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Except for when they don't. Which is more often than it should be. If I had a dime for every hour of my life wasted by distro package managers (or really any p

by rstat1 4y ago

Except for when they don't. Which is more often than it should be. If I had a dime for every hour of my life wasted by distro package managers (or really any package manager) breaking when I try to do some basic operation, I'd be a very rich person.

ravenstine 4y ago
It's been a long while since I've used Linux for anything but servers, but I have to agree. Not just with package management but pretty much anything in Linux outside the server domain. I used to waste so much time dealing with conflicts between packages, but also on weird bugs with graphics and audio, xorg.conf, etc., just to get things to work as expected. This comment kinda just turned into a rant about Linux in general. Unless things have changed, I wouldn't recommend Linux as a desktop to anyone but masochists. It's definitely a good thing that Linux distros have package management built-in, but that doesn't mean there aren't significant drawbacks to the way the Linux community approaches it. In contrast, I rarely have issues when I run `brew install`. My memories of Aptitude aren't particularly fond.
- blep_ 4y ago
  xorg.conf doesn't even exist anymore on most systems. The others have been improved quite a bit since "a long while" ago. That doesn't mean you have to try it again to update your opinions, if you have something else you're happy with now, but it does mean you should consider not spreading nonsense about things you haven't used.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    I can't even remember the last time I had to look at an xorg configuration file. I think it must have been a decade; maybe longer. Back in the XFree86 and early Xorg days it could be a pain though, but that was a long time ago. "X -configure" asking you about monitor refresh rates that I never knew the answer to ... ah, old times.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  I'm not a masochist. I want tools to get out of my way. I happily use Linux because it is the only OS with decent tiling window managers. macOS and Windows feel like toys in comparison to Linux which is an actual productivity tool.
- still_grokking 4y ago
  Honest question: Why are you talking about something you haven't seen for more than at least 20 years? Linux is the desktop with the least amount of WTFs. With a big margin! All other OSes break with every update. Even the perpetual "beta"-system Debian Testing is much more robust in day to day use than things like macOS or Windows (and that holds even while installing whatever daily Debian updates come along without thinking).. On a (semi-stable) Linux (like Testing) there are never "conflicts between packages", btw. This can only happen if you make a mess and mix up different distros… Please don't spread FUD in the future if you don't know what you're talking about. Thanks.
  - rstat1 4y ago
    >All other OSes break with every update. I've never had a Windows install break because of a dodgy update. Not saying it doesn't happen but its never happened to me, whereas when it has happened, its always been some Linux distro. Doesn't matter which because I've seen it happen on all the major ones (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc..) In fact I have a Linux VM right now, pegging the host's CPU to 100% because of a broken update. Honestly you should probably take your own advice re: not know what you're talking about. >>Linux is the desktop with the most amount of WTFs. With a big margin! FTFY
    - still_grokking 4y ago
      > I've never had a Windows install break because of a dodgy update. Now you're obviously trolling.
      - rstat1 4y ago
        What? No I'm not. There's zero reason for me to be dishonest about that.
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    Where did I say 20 years? The last time I was using Linux (Debian mostly, Ubuntu, Mint, Crunch and) full time was back in 2016. Occasionally I've had to interact with them and their respective DEs over the years since, but I've been using macOS full time to this day. So 20 years? Not really, actually. More like 6 or 7. > Even the perpetual "beta"-system Debian Testing is much more robust in day to day use than things like macOS or Windows (and that holds even while installing whatever daily Debian updates come along without thinking).. I don't care how "robust" Linux is. Can a distro do everything I want without some caveat like horizontal tearing, weird audio incompatibilities, weird graphics driver issues, booting to black after updates, difficulty reconciling managed packages, files mysteriously being deleted from common file systems, or basic features disappearing from foundational apps like the file manager? If such a distro exists, I'd like to see it, because I've never installed any variety of Linux that didn't have annoyances not present on commercial operating systems. And yes, that includes any version of Debian. Sorry Linux desktops, time is up. I spent ~13 years trying to love you, but you always have baggage. Maybe you don't anymore (I highly doubt that), but it's too late. And I'm not an outlier; your countless ex boyfriends and girlfriends agree with me. > On a (semi-stable) Linux (like Testing) there are never "conflicts between packages", btw. This can only happen if you make a mess and mix up different distros… Yeah right... no one ever has to install a version of software that's newer than what's in the distros respective repos. Those people all go through the trouble to guess what dependencies some source code relies and compiles everything by hand just to avoid pissing off Aptitude. /s The real world doesn't work like that. Having package management be locked to the repo for the particular distro version is great for Linux as a server. It sucks ass if you're an everyday person just trying to do things other than fiddle with their OS. Ideally, the user should be hardly aware of their OS. Sure, there's also this "Snaps" thing now, which I don't have experience with, but apparently there's something about it that pisses off a large amount of the Linux crowd. And are you telling me you've never done anything custom to your Linux installations? Because that's one of the key features these distros sell themselves on. You can make Linux "your own." That sounds great, but what that means is even so much as changing which file manager you use can lead to disaster when you perform an update, even after doing all the allegedly right things. Regardless, the way that distros manage packages can only serve to get in the way of users who aren't OS nerds. Any gain in stability comes at the potential cost of time wasted which does not exist nearly to the same extent on commercial operating systems. The Linux crowd reminds me a lot of the amateur radio crowd. Just as Linux people say that their distros are now very stable and easy to use, the Hams think that it's worth the time of casually interested people to get a fully featured Ham radio setup with all the bells and whistles and to take the "easy" FCC license exam. Anyone who thinks radio is cool but isn't interested in studying and spending lots of time with electronics in their basement "doesn't know what they are talking about." In reality, a GMRS radio is probably better for most people in almost every case, just as most people should avoid Linux and use macOS or Windows instead. Linux DEs will never be popular with non-nerds unless their community stops acting like Hams, but that probably won't happen because Linux had been like Ham since I started using it. The community was saying exactly what you are saying today back in 2005. > Please don't spread FUD in the future if you don't know what you're talking about. That is a terrific piece of advice that anyone making an argument should take.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
All of the common Linux package managers make it really easy to accidentally shoot yourself in the foot in my experience. apt and yum/dnf are the most frequent offenders in my case, but I've managed to do it with pacman and portage too.
- still_grokking 4y ago
  How can you "accidentally shoot yourself in the foot" with a Linux package manager? Would be curious to know what's the point as this never happened to me. In almost 25 years of Linux usage.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Most commonly, dependency conflicts. Probably the most well known example of this was Linus of the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel accidentally rendering his Pop!OS install unusable by installing Steam. The second most common way is installing random packages from the internet in attempt to get something working. This is one I ran into years ago trying to get audio working under Fedora on some random laptop.
    - still_grokking 4y ago
      What are "dependency conflicts"? Something like that could probably only happen on a broken OS, I guess. Pop!OS? Isn't that a FrankenDebian in the first place, so all bets are off anyway? https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_Frank... > The second most common way is installing random packages from the internet […] How any package manager on any OS could prevent breakage when the user tries hard to break the system at will? Now I'm a little bit confused.
pessimizer 4y ago
> Which is more often than it should be. How did you calibrate this? I've certainly had no more (far less) trouble with apt-get over the past decade than I have with any commercial OS package installation. What standard is Linux package management being measured against that currently exists? Package management is a dream on Linux compared to wrangling Windows software.

by rstat1 4y ago

ravenstine 4y ago

It's been a long while since I've used Linux for anything but servers, but I have to agree. Not just with package management but pretty much anything in Linux outside the server domain. I used to waste so much time dealing with conflicts between packages, but also on weird bugs with graphics and audio, xorg.conf, etc., just to get things to work as expected. This comment kinda just turned into a rant about Linux in general. Unless things have changed, I wouldn't recommend Linux as a desktop to anyone but masochists. It's definitely a good thing that Linux distros have package management built-in, but that doesn't mean there aren't significant drawbacks to the way the Linux community approaches it. In contrast, I rarely have issues when I run `brew install`. My memories of Aptitude aren't particularly fond.

blep_ 4y ago
xorg.conf doesn't even exist anymore on most systems. The others have been improved quite a bit since "a long while" ago. That doesn't mean you have to try it again to update your opinions, if you have something else you're happy with now, but it does mean you should consider not spreading nonsense about things you haven't used.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  I can't even remember the last time I had to look at an xorg configuration file. I think it must have been a decade; maybe longer. Back in the XFree86 and early Xorg days it could be a pain though, but that was a long time ago. "X -configure" asking you about monitor refresh rates that I never knew the answer to ... ah, old times.
howinteresting 4y ago
I'm not a masochist. I want tools to get out of my way. I happily use Linux because it is the only OS with decent tiling window managers. macOS and Windows feel like toys in comparison to Linux which is an actual productivity tool.
still_grokking 4y ago
Honest question: Why are you talking about something you haven't seen for more than at least 20 years? Linux is the desktop with the least amount of WTFs. With a big margin! All other OSes break with every update. Even the perpetual "beta"-system Debian Testing is much more robust in day to day use than things like macOS or Windows (and that holds even while installing whatever daily Debian updates come along without thinking).. On a (semi-stable) Linux (like Testing) there are never "conflicts between packages", btw. This can only happen if you make a mess and mix up different distros… Please don't spread FUD in the future if you don't know what you're talking about. Thanks.
- rstat1 4y ago
  >All other OSes break with every update. I've never had a Windows install break because of a dodgy update. Not saying it doesn't happen but its never happened to me, whereas when it has happened, its always been some Linux distro. Doesn't matter which because I've seen it happen on all the major ones (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc..) In fact I have a Linux VM right now, pegging the host's CPU to 100% because of a broken update. Honestly you should probably take your own advice re: not know what you're talking about. >>Linux is the desktop with the most amount of WTFs. With a big margin! FTFY
  - still_grokking 4y ago
    > I've never had a Windows install break because of a dodgy update. Now you're obviously trolling.
    - rstat1 4y ago
      What? No I'm not. There's zero reason for me to be dishonest about that.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  Where did I say 20 years? The last time I was using Linux (Debian mostly, Ubuntu, Mint, Crunch and) full time was back in 2016. Occasionally I've had to interact with them and their respective DEs over the years since, but I've been using macOS full time to this day. So 20 years? Not really, actually. More like 6 or 7. > Even the perpetual "beta"-system Debian Testing is much more robust in day to day use than things like macOS or Windows (and that holds even while installing whatever daily Debian updates come along without thinking).. I don't care how "robust" Linux is. Can a distro do everything I want without some caveat like horizontal tearing, weird audio incompatibilities, weird graphics driver issues, booting to black after updates, difficulty reconciling managed packages, files mysteriously being deleted from common file systems, or basic features disappearing from foundational apps like the file manager? If such a distro exists, I'd like to see it, because I've never installed any variety of Linux that didn't have annoyances not present on commercial operating systems. And yes, that includes any version of Debian. Sorry Linux desktops, time is up. I spent ~13 years trying to love you, but you always have baggage. Maybe you don't anymore (I highly doubt that), but it's too late. And I'm not an outlier; your countless ex boyfriends and girlfriends agree with me. > On a (semi-stable) Linux (like Testing) there are never "conflicts between packages", btw. This can only happen if you make a mess and mix up different distros… Yeah right... no one ever has to install a version of software that's newer than what's in the distros respective repos. Those people all go through the trouble to guess what dependencies some source code relies and compiles everything by hand just to avoid pissing off Aptitude. /s The real world doesn't work like that. Having package management be locked to the repo for the particular distro version is great for Linux as a server. It sucks ass if you're an everyday person just trying to do things other than fiddle with their OS. Ideally, the user should be hardly aware of their OS. Sure, there's also this "Snaps" thing now, which I don't have experience with, but apparently there's something about it that pisses off a large amount of the Linux crowd. And are you telling me you've never done anything custom to your Linux installations? Because that's one of the key features these distros sell themselves on. You can make Linux "your own." That sounds great, but what that means is even so much as changing which file manager you use can lead to disaster when you perform an update, even after doing all the allegedly right things. Regardless, the way that distros manage packages can only serve to get in the way of users who aren't OS nerds. Any gain in stability comes at the potential cost of time wasted which does not exist nearly to the same extent on commercial operating systems. The Linux crowd reminds me a lot of the amateur radio crowd. Just as Linux people say that their distros are now very stable and easy to use, the Hams think that it's worth the time of casually interested people to get a fully featured Ham radio setup with all the bells and whistles and to take the "easy" FCC license exam. Anyone who thinks radio is cool but isn't interested in studying and spending lots of time with electronics in their basement "doesn't know what they are talking about." In reality, a GMRS radio is probably better for most people in almost every case, just as most people should avoid Linux and use macOS or Windows instead. Linux DEs will never be popular with non-nerds unless their community stops acting like Hams, but that probably won't happen because Linux had been like Ham since I started using it. The community was saying exactly what you are saying today back in 2005. > Please don't spread FUD in the future if you don't know what you're talking about. That is a terrific piece of advice that anyone making an argument should take.

kitsunesoba 4y ago

All of the common Linux package managers make it really easy to accidentally shoot yourself in the foot in my experience. apt and yum/dnf are the most frequent offenders in my case, but I've managed to do it with pacman and portage too.

still_grokking 4y ago
How can you "accidentally shoot yourself in the foot" with a Linux package manager? Would be curious to know what's the point as this never happened to me. In almost 25 years of Linux usage.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Most commonly, dependency conflicts. Probably the most well known example of this was Linus of the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel accidentally rendering his Pop!OS install unusable by installing Steam. The second most common way is installing random packages from the internet in attempt to get something working. This is one I ran into years ago trying to get audio working under Fedora on some random laptop.
  - still_grokking 4y ago
    What are "dependency conflicts"? Something like that could probably only happen on a broken OS, I guess. Pop!OS? Isn't that a FrankenDebian in the first place, so all bets are off anyway? https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_Frank... > The second most common way is installing random packages from the internet […] How any package manager on any OS could prevent breakage when the user tries hard to break the system at will? Now I'm a little bit confused.

pessimizer 4y ago

> Which is more often than it should be. How did you calibrate this? I've certainly had no more (far less) trouble with apt-get over the past decade than I have with any commercial OS package installation. What standard is Linux package management being measured against that currently exists? Package management is a dream on Linux compared to wrangling Windows software.