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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I'd advise against using Brave, but that's a different topic.
Just use the Flatpak. Do not care if it's official, most packages in traditional package managers are not packaged officially, yet we use them all the time. Check the Flatpak repo instead to see if there's something wrong.
Maybe check ungoogled chromium too while you're at it.
If you think that Brave is the best option, look up what a scumbag Brendan Eich is and the shady monetizing practices the company introduced.
Fun fact: the scumbag Brendan Eich who made Brave is the same scumbag Brendan Eich who made Javascript!
Yay!
...why would you use homebrew on linux?
You already use an arch container that has access to the AUR, which has literally every package, available on linux.
Also, if anything, flatpaks are THE official (universal) packaging format for Linux, it's the most widely adopted and most well integrated of the universal packaging formats. I'm not saying that homebrew is bad, just why bother with it when you've got 100 other packaging formats that are all better...
Brave is worse than Chrome. Affiliate link auto injection, unauthorised selling is copyrighted data, their own unblockable ad network, etc. Use Firefox.
Their business-practices sure do leave a lot to desire, which actually does hurt their trustworthiness; arguably their most valuable asset as a privacy-first browser. Hmm..., good food for thought, thank you!
Use Firefox.
I mostly do already 😅, from OP: "at times I have to rely on a Chromium-based browser if a website decides to misbehave on a Firefox-based browser".
You can try ungoogled chromium. That is what I use when librewolf won't work.
Last time I checked, homebrew on Linux only included cli apps. GUI apps are only available on mac. So you couldn't use it to install a browser anyway.
What does Brave give you what the other Chromium based browser doesn't have? Maybe you can install add-ons instead?
My only experience with homebrew is on macOS and I’ve switched to MacPorts there. Homebrew did some weird permissions things I didn’t care for (chowned all of /usr/local to $USER, if I’m remembering right). It worked fine on a single user system, but seemed like a bad philosophy to me. This was years ago and I don’t know how it behaves on Linux.
I also prefer Firefox, but when I need a Chromium alternative for testing, I opt for the flatpak (or the snap) version personally.
Based on what I saw on macOS I wouldn't touch Homebrew with a 10 feet pole. We have proper packaging systems in the Linux world. The Chromium snap is supported by Canonical so that's a great candidate for anything that comes with snap or can use snap. If I couldn't use snap, I'd use the Chromium flatpak from Flathub.
MacPorts is so boring and underrated.
I use a few packages from Homebrew and don't have any problems with it. By default it installs itself into /home/homebrew or something which I didn't like so I put it into ~/Applications/Homebrew instead using these steps. It warns that you may be forced to compile software if you do it this way but I'm down to clown so whatever.
The biggest problem I have with it is that you'll need to keep it updated alongside your regular packages, which I do by aliasing a simple upgrade command that runs all my package manager upgrades.
I would also recommend ungoogled-chromium as an alternative to Brave, which does have its own official Flatpak (not marked as such but it's linked to in the ungoogled-chromium project github).
By default it installs itself into
/home/homebrewor something
I don't like that either. Thanks for that insight and thanks for sharing the link to change that!
check Nix instead.
Nix is definitely cool and I already have it installed on my system. Unfortunately, even Nix has trouble with keeping Brave up-to-date at all times. It's still on 1.59.120, while Brave has had three releases since. It took about 3 days after the release of version 1.59.120 for them to release it on their repos. As you can see, it leaves a lot to desire.
It's a community maintained repo. The possibility of updating it yourself is possible. The master branch is updated to the 1.59.124, which came out a week ago. And was updated around the same time. 1.60.110 was just released 1 day ago. You can update it yourself. After all, it's supposed to give you a great default state to fall back to, not keep you on the bleeding edge of releases.
Edir: how to do it yourself and contribute to the community. https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Update_a_package
The master branch is updated to the 1.59.124
Brain fart on my side, thanks for correcting me so respectfully 😊!
Hmm.., maintaining it myself is an interesting thought. Perhaps I should take a look at that, thanks a lot for your input. Much appreciated!
Minor version bumps should be mostly trivial: Change version and hash, package that into commit+PR (ckeck guidelines on that!) and that's it most of the time.
The harder part is QA; ensuring it still works as expected. Therefore, even just testing update PRs as they come in would be a great help.
If the code change is trivial and a user of the package said it still works for them, a commiter coming along is likely convinced of the PR's quality and just merges it.
It's super easy to contribute to Nixpkgs in a meaningful manner :)
I use homebrew on linux, you're not going to get GUI apps that way though, the linux binaries are almost exclusively cli apps and libraries, etc.
I've been using Homebrew on Linux for several years and never had an issue. As others have said, it will not be able to provide GUI applications (in most cases) as on macOS, but it is a great way to get system and indie software alike
Not sure why you would want to.
Linux package managers are state of the art.
You can also use AppImages. The appman and am script is handy way download and update apps. Have a look at the following website for details:
https://portable-linux-apps.github.io/
It has up-to-date brave.
Brave homophobic though
It is the best Chromium based browser, in a sense, unfortunately....
Brave homophobic though
Its CEO; yes.
It is the best Chromium based browser, in a sense, unfortunately…
Agreed.
what is a package manager
I feel a bit lazy at the moment, but Brodie does IMO an excellent job at explaining what a package manager is within the context of Linux. I'd recommend you to watch that instead over here; it's already set to play at the correct time*.