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Don't worry, I don't think they plan to replace apt

apt-get does have super cow powers, you know

Actually it's aptitude that has Super Cow Powers, but close enough.

steve@firefly:~$ apt-get
apt 0.7.21ubuntu1 for amd64 compiled on Jun 15 2009 08:27:58

(more stuff)

...pages for more information and options.
This APT has Super Cow Powers.

steve@firefly:~$ apt-get moo
(__)
(oo)
/------\/
/ | ||
* /\---/\
~~ ~~
...."Have you mooed today?"...

steve@firefly:~$ aptitude moo
There are no Easter Eggs in this program.

steve@firefly:~$

ville@ville-laptop:~$ aptitude moo
There are no Easter Eggs in this program.
ville@ville-laptop:~$ aptitude -v moo
There really are no Easter Eggs in this program.
ville@ville-laptop:~$ aptitude -vv moo
Didn't I already tell you that there are no Easter Eggs in this program?
ville@ville-laptop:~$

... you can continue on your own...

aptitude -? final line:
This aptitude does not have Super Cow Powers.

I agree! While I don't use KDE very often, the few times that I do I realize how sweet Synaptic is and how crap both Adept and Kpackage are. I try to stick with QT when in KDE and with GTK when I'm in most other environments (since most of them do use GTK natively, with the exception of Enlightenment.)

I just can't do it with the package management though. Adept and Kpackage seriously need some love.

Not going to happen, at least as long as Ubuntu makes true accessibility one of their design goals. Until KDE can provide that the way GNOME does, it won't ever be default in Ubuntu. If you want KDE, that's what Kubuntu is for and is exactly why they provide it.

I absolutely agree.

On the long term sticking to Gnome is a bad strategic decision.

I'm not trying to troll here but I simply cannot prefer KDE over Gnome, and I really tried. KDE simply looks too hectic. I know I can change it (though I haven't found a theme that fixes the problem, maybe Bespin). But everything is so big and black. Everything must for some reason be animated, it's not functional just bling.
And the entire desktop seems to revolve around that plasmoid idea. It looks like it's the core feature of KDE. But that doesn't resemble the core thing for which I need a DE. I don't spend all day adding plasmoids to my desktop, so I don't need that yellow abscess (okay that is trolling) in the corner. Why would I like to zoom out my desktop? And why would I want to rotate plasmoids?? so I can read the clock with more effort?
There was not one useful plasmoid for me anyway, and I cannot imagine some-one needing a moon-phase thing next to there Fifteen Puzzle anyway.
When I went back to Gnome again, it felt like coming back home again. Well maybe it looks like it comes from the '90, but good things don't need change just so people can't say “Oh that's so ninetees ”

Edited 2009-08-29 12:14 UTC

I think you are actually describing the main problem which is that a lot of people are attached to Gnome, including Shuttleworth. Switching to a different system like KDE is going to be met with resistance.

But I think it really comes down to:

What you are comfortable with vs

What can actually compete with Windows 7 / OSX
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3914/air.png

Resistance on both sides. By the time KDE was turned into something reasonably usable by non-KDE devotees the KDE folks would be positively apoplectic, claiming that their beloved KDE had been butchered. KDE is really best left as an add-on set of packages that the KDE faithful can install and enjoy in the privacy of their own homes.

Edited 2009-08-29 21:55 UTC

Oh, the high priest of usability has speaked! How odd that nobody has noticed your limitless sapience before and thus millions of dollars have been sensessly wasted into obviously inferior alternatives. If only they had asked you!

But just maybe, if KDE get their act together and shepherd all preferences from the 300 tabs where they are currently scattered (and clarify the navigation around those tabs while they are at it); strip their programs from the mishmash of useless features; expunge the desktop of shamefully ridiculous meaningless terminology (Akonadi, Plasmoid, Nepomuk, Strigi...); and grok that beauty is a lot more than translucence and rounded corners, then the blinding light of your message will become obvious.

I wish them well, but I have really tried to like KDE4 (4.0, 4.1, 4.2), and have found it to be so far a total usability disaster. And damn ugly, too, beyond the shallowest skin depth. We'll see if 4.3 is good enough, or otherwise wait for 4.4. Qt is fantastic, but although KDE4 is really trying, its time has not come just yet.

I am inclined to say it won't as Kubuntu already uses PackageKit. But then again it could all change.

It's totally stupid of Canonical not to use Qt for this exclusively. Since 4.5 it's possible to write apps that integrate very well with GNOME -- just like a GTK app.

Qt is not KDE

No Sh*t Sherlock!

Ever thought that a pure Qt app integrates well in both GNOME and KDE?
Sure, you need some GUI tweaks to make that app conform to each's HIG, but that's less work that redoing the entire app in another toolkit as well.

Because it makes so much sense to run the greater majority of users through a fake compatibility layer in order to please a small minority.

Sorry, no. Go use Mandriva or Slackware if you just can't handle running a GTK+ app.

Edited 2009-08-29 23:45 UTC

Thank's for your great technical insight! Whoa, loading GTK themes natively is "a fake compatibility layer".
Obviously GTKmm, PyGTK, and GTK# are by your definitions also fake compatibility layers, because they are "compatibility layers" to a C toolkit....


Great troll! KDE users are a small minority on Linux... yeah, right...

That a "Software Store" that uses PackageKit may be used on every Linux distro with no porting required (except changing the repo URLs), does obviously not come into you mind.



Oh, now you speak for Canonical? What's your position there? Press relations? Janitor?



Don't put words into my mouth!!!
I NEVER (!!) wrote that I can't handle GTK apps. It's Kubuntu policy to not include GTK-based apps (not a policy I agree with, btw).
So in order to achieve feature parity, the whole app has to be recoded by Canonical's KDE developers. A total waste of resources, if Software Store was developed in Qt right from the start.

Not developing GNOME apps before Qt 4.5 was understandable, but Trolltech/Nokia has put quite a lot of work into Qt just to make it a good citizen in a GNOME desktop.

Well, if they follow good design concepts they'll make the core and the interface separate, then anyone can code an interface with whatever toolkit they want and put an end to the QT trolls since they can just develop a QT interface and be happy.

"Sorry, no. Go use Mandriva or Slackware if you just can't handle running a GTK+ app. "

Probably not a good idea, given that all of Mandriva's configuration tools are GTK+.

I was wondering the same thing. I suspect that this is eventually supposed to address the problem of 3rd parties rolling their own installation methods, thus reinventing the wheel and contributing to installer proliferation. Of course, some of these third parties' products are going to be pay-for. And this venture would integrate pay-for products into the same technical framework, though not the same repos, that we enjoy with the approximately 25,000 OSS packages in the standard repos.

Prepare for lots of self-defeating wailing about how bad it is to cater to evil proprietary software vendors, as we prepare to self-sabotage our chances of success, as per our standard practice in these matters.

And, of course, it will serve as a great excuse for some to take pot shots at Ubuntu and Canonical.

Edited 2009-08-29 03:20 UTC

And puttig new clothes for the emperor and calling it a "store" instead of "repository" will not lead to this proliferation?

And what is it with this Ubuntu? Every little GUI-wrapper gets press attention. Sad state of affairs that things like these are even considered "innovations".

Page 2 of the article does say that eventually (Ubuntu version 10.10) they do intend on selling third party software through the 'store'.

What would be nice is for official Ubuntu/Debian repositories or at least support by third party software vendors. For example, you can already get Yum repositories for flash, but no Debian ones? Or software like Alias Wavefront Maya, you have to install through RPMs which can be a pain in a Debian/Ubuntu set up.

Hopefully they'll make something more like Steam which makes it really easy for developers to sell and consumers to buy software. Apt is cool and all, but isn't really optimized for selling third party commercial software, so this should be far more than another gui on top of apt.

No objections there.

But when this happens, I want to see the face of all free software lunatics .

Baby with the bathwater and all.

Free software lunatics won't run the program - problem solved.

Also, I doubt free software lunitacs are 1) running ubuntu or 2) part of ubuntu's target market.

I would not consider myself a "free software lunatic", but I do
1) use ubuntu and successfully push its use across client companies
2) am a fan of Canonical and part of ubuntu's target market(whatever that is).

However, if Canonical starts to actively promote a culture of $1.99 downloads over a community open source model, then

1) I will NO LONGER use ubuntu and encourage my clients to drop it
2) Canonical's current Open Source community "target market" will run from it faster than you can say "RedHat Linux 9 Discontinued".

I hope this is not Canonical's intention.

Who are these brazen programmers that expect to get paid for their hard work? I would rather spend $2 on a hot dog. I don't mind paying the guy who runs the hot dog stand for his work but programmers? That goes against my sense of entitlement that I developed thanks to the gpl.

I would not consider myself a "free software lunatic", but I do
1) use ubuntu and successfully push its use across client companies
2) am a fan of Canonical and part of ubuntu's target market(whatever that is).

However, if Canonical starts to actively promote a culture of $1.99 downloads over a community open source model, then

1) I will NO LONGER use ubuntu and encourage my clients to drop it
2) Canonical's current Open Source community "target market" will run from it faster than you can say "RedHat Linux 9 Discontinued".

I hope this is not Canonical's intention. "


The bigger issue is all the proprietary stuff that's free as in money to Windows/Mac users but companies won't write a simple wrapper for Linux because they might leak their "iP" Things like Flash, printer drivers, video card drivers, Google Earth, etc, etc... It would be nice to have a collected place to get them, but companies will only do that if they can have some "stake" in the distribution... As soon as they see BillyBobsHackedprinterDrivers on the net they pull the proper drivers down too... Ubuntu needs a friendly place to stick this stuff... and a place for PAID software would help things along too. (nothing brings devs like a chance for $$$, look at the Apple App store) Things that have patents and MUST be paid for to distribute... DVD and media Codex, etc. as well as still in print games and apps like Maya or Oracle that are painful for average Linux users to install.

I'm not sure about this. Ubuntu does offer an option to install a completly free system.

In fact Gobuntu, a distribution targeted at "free software lunitacs" was merged into Ubuntu. You can install this system by choosing the "Free software only" option.

You can find details here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Gobuntu

Yes. But the free software lunatics in question would likely consider Gobuntu dirty by association. Remember that we are talking about unstable reactionaries with only a tenuous grasp upon logic.

As a noun, the word "store" can also be used to mean "a supply or stock of something, esp. one for future use." In that sense, it effectively means the same thing as "repository."

That is less-common than the definition you gave, however.

Integrating checkinstall into that would be cool.

Same program doesn't mean the same interface. Mandriva has only one GUI package management tool - rpmdrake - but it has two completely different interfaces, one for 'updating' and one full-fat package management interface. Same code underneath.

I agree that the web based approach is sexier, as tt allows better graphics and easier social interactions! Did you check http://www.allmyapps.com ? It is more or less a web based version of the Ubuntu Software Store...

Sorry but since when have BSD systems had an obsession with market shares?

As far as I can see, going to the mass markets with hype and "user-friendliness" has always been a Linux thing, and thank god for it.