5 ms·

"Ubuntu and Debian" "average user" I dont disagree with your point, not sure it is relevant however.

vishnu_ks 8y ago
hmm. I upgrade my VSCode pretty much all the time they do a release because they provide a .deb file. Installing the upgrade is as simple as double-clicking on the file. I am sure pretty much all the users of Ubuntu and Debian are capable of doing a Firefox upgrade if they really wanted to. But no harm in making it easier.
- daleharvey 8y ago
  Yup I wasnt saying we shouldnt provide .deb files, I dont know why we dont and sounds like a perfectly reasonable request. I was just replying to the comment making a point about being accessible to the average user, the average user of Firefox is not manually installing updates on Ubuntu
  - brobdingnagians 8y ago
    Hehe, point taken. That's the paretto principle too, spending a bunch of time on a small segment of your users wouldn't make much sense either, especially since most of them are fully capable of working with the system as it is. Also, since it updates in place anyways, which is nifty, I guess this comment mainly applies to other software I've used which is a royal pain to install...
    - vishnu_ks 8y ago
      I think they should at least do some A/B testing on whether including a .deb package increases the downloads or upgrades significantly to justify the time and cost.
- kylegordon 8y ago
  I have an older friend who used Ubuntu on his laptop, as he had never used Windows and just wanted a simple web browsing capable laptop (before the days of Chromebooks) The number of times I've discovered umpteen copies of Firefox tarballs on his desktop, and every time he complains it's been a pain to 'upgrade Firefox' Sure, I could have done more handholding, but yes, Firefox could certainly have made it easier back then and still today.
  - afiori 8y ago
    Also in my experience is always painful to have more than a version of firefox; a firefox-stable.deb and a firefox-nightly.deb would be appreciated
DCKing 8y ago
The pretense that all Linux users should be (or already are) technically capable is really harmful to the ecosystem. No, you should not expect Ubuntu or Debian users to figure out on their own (1) why the tar.gz file they download doesn't do anything meaningful and (2) how they will get this version of Firefox instead without any further instructions. Running Firefox from a tarball is a very specific use case for a small subset of highly technical users. Even if you figure out how to do it, the lack of system integration gives a very poor impression of the way things work on Linux. Even the vast majority of technical users don't want to run Firefox this way. Yet that's still what the website offers you. We should be able to recommend at the very least Ubuntu to average users. And people do that, sometimes quite successfully. But with the attitude that all Linux users can save themselves - "we don't need to think about the UX" - we can't really keep doing that.
- detaro 8y ago
  Wouldn't the average Ubuntu user be best off by getting it through the Ubuntu package repo once it's updated there? Or doesn't Ubuntu have a channel that would provide that soon by default?
  - DCKing 8y ago
    Yes. The Firefox website should ideally provide some instructions - including a way to open the Firefox entry in the Ubuntu/Gnome Software Center, instead of giving users a tarball most don't know how to handle (and if they do know how to handle it, is not necessarily what they're looking for). The tarball should of course still be available as a download option, but almost all interested users (yes, even the technical ones) should use their distribution's package manager.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Well, yes and no. I'm precluded from installing new Firefox via apt-get because my Ubuntu version fell off active support. Running a dist-upgrade is risky, and I don't feel like doing it until I know I have a spare free day to fix everything in case of a problem. A Firefox PPA would be a nice thing to use instead, for now.

hmm. I upgrade my VSCode pretty much all the time they do a release because they provide a .deb file. Installing the upgrade is as simple as double-clicking on the file. I am sure pretty much all the users of Ubuntu and Debian are capable of doing a Firefox upgrade if they really wanted to. But no harm in making it easier.

daleharvey 8y ago
Yup I wasnt saying we shouldnt provide .deb files, I dont know why we dont and sounds like a perfectly reasonable request. I was just replying to the comment making a point about being accessible to the average user, the average user of Firefox is not manually installing updates on Ubuntu
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  Hehe, point taken. That's the paretto principle too, spending a bunch of time on a small segment of your users wouldn't make much sense either, especially since most of them are fully capable of working with the system as it is. Also, since it updates in place anyways, which is nifty, I guess this comment mainly applies to other software I've used which is a royal pain to install...
  - vishnu_ks 8y ago
    I think they should at least do some A/B testing on whether including a .deb package increases the downloads or upgrades significantly to justify the time and cost.
kylegordon 8y ago
I have an older friend who used Ubuntu on his laptop, as he had never used Windows and just wanted a simple web browsing capable laptop (before the days of Chromebooks) The number of times I've discovered umpteen copies of Firefox tarballs on his desktop, and every time he complains it's been a pain to 'upgrade Firefox' Sure, I could have done more handholding, but yes, Firefox could certainly have made it easier back then and still today.
- afiori 8y ago
  Also in my experience is always painful to have more than a version of firefox; a firefox-stable.deb and a firefox-nightly.deb would be appreciated

DCKing 8y ago

The pretense that all Linux users should be (or already are) technically capable is really harmful to the ecosystem. No, you should not expect Ubuntu or Debian users to figure out on their own (1) why the tar.gz file they download doesn't do anything meaningful and (2) how they will get this version of Firefox instead without any further instructions. Running Firefox from a tarball is a very specific use case for a small subset of highly technical users. Even if you figure out how to do it, the lack of system integration gives a very poor impression of the way things work on Linux. Even the vast majority of technical users don't want to run Firefox this way. Yet that's still what the website offers you. We should be able to recommend at the very least Ubuntu to average users. And people do that, sometimes quite successfully. But with the attitude that all Linux users can save themselves - "we don't need to think about the UX" - we can't really keep doing that.

detaro 8y ago
Wouldn't the average Ubuntu user be best off by getting it through the Ubuntu package repo once it's updated there? Or doesn't Ubuntu have a channel that would provide that soon by default?
- DCKing 8y ago
  Yes. The Firefox website should ideally provide some instructions - including a way to open the Firefox entry in the Ubuntu/Gnome Software Center, instead of giving users a tarball most don't know how to handle (and if they do know how to handle it, is not necessarily what they're looking for). The tarball should of course still be available as a download option, but almost all interested users (yes, even the technical ones) should use their distribution's package manager.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Well, yes and no. I'm precluded from installing new Firefox via apt-get because my Ubuntu version fell off active support. Running a dist-upgrade is risky, and I don't feel like doing it until I know I have a spare free day to fix everything in case of a problem. A Firefox PPA would be a nice thing to use instead, for now.