The founder of the Open Graphics Project writes: "Good design and usability are very important. I haven't paid enough attention to the discussions between Linus and GNOME developers, so I can't address it directly. But what I can say is that a learning curve is not a bad thing. While it's good to think about the total novice, it's even more important to have consistent and logical mechanisms. This way, if someone has to learn something new to use the computer, they have to learn it only once. This is why I think it's good that Apple and Microsoft have UI development guides that encourage developers to make their apps act consistently with other apps in areas where their functionalities conceptually overlap. And this is where I start to get disappointed with GNU/X11/Linux systems."
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Member since:2005-07-12
Then, for the novice user, it simply doesn't exist, and they've probably never heard of it anyway.
There's no such thing as a novice user. Users don't simply fall in either the category of "experts" who know how to fiddle with the system to get something not packaged running or the catrory "novice" who are too afraid to fiddle with the system hence won't install an app which is not pre-packaged. Even "experts" can hose their system.
The price of the package management convenience is a centralized system and dependency (sometimes I'm really astonished that Linux users who preach freedom as important went that way).
IMHO, package management was only the second best answer to the problem that came when *nixoid systems came to the desktop. Instead of having a well-trained full-time sysadmin which cares for installation of new software and which is able to keep the system clean, you now have individuals which uses *nixoid systems at home for various things and which are users and not admins in the first place. For them, the traditional *nixoid FS-layout is probably not the right thing and software that splatters files around the FS are a problem. Hence you either have to make things easier for desktop *nixoid users (e. g. change the FS-layout and the way software get's installed like OSX does) or you need a helper tool that hides the complexity of software de-/installation and acts as an abstraction layer to the FS.
My main concern about package managers are that they break the golden KISS rule. Instead of making the system (FS-layout, installation) easier, you're now dependent on an abstraction. Abstractions tend to break at some point. Package management software becomes a single point of failure which can destroy system integrity or functionality because of bugs (every software has bugs) or "expert" users breaking basic assumptions built into the package management software (every software has builtin assumptions about the environment, which - if they are not valid anymore - can lead to al sorts of unpredictable side effects).
Member since:
2005-07-08
And if your app of choice is not available in your distribution's native format?
Then, for the novice user, it simply doesn't exist, and they've probably never heard of it anyway. On Windows, if there's an application that doesn't have an installer, then it's pretty inaccessible to all but the most experienced users. On Linux, if an application doesn't have a package for you distro, then there are usually instructions that allow moderately experienced users to install it manually.
More pertinent to the topic of TFA is that Linux systems have unified interfaces for installing software. The process of installing and updating software is the same no matter what package you're installing. While Windows installers are undoubtedly simple to use, there are as many flavors of installers as there are major Linux distros. The uninstallers often don't work correctly, and there is no simple way of receiving automatic updates to application software.
The issue of package availability gets raised here often (frequently by you, Thom), and I think the fundamental response is that this isn't a technical issue, but rather one of economics. It's far, far easier to package software for a Linux distribution than it is to package software for Windows, and the installation method is arguably far, far more convenient. From a technical standpoint, the Linux distributions are beating the pants off of Windows in software packaging, more or less out of necessity. The amount of software available for Linux distributions is staggering given the market share story. For a niche market, the Linux desktop early-adopter crowd has been remarkably well-served by the Linux distribution projects. If the burden was on the upstream developer to ensure platform binary compatibility and desktop integration, then we wouldn't be where we are today.