

A picture for users of lesser OSs - rbanffy
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/a-picture-for-users-of-lesser-oss

======
mdasen
I've used Linux for a long time and it used to be crap in this way. It's
something that certain _distributions_ took it upon themselves to produce. And
it works well - when the software you want is in the repository.

When what you want isn't in a repository or you want a newer version than the
repository has is where you hit problems. The Mac and Windows tend to get
around this problem by having a decently stable set of libraries that programs
work with. With Linux, because everyone is free to have or not have anything,
programs can't count on what may or may not be installed or what version it
might be. And if one were to upgrade one library, it might cause
incompatibilities with certain programs and if one were to install a newer
version of a program it might depend on that newer version of that library.
Many Linux distros get around this by not upgrading packages in repositories
beyond critical fixes for a released version. And that does bug a lot of
people. It's one of the reasons new Linux distros are released so frequently -
an upgrade of the OS is also an upgrade of the programs you're running on it.

And part of this is that Linux is progressing rapidly. We don't _want_ a
stable set of stuff because we couldn't improve as quickly that way.

But it's a little bit brusk to say that Linux is just superior because it has
centralized application management. It's both a positive and a negative. And,
to an extent, it's a solution to a problem that the Mac and Windows don't have
- that programs can't count on what's going to be on a given system or what
version.

It's cool. It makes some things easy and nice. It isn't some magically amazing
thing that _always_ works in your favor.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
"When what you want isn't in a repository or you want a newer version than the
repository has is where you hit problems."

You have an excellent point there. A recent example is that it took FREAKING
forever before Firefox 3.5 was in the Ubuntu repositories, and it's still only
in Jaunty. If you're running an older version (like Intrepid or Hardy) then
there is no _simple_ way to run 3.5. Seriously???? I need to upgrade my
_entire_ OS to upgrade my browser? WTF!

You can of course install from source.. That's easy enough for most of us here
on HN, but not _exactly_ end user friendly.

IMHO part of the reason package repositories for Linux distro's don't work as
well as something like the iPhone App Store or the Android Market is that
they're to fragmented. Even for a major open source project like Mozilla,
getting your latest release into every major version of every major distro's
repositories is a pretty major undertaking. Not to mention of course that the
iPhone App Store and the Android market allow for _both_ open source _and_
commercial software.

------
shelfoo
It's interesting. My wife has recently started using linux on a regular basis,
and this is what she hates about it. She doesn't "get" it.

For one thing, the package manager has _horrible_ descriptions for the stuff
being installed. "core libraries and binaries for all KDE applications" might
make sense to us, but she doesn't know what that means at all.

For another, she's used to going somewhere to get an application to install
it. Forget apt-get, forget launching a package manager, why can't she just go
to the website (ie: google earth), download the executable, and run it? Why
does linux have to make things so different and hard?

Lastly, there are more updates coming from the Ubuntu package manager than I
ever saw in windows, again with those horrible descriptions for a standard
user.

Having said all this, I do like it, it's a huge advancement from where linux
was when I started using it, but for those people that haven't used linux
before, it's sometimes more confusing than helpful. Possibly because software
updates in Windows or OS X are software updates for Windows or OS X, not
software updates for "samba-common - samba common files used by both the
server and the client"

~~~
theBobMcCormick
I think part of the reason for the horrible descriptions I think is that Linux
package managers try to shoehorn one mechanism into working for both system
updates (libraries, kernels, daemons, etc) as well as end-user software.

------
alex_c
Whenever I read "like by magic", I mentally have to add "when it works".

~~~
rbanffy
I think the last time APT borked a system I used unexpectedly was in 2003 and
I was running Debian testing with parts of Sid thrown in: I _expected_ it to
fail from time to time. The fact it did only a handful of times was remarkable
by itself.

The other time I remember was a couple months back when I added a bleeding
edge Intel GMA driver to solve a bug I was trying to help to fix and it
completely fubar'ed my X. It was easier to dump a package list to a separate
partition and reinstall from the CD.

I never saw APT misbehaving unless provoked.

------
ErrantX
Repositories are a wonderful sexy and brilliant thing with lots going for
them. But I always like to counter effusive praise like that with some
caveats. Like that they do have flaws; often dependencies aren't worked out
correctly, many of the interfaces are a little confusing/inaccessible for a
noob, the ratio of signal/noise in terms of quality software is sometimes
annoyingly low, I've yet to see a _really_ good GUI search interface for one,
often you get an older version of the software.

And so forth.

~~~
div
Or you get a hacked up version that does not behave as you'd expect it to.
E.g.: if you install gems using apt on ubuntu or debian, you'll get a modified
version that tries to install rubygems from one of their own repositories.
Also, it wasn't correctly symlinking gems after i'd install them either.

Apart from that though, yeah, repositories are pretty sexy indeed.

~~~
rbanffy
I am always weary of installing gems (actually, I use mostly Python, so I
install eggs). It seems wrong to go against APT.

~~~
div
I can understand that, but it's easy enough to specify the apt repository as a
parameter to the gems command. If you really want it as the default, it's
trivial to alias that. There's something to be said for just letting your
packages have the default behaviour.

------
DanielStraight
This is basically my favorite thing about Linux. I can install almost anything
I could possibly want by typing one command.

And for users of lesser interfaces (GUIs):

sudo apt-get install lighttpd

A lot easier than navigating a list.

~~~
igorgue
And a lot easier than going to a website, download, unzip copy manually to a
folder, also the GUIs for apt are very good.

~~~
rbanffy
And looks a lot safer than downloading an executable and trusting your
computer to it.

------
ez77
Has anybody switched from a Linux distro to OpenSolaris as their main OS?
Experiences? I'm contemplating it...

~~~
rbanffy
My worst complaint was it uses an outdated version of Gnome. OpenSolaris could
have a tiered repository structure analog to Debian's
stable/testing/experimental/unstable.

If you want a life without surprises, you run "OpenSolaris boring". If you are
a little more brave, you go with "OS risky" and if you like a life of
adventures (and of fixing your computer) you could go with "OS adventurous".

You can also have a final version, "OpenSolaris bleeding" with all software
rebuilt from the newest sources every other day with no assurances beyond "it
compiles".

BTW, I used to call Debian testing "works, mostly" and unstable "should
compile".

------
rudle
This is news?

~~~
rbanffy
Not really, but 3rd party software centralized update is starting to appear on
non-Linux platforms like the iPhone. It's becoming an important feature.

------
unalone
Hey! Look at me! I spend so much time working with computers that I prefer a
highly technical solution to something with an easily comprehensible
interface! Then, because I also has Asperger's syndrome and overeat, I spend
my time dissing people that use other operating systems because obviously
there's no reason people would use something that I don't use oh god im so
lonely

One of my favorite things about my current university is that it made Macs
mandatory. It utterly killed the OS debate among students. People who like
Linux/Windows Boot Camp it, and everybody's happy, and I never have to listen
to the smug superiority of the Windows/Linux people. (Last year, the smug was
everywhere. Screw people my age.)

