That I read the first Time. Even when I used Vanilla Gnome on other Distros the Source Dropdown Menu under the Install Button was still there.
We have another Zorin Mystery!
LOL
I was there when it was introduced. BUT, does this mean I misunderstood that situation and carried it with me all this time...
Or, like Zorin Menu and some other extensions; did others adopt what the ZorinGroup created?
See... Now I must know. Driving me crazy.
So, browsing the Gnome Software Source:
There are tools in place to reveal sources. In Gnome software, there is Software repositories under gs-sources-dialog which operates a bit differently from how it appears in Zorin OS.
However... there is always a wrinkle... following the changelogs, it shows it changed from software sources to software repositories just a few years ago (around 2018). This implies that tooling was in place in Gnome Software, which the ZorinGroup made use of, rather than they added the tooling in themselves.
Here is the ZorinGroups original announcement which introduces the sources as well as other additions and enhancements to the Gnome Software store:
Given that there is a series of changelogs in Gnome Software that includes the sources functionality from well before the ZorinGroup announcement, I must assume at this time that I was wrong, ZorinGroup did not initiate that - they made use of upstream Gnome coding.
I am glad you questioned this, Ponce.
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And instead of leaving APT alone they renamed it Zorin (APT) so it becomes a hidden option with Flatpak at the top of the Options list. Newcomers are not aware of APT being the long standing superior option. I can see why Zorin did that because many a noob would possibly respond with wtf?
As you know I like to tinker. In the early days it was much more fun with being able to use Cairo-Dock and find little tweaks to the GnoMenu courtesy of OMG!Ubuntu:
Forgotten I had included Synaptic in this video!
And more tweaks:
This is what made GNU/Linux appealing, you were not constrained to have set Desktop layouts, you could adapt existing ones how you wanted it to look.
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This is something we are slowly having taken away from us.
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That is not correct. When I install Flatpak Support on Debian, Flatpak get the first Option, too. Then I have Flatpak at first and Debian at second.
The Difference to Zorin is: I can change it there to have Debian at 1 and Flatpak at 2. But this doesn't work here on Zorin. I don't know why but it doesn't.
2 Likes
Well I think @Aravisian has already stated elsewhere that Team Zorin is keen to promote Flatpak.
I'd really like to know why this isn't working in Zorin. There must be a file which blocks changes or overwrites it. I've tried it some times before with the gsettings command and dconf-editor, and I spent over an hour today tinkering with the gschemas in a live session of Zorin 18, but unfortunately without success.
I changed it in /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/25_zorin-os-default-settings-schema.override
and alternatively copied the file and the org.gnome.software.gschema.xml file to ~/.local/share/glib-2.0/schemas and edited it there and ran the command to compile glib schemas afterwards
sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
(accordingly for the file at ~/.local)
I set deb at first position there, but in gnome-software flatpaks are still prefered. I don't know, why.
Then I tested it with a higher 99 file at
usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/99_tester-schema.override
and put the lines for gnome-software there, and it didn't help.
I'm wondering, why there isn't shown something with "deb" in gnome-software, but "Zorin OS APT package". Perhaps there is somewhere another file.
The other day I've been thinking about whether it might be possible to have gnome-software show which repository a package comes from - for example, "ubuntu universe" or "ubuntu main" - and now I've accidentally changed something during my tests so that gnome-software no longer always displays "Zorin OS APT package," but instead shows, for example, "zorin-os-noble-extra" or "ubuntu-noble-universe."
I would look toward zorin-os-default-settings package.
Gnome software falls back to dconf more than schemas. Schemas would work if there is not already an explicit value set. But if there is, that takes priority.
You can check with
dconf read /org/gnome/software/packaging-format-preference
If that returns something, it will be showing those values (Which I think are located in /etc/dconf/db/"whatever".d.
You can reset them:
dconf reset /org/gnome/software/packaging-format-preference
sudo dconf update
I cannot test this, as I removed Gnome Software completely.
If you test it, remember that gnome-software-service running will hold the queue, so you need to shut it down fully when making your changes, then restart the service - or perform a full cycle reboot after making your changes.
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On Debian, I got it with Dconf Editor. Took only a couple of Minutes. The same Way doesn't work on Zorin. Here a Picture:
I have set in Dconf Editor deb and after it Flatpak from Flathub. That worked for me in Debian but not on Zorin.
You could also have installed it with:
sudo apt install synaptic
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You can always install it yourself. I have a list of apps that I always install from the command line. That's what I like best about Zorin. They install the apps that work best with their OS. It's up to you to install software that hasn't been tested. I have used Synaptic Package Manager for removal of programs I tried to install. I kind of prefer using the software store.
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GhostBSD is more fun with pkgs