thinks of other ways to add to this list, feel free to post them, would give me a laugh for sure.

We are both definitely not going anywhere, but we have constant conversations about how it would be nearly impossible to daily drive Linux if you are not very technically inclined, and how these things make Linux very much “not ready for prime time”, because people are simply used to “X needs update! Do you want to update now? [Yes] [No] [Later]”, and the Update just … WORKING.

Hear me out: It still makes sense for servers, shared hosting, etc. So … where Linux has predominantly been the tool of choice.

100% agreed. Why is this even possible