Potentially relevant: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440954

I suspect this is caused by KDE Neon's decision to hide GUI software from Discover in favor of encouraging users to get their software from Flatpak or Snap sources. It make Discover seem stupid, though. What does `appstreamcli search virtualbox` return for you?

Created attachment 140778 [details]
appstreamcli search virtualbox result

Apparently it can't seem to find Virtualbox

Yep, that means it has no AppStream metadata, which in the case of Neon is intentional. If this peeves you, you'll need to take it up with the Neon devs. :)

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #2)
> I suspect this is caused by KDE Neon's decision to hide GUI software from
> Discover

That isn't factual. We hide apps that aren't maintained by us because they are not maintained by us and thus potentially broken but most definitely outdated and not giving the user experience the developers intend the user to have. IOW discover only offers debs for apps we know are expected to work on neon. All other apps (that is: the ones inherited from ubuntu) are by default not supported - they may work, or not, we don't know or care really, but we also can't advertise broken stuff to the user.

https://neon.kde.org/faq#diff-

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Perhaps I should have been more precise and said, "GUI software from the Ubuntu repos". :) Nonetheless, the result is the same: apps that experienced users know are available using the command-line package manager do not not appear in Discover. In general I agree with not advertising unsupported software, but you have to admit it makes Discover look pretty dumb in this case. And it can be frustrating for software that is available but hidden in the main repos to not appear in Discover when it's not available elsewhere either.

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #6)
> but you have to admit it makes Discover look pretty dumb in this
> case. 

Sure.

> And it can be frustrating for software that is available but hidden in
> the main repos to not appear in Discover when it's not available elsewhere
> either.

It's not something we as KDE can do anything about though. If orcale doesn't put at least bootstrappers onto the app stores then that's orcales decision or maybe nobody told them to, and users are left with going to https://www.virtualbox.org/ It sucks to be sure, but there is no solution to that problem that we can facilitate.

(In reply to Harald Sitter from comment #7)
> (In reply to Nate Graham from comment #6)
> > but you have to admit it makes Discover look pretty dumb in this
> > case. 
> 
> Sure.
> 
> > And it can be frustrating for software that is available but hidden in
> > the main repos to not appear in Discover when it's not available elsewhere
> > either.
> 
> It's not something we as KDE can do anything about though. If orcale doesn't
> put at least bootstrappers onto the app stores then that's orcales decision
> or maybe nobody told them to, and users are left with going to
> https://www.virtualbox.org/ It sucks to be sure, but there is no solution to
> that problem that we can facilitate.

I have a couple questions here:

1. Any chance this decision can be turned into an "expert mode" option or something like that, so experienced users can get access to ubuntu packages through Discover after being informed about the dangers (think the way Firefox warns you upon visiting a suspicious site)

2. If the problem lies with Oracle, then why is it that krunner is able to find virtualbox and offer me the option to install it? Where is it fetching that info?

Thanks