Transcript
Screenshot of Octopi Package Manager installed on CachyOS (previously the default before being replaced by Shelly). OP has searched for microsoft-edge. No results are returned.
OP has drawn a circle around a button in the image of an alien head with an arrow pointing to it. Under the arrow is “???”.
Caption at the bottom of the image reads: “Microsoft edge and google chrome don’t show up in neither of cachyos’ software stores out of the box. On octopi you can make it show up by pressing the weird alien head icon. “Mysteriously” firefox shows up on both stores immediately without clicking any obscure buttons. This is either extremely terrible i design or a deliberate sabotage attempt against microsoft and google from loonix devs, possibly sponsored by mozilla.”
Context:
OP is an idiot because these browsers would not be available due to restrictions required by Microsoft and Google to share their software, which is why nothing shows up when searching the installed repositories. Note that Chromium, the base for Edge and Chrome is available on the default repository.
The alien head icon searches the AUR (Arch User Repository) a place for users to add packages, often mirrored from GitHub, which would show Edge and Chrome as a user has ported it over unofficially. Because the AUR consists of unofficial packages, it is not part of the default repositories, and requires additional confirmation before installation.
Note that when installing from the AUR, it is always important to read what you are compiling as packages are not checked for malicious code. See recent news regarding compromised packages that weren’t maintained.
That’s for practical reasons.
Edge is Google Chrome underneath. So a linux release isn’t much more dev effort on Microsoft’s part.
But they develop Office, and obviously linux was never a commercial target for it.
There’s also the secondary reason which is they barely give a shit about the local office apps and want you to use 365 and the in browser versions.
I’m surprised they even offer the office suite local at all anymore.