[vox] Fwd: Re: is the Linux desktop OS dead?

[Bill Kendrick]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 05:12:20PM -0800, Michael Cheselka wrote:
> Linux could do better if we fixed the many packing systems.  On a
> Windows system, I can just download and open a .exe or .msi to add a
> package, and go to the control panel to remove a package.  Most
> packages for Windows can be installed on XP, Vista, and Windows 7
> without worry.  On Linux, too often, it matters what your Linux system
> is like.  We need a better scheme.

WOW!  What distros are YOU using!?  And/or what software that's
not already with in the repository of 10s of 1000s of packages
that are probably available?


On my Ubuntu 9.04 system,  apt-cache dumpavail | grep "^Package" | wc -l
states that over 26,000 packages are available.  Obviously, not all
are end-user applications...

I'm far from an expert on the use of debtags, but a quick search for
all packages tagged "role::program", I see nearly 7000.


Finding and installing software on Linux is a snap, and I'm not even
using the GUIs available to me, simply out of habit.  (Really, I've got
pretty much everything I need already installed, and 99% of that
was by default, so...)


> Some way to note what's needed to be provided to a package by the
> system for it to install correctly.

8^o  Seriously?  Let's try it on my Ubuntu laptop:

$ aptitude show tuxpaint
...
Depends: tuxpaint-plugins-default | tuxpaint-plugins, tuxpaint-data (=
         1:0.9.20-2ubuntu1), libc6 (>= 2.4), libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4), libglib2.0-0
         (>= 2.12.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.13.6),
         libpaper1, libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4), librsvg2-2 (>= 2.18.1),
         libsdl-image1.2 (>= 1.2.5), libsdl-mixer1.2 (>= 1.2.6), libsdl-pango1,
         libsdl-ttf2.0-0, libsdl1.2debian (>= 1.2.10-1), libvorbis0a
         (>= 1.0.0-2), libvorbisfile3 (>= 1.0.0-2), netpbm

Suggests: tuxpaint-config
...

And it's not that _I_ ever look at those details.  The software installation
tools figure all that crap out for me, and it Just Works(tm).

The Debian folks figured this kind of stuff out a long time ago.
(The reason I switched from RedHat to Debian, and then to Ubuntu,
8 or 9 years ago.  And RedHat's caught up, with "yum" or something.)


> Standards has helped but there's still more work to be done in this area.

There's always more work to be done in all areas of everything,
I've discovered. ;)


-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer