[plug] Easy Installation: Linux Desktop Market

[Kev]

Hi ya Leon

Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Tuesday 25 October 2005 22:03, Kev wrote:

> Yah. Some of.
> 
> Then manually troll through the Registry looking for more crap, then 
> find some stuff tucked away in the rooly-trooly-we-mean-it-this-time 
> invisible folders, and more in AutoExec/Config, assorted startup 
> folders, yadda yadda...

I must admit, I do have OS/2 in mind when I speak of such things.  As 
you know, I've NEVER been a Windoze user, but I have worked on plenty of 
Window boxes.
> 
> There's a *reason* for people periodically wipe-and-reinstalling their 
> MS-Windows partitions every so often, y'know?

Viruses, spyware ...

>>No, the Windows or OS/2 way is definitely a better way for end users.

> True only for inveterate fiddlers, which 99% of them aren't. Just so you 
> can get started on it, you can unpack an RPM by hand if you like, and 
> distribute the bits around alphabetically or however else it suits you. 
> You can also pull down RPM sources and easily rebuild them, which gives 
> you another opportunity to rearrange your personal universe to suit.

Well, the answer to one of my questions is "No, I didn't shout it loud 
enough."

>>Newbies are flabbergasted just at the maze of different packages
>>there are for the one app.  It's a mine field just learning which
>>package you require, let alone having no clue where all of its little
>>tentacles disappear to during the install.
> 
> 
> No, it's not. Sorting all of that crap out is the computer's job. Just 
> type synaptic whatever or yum whatever or urpmi whatever (or click on 
> the corresponding part of a GUI) and let the silicon genius (well, 
> actually, just a very fast idiot) find the dependencies.

I'm not talking about dependencies.  Cor blimey, don't get me going 
there!  So I find a site where "Nik-Nak" is developed.  There's a list 
20 deep of .RPMs, .DEBs, .TARs, .GZ, .BZ, .BZ2 ad infinitum ad nauseum. 
  Even the .RPMs and .DEBs will often have 6 or 8 different choices, 
dependant on which distro I use.  You know me well Leon, and even I end 
up just throwing my hands in the air and giving up at times. 
Application installation in Linux is a mine field of utter crap!! 
There's a reason why this subject occupies about 97% of a newbies 
time/mind/concerns.  Application installation in Linux is "Industrys' 
WORST Practice".

My one comment about dependencies is that I gave up on RPM based 
distros, and Mandrake in particular, precisely for this reason. 
Absolute and utter crap!!  As a newbie, just wanting to install program 
"A" or "B" for myself became an endless nightmare of missing 
dependencies and wrong versions. I AM A **NON-GEEK**!!  (Is that loud 
enough yet?)

> The Windows way is to bundle every single dependency into the installer 
> program, which bloats them and leads directly to a multitude of 
> semi-compatible copies of the same thing floating around the machine, 
> with results you may well imagine (or observe, if you're not so 
> fortunate).

I've suggested several times in the past that someone with some 
technical savvy have a look at WarpIn 
(http://www.xworkplace.org/proj_warpin.html)
and see how it works.  That's the definitive all singing all dancing 
installer for OS/2 and there's nothing to rival it on any platform.  I'm 
talking about how it works for the USER.  Autopackage is about 10% of 
the way there so far (from the user perspective) but very, very few 
developers seem interested in using it.
> 
> Only about one in four uses an MSI package, most of the rest are a mazy 
> of twisty little custom-built installers.
> 
> If you're using a Linux package manager, you can *find*out* where it 
> (plans to) put things, done the Windows way you have no hope.
> 
> The command to see where an RPM puts stuff is rpm -ql packagename; to 
> see what the uninstalled RPM will do, rpm -qlp nameofrpmfile. On 
> Mandrake, you can use urpmq -i packagename to find that out before even 
> downloading the package. rpm -qf /path/to/file will tell you which 
> package laid the file in question.

I AM A **NON-GEEK**!!  (Is that loud enough yet?)  This is not how it's 
done if you want attract people.

> Debian's system has similar facilities. Windows has *nothing*. Nada. 
> Diddly-squat. Sweet Fanny Adams. You on you _own_, bowah!
> 
> There are good reasons why files go where they do. Take a look at clamd, 
> for example:

They can't be all that good!  Else every distro would put stuff in the 
same directory structure.  Even some different DEB based distros use a 
structure different enough to bring a newbie undone.  There's NOTHING 
standard about it!  Some things in some distros just happen to lob into 
the same directories.  Some kind of standard would be a great beginning.

> /etc/clamd.conf                  Standard place for configurations
> /etc/logrotate.d/clamd           Ditto for logrotate scripts
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/clamd           Ditto for a service controller script
> /usr/sbin/clamd                  Ditto for a non-boot system binary
> /usr/share/man/man8/clamd.8.bz2  Ditto for an administrative manual page
> /var/log/clamav/clamd.log        Ditto for a log file (logrotate and
                                    syslog will know about this)

> Have you read Rute yet? 

What's that??  Never heard of it!

That might make it clearer. Either way,
> separating me from good standard package management again will require 
> hydraulic tools.

Me too!!  I'm just yet to find "good, STANDARD package management" tools 
in Linux.

My reason for leaving OS/2 and moving to Linux wasn't for a better OS, 
but for better modern hardware support, with an *acceptable* OS, whilst 
still avoiding the "Evil Empire".  I'll remain with Linux because OS/2 
development will only decline further as time goes by, but that doesn't 
mean that Linux is the all singing all dancing.  OS/2's demise has a 
long and sordid history of lies, deceit and politics, along with it's 
fair share of corporate bungling (IBM).  It's not a demise based on 
inferior goods (take eg DR-DOS vs MS-DOS).  I guess I find Linux even 
more of a challenge than most Windoze users because I'm used to having a 
solid, stable, thoroughly thought out OS which is technically still 
ahead of time.  (ducks for cover)  As with the DOS wars of old, it's not 
the best OS that will win.  Marketing is all of it!  (eg BETA vs  "the 
other one"   audio cassette vs 8 track cartridge - history is full of 
them.  iNtel vs Motorola even)

Yes, there's enough in Linux to stick with, but give up on this crusade 
of it's got it all right now - it hasn't!!  There's a loooooooong way to 
go to produce a genuinely viable OS solution for the masses.

> Cheers; Leon

Your friend, as always
Kev

-- 
=======================================================================
Kev Downes
kdownes at tpg.com.au  ph 0404 7 0808 2
We use and recommend Xandros 3.0.2
=======================================================================
There are 10 types of people ...
    ... those who understand binary, and those who don't!
=======================================================================
"Jesus Christ is the centre of everything and the object of everything;
He who does not know him, knows nothing of the order of the world
and nothing of himself."             Blaise Pascal
=======================================================================