Re: new criterion proposal: Graphical package managers

[Kamil Paral <kparal@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 3:26 PM Frantisek Zatloukal <fzatlouk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

"dnf install foo; dnf install bar"

This is equivalent to: 

1. Open Graphical package manager

2. Install foo

3. Close Graphical package manager

4. Open Graphical package manager

5. Install bar

6. Close Graphical package manager

Or perhaps I could counter this with: gnome-software = bash (running the whole time), dnf = packagekit (performing one operation at a time). And then I'd use some even more absurd and nonsensical analogy :-) Let's... not continue in this fruitless comparison. My original purpose was to compare the tools focusing on the end result, and of course assuming they are used in the manner in which they are *intended* to be used. Which, for a CLI tool, is obviously a CLI-based approach, and for a GUI tool, a GUI-based approach (which includes interactivity and concurrency, if it allows it, as is usual for GUIs).

 

 

And I'm going to go down the rabbit hole even more. How is scheduling another install different from e.g. listing installed packages or available updates? If the user starts installation of package A, and then switches to the Installed or Updates tab in gnome-software (which executes a *concurrent* packagekit operation), and then the whole thing breaks, do we also say "you naughty human being, you shouldn't have clicked that, even if we allowed you to" and not block on it?

I don't do this, I've never seen anyone (with or without a technical background) do this. All the users I've seen do is to wait until something finishes and then switch to other tabs/sections, etc. Again, I am not saying this isn't happening, all I am saying it's not blocker material, in my opinion.

OK. I disagree that the deciding factor here should be "I don't think people use it often". I think it should be a combination of "how often people do it" and "what impact it has if it breaks". We don't know how often people do it, we only have personal experience, and we clearly won't agree on that. Perhaps we can agree at least that it's not something esoteric that would only a couple of power users know about (perhaps like "dnf shell"). But the second part is more important for me here. With a package manager, the impact can be serious system damage. That overrides the "people might not use it often" part, at least for me. Let's see what others think.

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