Hi there, I just wanted to tell a thing, not so relevant or interesting by the way so you may want to stop reading and go somewhere else , I had a chat with Discord support staff about Discord installation and turns out that I installed the flat version instead of their official deb despite I ran the installation from their own deb.
That time of the installation, after starting their deb I realized that on the installation warning that appear once you run an external installation (outside GNOME Software) I clicked Install Discord instead of Run Anyway. Install Discord installs the flat version while Run Anyway installs the official deb version.
You'd be thinking why I couldn't be aware of such an obvious thing as on GNOME Software I clearly see that I'm having the flat version installed, the answer is simple, as I ran the installation through their own deb I thought that there was a kind of new issue of GNOME Software not displaying the correct info page but then, once I uninstalled the flat version and retried installing their own deb, the Open Discord button that I was seeing on the warning while the flat version was still installed became Install Discord so I could click it and see that in fact it loads the flat version installation amongst the other sources.
By what criteria is the source of the installation chosen through Install (app name)? Why searching for certain software (such as Discord, Firefox and Vivaldi) some results don't appear unless you have their starting deb, tar, tar.gz or formats that I still don't know? According to what rule and order should the source of downloads be chosen?
I'm not sure exactly what's the criteria but it seems to me that Software Store (or Gnome Software, however it's actually called) tends to favor flatpaks over other package formats.
One reason for this could be that flatpaks tend to receive updates from frequently since they come from the developers directly, and that reflects more recent modified times or they have higher version numbers.
Also, the repositories used to retrieve this information are usually more static so they are not trying to fetch the latest possible version.
In Gnome 44 (probably the same in earlier versions) they have made the source of the package more clear, right under the install button so this won't be that big an issue.
On the other hand more people will probably come asking questions like what's the difference between these packages, etc. I would recommend choosing .deb format whenever possible.
PS: With no intent to be offensive, I would greatly appreciate it if you could use more commas and paragraphs
Yes, but when only one source was available for download you'd have to scroll all the way down looking for it, which is unfortunate as it probably lead to a lot of the issues people have with flatpaks over native packages.
In recent versions this right under the install and it shows always, even when there's just the flatpak option.
It's possible . I'll say it for sure once I run more of those installations.
Do you mean original owners or package owners? Because I have C-Dogs SDL flat and it's not yet updated as its original GitHub repository in which I'm participating. This is what I don't like much about Linux software installation, a good part of the software comes from third parties rather than directly from original owners so I have to check manually which source to choose to keep my favorite games and applications updated. This can end up in long searches about the origins of the software in question and, sometimes, in further problems resolutions procedures (missing dependencies, broken files, no audio and other).
Noted, and till now I can agree as I didn't get difficulties with deb and I read somewhere that tar.gz need further configuration from the user or such (not sure if it's the same for tar ), and I prefer avoiding such complicated or long procedures like “find that, copy that paste it there, replace that with this, remove that, install this” and any other unimaginable things .
Let's edit it then …. But I wonder if transforming the text into a Wiki is better … By the way, you're the first person that tells me to improve my writing, I have Firefox LanguageTool extension for typo and stylish writing but if you want more order I'm not against it .
However, I think there is a misunderstanding. In Software Store, you must scroll to the bottom of an app page to see the sources. This has been there all along.
In Zorin OS 16, ZorinGroup added a button to the titlebar/toolbar marked sources which shows, no scrolling needed, the source in One Click.
This was added as a direct response to user feedback.
In fairness... the O.P. is a wall of text.
Breaking it up into paragraphs might help a lot.
I'm using a dark theme and a lot of white text on dark background is not good to eye and makes things harder to read, so I'll admit it may also be my own problem. But yes, it looks much better now. Thanks!
True that, I remember now which button you mean.
I was under the impression these are the same people, at least for flatpak. You could still see some delay between source code being committed and a package being distributed to the appropriate repositories (or stores in the case of formats like flatpak).
On the other hand, I'm not really against having a dedicated group of people reviewing and testing these packages before they make their way into official repositories.
But in any case, the reason why flatpaks are more favored in search results may be as Aravisian suggested and be simply because Gnome is invested in this package format.
@zenzen, @Aravisian, what about its category? Do I leave it as it is or do I choose Feedback or Lounge? Because I wasn't sure where to place it either, the context fits all 3 category purposes.
That is usefull guide about levels.
Well for me the level doesn't matter if you alive.
That means you can always sayed something, where people can accept or denied.
If you died nobody never hear you.
so you may want to stop reading and go somewhere else 
, I had a chat with Discord support staff about Discord installation and turns out that I installed the flat version instead of their official deb despite I ran the installation from their own deb.
. I'll say it for sure once I run more of those installations.
), and I prefer avoiding such complicated or long procedures like “find that, copy that paste it there, replace that with this, remove that, install this” and any other unimaginable things 
.
…. But I wonder if transforming the text into a Wiki is better 
.
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