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Agree wholeheartedly. As far as I am concerned the whole repo/package manager model is the root cause of most of the reasons the Linux Desktop experience is as

Agree wholeheartedly. As far as I am concerned the whole repo/package manager model is the root cause of most of the reasons the Linux Desktop experience is as awful as it is.

hulitu 5y ago
No, the reason is SW development process - developers which introduce big changes between library versions ( why do i need fontconfig 4.3.2_pl6 for example). When the library is a moving target any package which depend on it and also the security of the system become a moving target. Unfortunately Firefox does the same ( they discontinued ESR because it is boring fixing bugs).
- jfk13 5y ago
  > they discontinued ESR Did they? Looks like it's still there: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-esr https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-e...
matheusmoreira 5y ago
It's actually pretty great. Linux distributions have actual human maintainers that everybody trusts and they generally do the right thing. The fact random developers don't have direct access to people's installs is a major feature. If you want to release a Linux package, you should have to work with distribution maintainers in order to actually integrate your package with their ecosystem. It's not like PyPI/rubygems/npm/whatever where any random person can make an account and start pushing packages. The maintainers have to actually trust you.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > It's actually pretty great. Subjective, but needless to say I disagree. I disagree with all of your reasoning too. Inserting a middleman into the software distribution process is needless friction and adds another point of failure. Even Linus has spoken on how much of a pain in the ass it has made it to distribute software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=340s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=340s But hey, you guys keep doing what you're doing and ignoring what potential users want. I'm sure the Year of The Linux Desktop is just around the corner. P.S. Yes, I know, it's been your Year of the Linux Desktop since 2001 or whatever. We both know that's moving the goalposts. So is saying "but Android" since it replaced everything above the kernel with a completely new userspace stack and, oh yeah, it doesn't really run on the desktop anyway.
  - rossvor 5y ago
    Why such a snarky reply? Some users do find value in having different flavor distributions and them exercising some control on the source, you obviously do not. Yes that means spending resources on this, and that will sometimes cause issues and bugs, same as with any other extra code. >But hey, you guys keep doing what you're doing and ignoring what potential users want Both me and the parent users are not "potential" users but actual users. Why we shouldn't count but some "potential" users should? We already have plenty of distributions which don't do patches. Parent poster didn't mention anything about "Year of the Linux Desktop" so your diatribe about it is completely uncalled for too. Plenty of people are absolutely fine with current trajectory of user base and don't subscribe to prioritizing user growth above serving existing users. It's a bit lame when a positive well-written article gets the usual negative response about how everyone is doing everything wrong and "Linux desktop is completely broken".
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > Why such a snarky reply? Because at this point I guess I just assume I'm talking to an evangelist about 90% of the time. That seems to be the case with people who insist that the Linux Desktop Experience is "actually pretty great". > Some users do find value in having different flavor distributions and them exercising some control on the source, you obviously do not. The fact that Linux Desktop needs hundreds of bespoke distributions to offer those choices is precisely the problem, in my opinion. A well put together system shouldn't require everything to be compiled just-so and all together by an army of volunteers to work properly. You should just be able to use the software you want, as up-to-date or out-of-date as you want, why is that so hard in Linux?
      - rossvor 5y ago
        While you see it as problem, lots of people see this as a feature, just different priorities that's all. I do prefer distros which curate the packages they maintain to provide some logic and predictability to the way packages are meant to be used, where and how they store the config files, remove various nonsense from it and so forth. And all the issues you've listed just isn't a problem for me. "Well put together" system isn't an objective measurement and opinions vary. And anyway your app based view is slowly becoming more prominent, with so much development dedicated to various app based solutions(appImage, flatpak etc). You don't see me complaining about army of volunteers wasting their time. People work on stuff they think is useful to them, nothing to see here or be negative about.

Agree wholeheartedly. As far as I am concerned the whole repo/package manager model is the root cause of most of the reasons the Linux Desktop experience is as awful as it is.

hulitu 5y ago

No, the reason is SW development process - developers which introduce big changes between library versions ( why do i need fontconfig 4.3.2_pl6 for example). When the library is a moving target any package which depend on it and also the security of the system become a moving target. Unfortunately Firefox does the same ( they discontinued ESR because it is boring fixing bugs).

jfk13 5y ago
> they discontinued ESR Did they? Looks like it's still there: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-esr https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-e...

matheusmoreira 5y ago

It's actually pretty great. Linux distributions have actual human maintainers that everybody trusts and they generally do the right thing. The fact random developers don't have direct access to people's installs is a major feature. If you want to release a Linux package, you should have to work with distribution maintainers in order to actually integrate your package with their ecosystem. It's not like PyPI/rubygems/npm/whatever where any random person can make an account and start pushing packages. The maintainers have to actually trust you.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> It's actually pretty great. Subjective, but needless to say I disagree. I disagree with all of your reasoning too. Inserting a middleman into the software distribution process is needless friction and adds another point of failure. Even Linus has spoken on how much of a pain in the ass it has made it to distribute software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=340s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=340s But hey, you guys keep doing what you're doing and ignoring what potential users want. I'm sure the Year of The Linux Desktop is just around the corner. P.S. Yes, I know, it's been your Year of the Linux Desktop since 2001 or whatever. We both know that's moving the goalposts. So is saying "but Android" since it replaced everything above the kernel with a completely new userspace stack and, oh yeah, it doesn't really run on the desktop anyway.
- rossvor 5y ago
  Why such a snarky reply? Some users do find value in having different flavor distributions and them exercising some control on the source, you obviously do not. Yes that means spending resources on this, and that will sometimes cause issues and bugs, same as with any other extra code. >But hey, you guys keep doing what you're doing and ignoring what potential users want Both me and the parent users are not "potential" users but actual users. Why we shouldn't count but some "potential" users should? We already have plenty of distributions which don't do patches. Parent poster didn't mention anything about "Year of the Linux Desktop" so your diatribe about it is completely uncalled for too. Plenty of people are absolutely fine with current trajectory of user base and don't subscribe to prioritizing user growth above serving existing users. It's a bit lame when a positive well-written article gets the usual negative response about how everyone is doing everything wrong and "Linux desktop is completely broken".
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > Why such a snarky reply? Because at this point I guess I just assume I'm talking to an evangelist about 90% of the time. That seems to be the case with people who insist that the Linux Desktop Experience is "actually pretty great". > Some users do find value in having different flavor distributions and them exercising some control on the source, you obviously do not. The fact that Linux Desktop needs hundreds of bespoke distributions to offer those choices is precisely the problem, in my opinion. A well put together system shouldn't require everything to be compiled just-so and all together by an army of volunteers to work properly. You should just be able to use the software you want, as up-to-date or out-of-date as you want, why is that so hard in Linux?
    - rossvor 5y ago
      While you see it as problem, lots of people see this as a feature, just different priorities that's all. I do prefer distros which curate the packages they maintain to provide some logic and predictability to the way packages are meant to be used, where and how they store the config files, remove various nonsense from it and so forth. And all the issues you've listed just isn't a problem for me. "Well put together" system isn't an objective measurement and opinions vary. And anyway your app based view is slowly becoming more prominent, with so much development dedicated to various app based solutions(appImage, flatpak etc). You don't see me complaining about army of volunteers wasting their time. People work on stuff they think is useful to them, nothing to see here or be negative about.