

Installing Firefox 3.6: One more reason Linux isn't ready for prime time - ilamont
http://blogs.computerworld.com/15443/talling_firefox_3_6_one_more_reason_linux_isnt_ready_for_the_prime_time_mass_market

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chancho
Poor Linux distros. They try so hard. Nobody ever makes installers for Linux
software (they don't even provide binaries unless it costs $1000+.) So the
distros do their best to compile, test and maintain neat, orderly package
repositories that won't vomit all over your filesystem and don't have tons of
bugs and backdoors. And for this they are chastised, because it takes time to
prepare a release. Meanwhile, Apple can take their sweet time with App Store
approval, reject anything they want, not even give you the _option_ of
installing things the hard way, and for this they are applauded. Clearly what
Linux needs is more shiny buttons and less freedom.

~~~
pmjordan
I don't know what it's like with Ubuntu, but certainly OpenSuse has offered
one-click installs for a while, e.g.:

<http://en.opensuse.org/Firefox>

These aren't terribly difficult for developers to set up, certainly easier
than creating an installer for Windows. I wish Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.
offered this sort of download as the default, with tarballs only for users who
know what they're getting themselves into.

The main pain is presumably in generating these for different distros.
Novell's build service is supposed to make this easier, but I haven't tried
it:

<http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/supported_build_targets>

One more thing that would help with this is if more browsers used the distro
in the user-agent string, which would help with presenting the right installer
to the user. Distro-built versions of Firefox certainly include e.g. "SUSE",
but not the version. Windows and Mac browsers send the OS arch and version
("Windows NT 5.2", "Intel Mac OS X 10.5") so just sending "Linux x86_64" seems
silly.

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Apreche
If Ubuntu wanted to, they could make it trivially easy, and upgrade everyone
to Firefox 3.6 The reason they don't is because of their update policies.

For example, Ubuntu 9.10 comes with kernel 2.6.31. If there is a bugfix or
patch, they will update you to 2.6.31.whatever. They will continue those
updates for as long as that release is supported. However, they will never
upgrade you to 2.6.32 or above. They will just continue applying fixes to
2.6.31.

This same policy applies to Firefox. With Ubuntu 9.10 you get Firefox 3.5.
They will give you 3.5.9999, but never 3.6.

To get 3.6, you will have to wait for Ubuntu 10.4.

The reason for this policy is to maintain stability. They know that one
package at version X is compatible with all the other packages at version Y,
so don't upgrade anything and compatability will be maintained.

This is reasonable, but I think they need to make an exception for something
like Firefox. There is no reason that Firefox 3.6 won't be compatible. It just
works. They are sacrificing the user experience in favor of some esoteric
update policy that users are not even aware of, nor do they understand.

User experience is priority one. People care more about Firefox than every
other app on the system. Upgrade it Ubuntu!

~~~
AndrewDucker
They actually think that to get the latest version of my application I should
upgrade my operation system?

Really???

------
nailer
The naive belief that users will wait at least 6 months to get a simply-
installed version of a software update that other platforms already have is
laughable. Especially when that hardware could run two other OSs that don't
have that requirements.

Nobody's sure whether this is Firefox's problem or each Linux distro's
problem. But since some distros seem to advocate themselves as desktop OSs, I
suggest they take responsibility for solving it - and produce up to date
packages of Firefox and other essential desktop tools.

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scotty79
There is very funny comment to this article. I sincerely believe that it is
ironic.

"I've never liked Linux. Firefox is faster and more reliable. Less buggy too."

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fauigerzigerk
The installation issue doesn't just affect novice users. The entire package
management idea is utterly broken. Most of the time the packages are not
created by those who create the software. They are embodyments of someone's
idiosyncratic idea about what should go where.

Package maintainers keep inventing new contrived ways to distribute files all
over the place. Reading the documentation of the actual software often doesn't
help me find out where everything is and how it can be configured.

The default sources.list keeps falling behind the older my installation gets
and there doesn't seem to be any recommended way to keep it up to date. Of
course I can add package sources of more recent OS versions, but that seems
like a rather more dangerous thing to do.

Package managers are supposed to help me deal with dependencies but they end
up creating new dependencies of their own.

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middus
Linux is not ready for the mass market because average joes are not able to
use the newest version of a browser?

Righty right, because your average joe (a) does not care about the newest
version, (b) does not know what a browser is (remember that video?).

Moreover, Preston Gralla does not seem to have a clue what package management
is about. "Unbuntu"? Seriously?

~~~
pvg
If you're asking an end-user to care about 'package management' then you're
likely proving his point.

~~~
cgranade
How? Package management is simply a different model entirely. One that doesn't
encourage people to go download random files and give them full privileges on
their machines. It's no harder to go to System > Administration > Add/Remove
Software than it is to go seeking out some software on the web, downloading
it, installing it manually and making sure that you have whatever other
software it needs. I dare say that asking users to care about package
management is a solution to the problem of Windows installers.

~~~
j_baker
_Package management is simply a different model entirely._

Heh... isn't that a bit like saying functional programming is _only_ an
entirely different programming paradigm? :-)

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fexl
Heh, same thing happened to me when I downloaded Thunderbird 3.0 to my Linux
machine. I didn't know what to do next, and I searched the web in a bewildered
fashion. Then I sent a Pidgin message to a colleague and he said "you don't
install it, you just run the executable right in the directory." Oh. Thanks.
Same thing with Firefox 3.6.

Funny thing is, I think Add/Remove software on Ubuntu, and its command line
variant apt-get, is _excellent_ , and I find Linux very easy to use on the
desktop.

Of course, to get dual monitors to work with this laptop I had to hack
/etc/xorg.conf. And don't even ask me about audio or video -- I wouldn't know
a codec from a driver. But for day to day coding in C and Perl, and for doing
investment fund accounting, I have found a well-worn groove (rut?) within
which I can thrive.

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chancho
Waste of bits. The article, the comments, all of it. You owe me $0.003 of
electricity, ilamont.

~~~
ilamont
C'mon, the comments are the best part!

------
j_baker
If the average Joe wants the bleeding edge, get him to try Debian unstable. I
_guarantee_ that he'll go running back to the comforts of the more stable
distro. I can say this because I did so as well. :-)

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maxer
when will chrome become mainstream for linux?

