Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#121

Post by DanBC » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 4:45 PM UTC

ktizo wrote: post #117

kfcm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user. End-users don't want to have to learn an entirely new UI (read, a different way of doing things; or, "Where's my Start button? Everything I know how to do is under that.") every couple of years. Not because they're (all) dumb, stupid, or lazy. It's because end-users view a computer as a tool to do what they need/wa…

Is funny, cos in the games industry the concept is that the average end users are completely willing to learn a completely new UI for each and every game, as long as it is fun.

That's true, but it's something I hate about games. Having to learn a different button layout for every game is really frustrating.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#122

Post by cgoddard » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 4:50 PM UTC

muuh-gnu wrote: post #22

cs702 wrote: post #2

Molnar's point about the political and procedural difficulties of adding new applications in the official repositories of most distributions is true (although this is changing -- witness Canonical's Ubuntu Software Center, PPAs, and "universe" repositories). But his reasoning breaks down when he says the relative dearth of commercial applications for the Linux Desktop is due to this issue. That's not true. The main r…

> The main reason why OSX/iOS, Android, and Windows attract more commercial developers is because those platforms have a much greater installed base! A few years ago, Linux had a bigger installed base than both iOS and Android. Both of them outran linux with ease.

Ummm yeah they're also OS's for a completely different platform. That makes a pretty big difference.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#123

Post by moe » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 4:56 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #98

moe wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that distributed repositories are the way forward. The only thing holding that back is the atrocious user-interface. Debian urgently needs to fix that and push their apt-infrastructure out of the 1990s. In short: /etc/apt/sources.list must die. This is how it must work: apt-get install https://foobar.com/debian/squeeze/widget-1.0 A package installed like that must add itself automatically to a proverbial sour…

But what's the problem with sources.list, as long as the user doesn't have to manage or even know that it exists? Provide a .deb from your website, use the install script to add your repository to the sources.list. There, the user doesn't have to know or care about that file. And this is all possible - no, easy - to do right now. This is how it must work: I disagree, having to run apt-get is too cumbersome to a regul…

But what's the problem with sources.list, as long as the user doesn't have to manage or even know that it exists?

You are right. My point was that I (the user) shouldn't need to know that a file by this name exists. Of course debian is free to maintain the bookkeeping in any way appropriate.

I don't see how - there's no standard on GH projects for installation; some projects are installed by simple make/make install, others with easy_install/gems/npm, etc.

People would check-in either the deb or the debian/ meta-files. The latter would be preferable, but the deb package-building process needs to be simplified for developers to consider participating.

The current deb building procedure is a trainwreck, which is in fact a related problem. Homebrew recipes and gentoo ebuilds are trivial in comparison, there's no reason the deb process needs to be as convoluted as it is.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#124

Post by cgoddard » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 4:56 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #19

moonchrome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they are mostly consumables which perish in few days or months (I exclude some utitities). This is simply false, there are plenty of complex apps with varying degrees of usefulness but they certanly don't reduce to 80's game clones and few screen apps. And even if it was true it's not a result of anything intrinsic to the app model. Also "tight control a la Apple" indicates that you missed his point. How many times…

I agree that having to make and sudo install is essentially impossible for a common PC user, but how does the sandboxing have any impact in user adoption?

On any of the modern distros there should be no scenario in which a common user should have to run 'make' directly. Even for distros which don't use precompiled binaries the install process is simpler than that.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#125

Post by moe » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #95

moe wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that distributed repositories are the way forward. The only thing holding that back is the atrocious user-interface. Debian urgently needs to fix that and push their apt-infrastructure out of the 1990s. In short: /etc/apt/sources.list must die. This is how it must work: apt-get install https://foobar.com/debian/squeeze/widget-1.0 A package installed like that must add itself automatically to a proverbial sour…

You are broadly describing PPAs. Adding a package from a PPA is a three-line (easily scriptable) process: add-apt-repository , apt-get update , apt-get install . Obviously, that doesn't just work for PPAs, but for all apt repositories. Launchpad does some central indexing ("other versions of this package") for PPAs, but I don't think it's accessible via command line. There is no indication how popular a PPA is, but P…

You are broadly describing PPAs.

Yes, indeed I am. The point where PPAs fall short is that the user still needs to add a repository when all he wants is to install a package.

I maintain `apt-get install https://foobar.com/pkg` is where it's at. Feel free to query me all you want ("really add this untrusted repo?", "fetch updates from there?", "trust this key?" etc.), but by all means make it a one-liner. Not three, not two, one.

And have proper procedures for all the little corner cases where PPAs fall down. I.e. when the repo goes away or changes URL, when the signing key changes, etc.

It's a matter of polish. Non-technical users need that polish. And technical users like it, too.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#126

Post by ktizo » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:11 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #121

ktizo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is funny, cos in the games industry the concept is that the average end users are completely willing to learn a completely new UI for each and every game, as long as it is fun.

That's true, but it's something I hate about games. Having to learn a different button layout for every game is really frustrating.

You can't have a consistent button layout across all games though, as there is far too wide a variety of different functions to be mapped to.

Also, by having the attitude that the user is willing to invest time learning how to use the game, there is far more experimentation in interface styles being done.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#127

Post by ElliotH » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:12 PM UTC

DrCatbox wrote: post #108

zalew wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just Ubuntu, not all Linux. unless there are other distros with Unity and 6-month cycles I don't know of.

ArchLinux suffers from the same problem. I left my cousin with ArchLinux, he liked it alot, so much that he still used it 6 months later. At that time he wanted to install a new program, well, from then on he stopped using arch. Because he had to call me to help him fix his system, issuing the pacman -S programname failed, so he did pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S programname again, and this time his entire system w…

ArchLinux is a very poor distribution to leave with someone who doesn't have the knowledge to fix these problems.

When you do pacman -Syu you should be looking on the front page for update news, you should be looking at the list of packages to be upgraded. It's not a distribution that will hold your hand, because there are some of us around who don't want our hands held.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#128

Post by javert » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

kfcm wrote: post #103

bryanlarsen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say used to be true, but does not appear to be any longer. When was the last time we had useful improvements to the OS X user interface? 10.4 (2005) or 10.5 (2007), in my opinion. They've certainly improved under the hood, but the improvements to the UI have been mostly gimmicks like Expose. When was the last time we had useful improvements to the Windows UI? That would be Windows Vista, 2006/2007. (W7 was b…

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user. End-users don't want to have to learn an entirely new UI (read, a different way of doing things; or, "Where's my Start button? Everything I know how to do is under that.") every couple of years. Not because they're (all) dumb, stupid, or lazy. It's because end-users view a computer as a tool to do what they need/wa…

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user.

Well, a lot of people who use and hack on Linux distros aren't targeting the "end-user," they're targeting the technologist. So that mindset is not necessarily a problem.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#129

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

DrCatbox wrote: post #108

zalew wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's just Ubuntu, not all Linux. unless there are other distros with Unity and 6-month cycles I don't know of.

ArchLinux suffers from the same problem. I left my cousin with ArchLinux, he liked it alot, so much that he still used it 6 months later. At that time he wanted to install a new program, well, from then on he stopped using arch. Because he had to call me to help him fix his system, issuing the pacman -S programname failed, so he did pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S programname again, and this time his entire system w…

[deleted]

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#130

Post by luser001 » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #66

I've been using Linux since 1993, and back then, the Linux OS and desktop were far superior to Windows 3.1. Then Win 95 came out and that had a decent desktop. I remember when the KDE people started talking about a desktop for Unix and people didn't get it, but when we saw the beta it was like... Wow! Then Red Hat Linux didn't like the license of KDE, so they had to create Gnome. As a result, rather than having one g…

> I still use Linux on servers, but desktop Linux has largely disappeared from my life.

And you still keep saying that "sound doesn't work". It's literally been years since I've had problems playing sound.

> I get the feeling Linux has been going backwards not forwards.

Hmm, I can play most media out of the box on Linux. I think that's a huge step forward.