Hm, I've some problems with nix and desktop apps that needs opengl or similar machine-specific libraries. There are some hacks, and I also think nix comes very close to a good solution, but it's not 100% yet.
That’s mostly due to video drivers not being under nix’s control deliberately (if packages would depend on them as well, instead of a stub, there would be exponentially more build for each driver). On nixos this is solved by a specifically-placed stub, while it will be distro specific elsewhere, so it may not work for a random distro (that’s where “hacks” come into the picture, choosing a non-nixos distro specific lib as the stub and it will work just fine)
How so? Double-clicking an AppImage from a specific folder is not user-hostile (that's a common pattern across desktop systems), and the blogpost specifically points to appimaged and AppImageLauncher as solutions for full desktop integration.
What do you mean? When I think of "...integrate poorly with desktops", I think of Electron apps. These also have a Flatpak-like distribution (but not security) model. And a "best effort" integration model. Basically, whatever is possible without lifting too much of a finger.
When i think of "desktop integration", i think about drag and drop not working between `ark` (a QT program) and `thunar` (a GTK program), and i think of folk writing blog posts about window theming. (there's also notifications, icons, etc, blablabla, that keeps getting worse (freedesktop is, that is))
To be honest, i don't care much about how programs look. But i do know many people do care.
Nix seems to be the only approach that has a chance, but having good fundamentals isn’t enough. The effort to improve the UX and usability is underway. I’m working on it; are there use-cases or “blow your socks off” demos that would be compelling to help convince developers and application writers?
The only thing I think actually solves packaging is nix.