2014-12-28 15:02 GMT+02:00 Richard Hughes <hughsient@xxxxxxxxx>:
GNOME PackageKit is still available (and maintained upstream) and is
what I use for installing things like mingw packages that I need for
development. Just type "Packages" into the dash and gnome-software
will install it for you :)
Oh, that was so nice! After typing the root password to install software, I got another prompt with "The software is not from a trusted source". Is that a rawhide issue?
How are user queries correlated to the package suggestions in the dash? I do not always get what I would expect, e.g. when I type IDE, I get Anjuta, Gnote and Rosegarden, with 3gp I get Frogr, Banshee, Xnoise and mpc yields nothing.
How are user queries correlated to the package suggestions in the dash? I do not always get what I would expect, e.g. when I type IDE, I get Anjuta, Gnote and Rosegarden, with 3gp I get Frogr, Banshee, Xnoise and mpc yields nothing.
And a third, irrelevant question: has the "hot corner" been disabled or is it because I run f22 in a VM?
2014-12-28 4:15 GMT+02:00 Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro@xxxxxxxxx>:
* GNOME Software is not a package manager, and it is unlikely to become a package manager.
I get that now, thank you.
* p7zip, being a command-line tool, is something "normal users" should never need. If Archive Manager needs it as a plugin, it can install it with PackageKit if it's not detected, or it should be a dependency in the RPM if Archive Manager doesn't support that. Hunting down a magic package name to install is not an acceptable user experience, and not something we should encourage or optimize for. Alternatively, it could include an appdata file so that it's listed as an Archive Manager plugin in GNOME Software, but I think that would be non-ideal in this case, since users should never have to worry about having the right packages installed to unzip an archive.
So this means that a default Workstation installation should have a large number of non-graphical programs installed by default, or that the various applications will be compiled with every possible dependency, e.g. Archive Manager will pull in every possible compression/decompression back end?
* But if we're wrong, and normal users really do need to install packages, then we should probably include a graphical package manager so that users can actually find packages. I submit that improving GNOME Packages (aka gpk-application, the thing we installed by default until F20), something that's already used by other distros (notably Debian), would be a better use of our time than working on a Fedora-specific solution like yumex. Especially considering that yum is not going to be installed by default in F21.
And that could lead to more confusion, at least from the "normal user" perspective, having both a package manager and a software center...
I just checked and there is now a yumex version based on dnf.
* I have to install packages all the time, and I'd much rather use a graphical package manager to find packages than to use yum or dnf.
De gustibus non est disputandum. I find it easier to use yum, but when I need to check a lot of similarly named packages to identify the one I want or browse through a certain software category for programs, a graphical package manager is faster and less fussy.
The question is: is it more confusing for novice users to include a graphical package manager by default, or to not include it? We're only talking about novice users here: an experienced user can always take 20 seconds to install his preferred graphical package manager with GNOME Software, so we don't care about what the experienced user wants for himself.
This is not an easy question to answer. When I set up a computer for a "normal user" I ask them what they want
to do with it, so I configure third-party repositories, install all the
packages that offer the functionality they expect, which usually
includes several proprietary applications and drivers as well. Finally I explain to them how package management on linux differs to that of windows and how to use a graphical package manager, searching either for the package name, or its definition (e.g. audio editor) and what sort of packages they should download from online sources (.deb/.rpm, x86_64/i686) when they aren't available in distro repos. Depending on their computer literacy, sometimes I show them how to install software from the terminal. Of the hundred or so linux installations I've done for others in the last few years, only two users stayed with my initial configuration and that is because they performed a limited set of tasks.
With all the others, the results were mixed. Most (but certainly not all) users have managed to install software successfully using package managers, namely yumex, GNOME PackageKit, an old version of YaST, Synaptic and Ubuntu's software center, but at times there was some confusion and frustration. A small number of users have tried to install windows executables and quite a few succeeded in doing that, because somehow WINE got pulled in. An equally small number have installed packages for the wrong architecture or for an older distro version. Then there were some surprises, with people compiling programs from source or installing commercial applications by following the vendor's instructions, but they seem to be the exception. The overwhelming majority of users that had to use the terminal to perform package management tasks because something broke along the way, struggled with the concepts of commands, flags, arguments and paths. They needed me to explicitly state where whitespace and slashes should be inserted, even if they had been regularly using the same or similar commands, albeit mostly via copy & paste. All of these people had different backgrounds, skills and, interests, but I wouldn't consider my sample representative.
With all the others, the results were mixed. Most (but certainly not all) users have managed to install software successfully using package managers, namely yumex, GNOME PackageKit, an old version of YaST, Synaptic and Ubuntu's software center, but at times there was some confusion and frustration. A small number of users have tried to install windows executables and quite a few succeeded in doing that, because somehow WINE got pulled in. An equally small number have installed packages for the wrong architecture or for an older distro version. Then there were some surprises, with people compiling programs from source or installing commercial applications by following the vendor's instructions, but they seem to be the exception. The overwhelming majority of users that had to use the terminal to perform package management tasks because something broke along the way, struggled with the concepts of commands, flags, arguments and paths. They needed me to explicitly state where whitespace and slashes should be inserted, even if they had been regularly using the same or similar commands, albeit mostly via copy & paste. All of these people had different backgrounds, skills and, interests, but I wouldn't consider my sample representative.
I vaguely remember filling out a wizard-like questionnaire on the first run of a distribution, that collected some hardware and user information. There were questions like "Do you know what a window manager is?", "Do you compile your own programs and if yes how often?", etc.. Perhaps we could put together something similar to help us answer that sort of questions and combine it with the council's survey proposal. I could help with that and I could also reach out to some of my "test subjects".
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