Linked by Jason Vagner on Fri 16th Apr 2004 20:37 UTC
O'Reilly's latest entry in the "Pocket" series, "Linux Pocket Guide", bills itself as a "quick reference for experienced users and a guided tour for beginners".
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There are some pretty good ideas in this thread. I too believe package managers should keep a small database in an standard XML file on where things are. This would grant FREEDOM to use 3rd party installers and possibly even more than one package manager at the same time. As it exists today there is a different standard for every package manager and make does not even have that.
For those that say UNIX has been that way for 30 years and will never change, or those that say all software needs to be open in order to work with all the existing broken methods of installing software. Why don't you chime in with THAT the next time someone says Linux will be on the desktop?
If this never changes Linux will never be "desktop" material. I don't even know how you can make Linux desktop until this problem is already in the past, and right now I don't even see an answer to this problem in the next few years.
Even after this problem is solved there are several things that need to be addressed like ease of GUI application development.
The problem is that large scale change cannot happen in Linux because there are too many people/companies that disagree and it would be impossible to get them to agree on something and coordinate. Only if Linux were closed and controlled could large scale changes (like a single /apps directory for GUI applications) actually happen.
I would PAY MONEY to see these points covered in an article by someone who is not a Linux advocate (read religious blindness).