Comments on: Package installation http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation scratched tallies on the prison wall Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:55:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Ben http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1177 Ben Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1177 <p>I think you’ve hit the nail on the head why Linux on the desktop is (to me, at least) such a miserable failure so far. (God, am I going to get flamed for saying that).</p> <p>If you want further proof of how the packaging matters, look at Firefox. A lot of the functionality is the same as when it was still called Phoenix, but now we have an attractive interface theme, consistent iconography and a killer logo. Now it’s <strong>really</strong> taking off, and I’m sure it makes it a lot easier to get people to have the patience to give it a chance when they see that it looks good as well as works.</p> <p>Apple, and Mac developers, realise this too. Windows shareware developers all too frequently don’t.</p> I think you’ve hit the nail on the head why Linux on the desktop is (to me, at least) such a miserable failure so far. (God, am I going to get flamed for saying that).

If you want further proof of how the packaging matters, look at Firefox. A lot of the functionality is the same as when it was still called Phoenix, but now we have an attractive interface theme, consistent iconography and a killer logo. Now it’s really taking off, and I’m sure it makes it a lot easier to get people to have the patience to give it a chance when they see that it looks good as well as works.

Apple, and Mac developers, realise this too. Windows shareware developers all too frequently don’t.

]]> By: mrben http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1178 mrben Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1178 <p>Just to say that the above Ben is not me ;)</p> <p>/me finds package handling nice and easy in Debian…... but I can see what they’re saying, and the concept is good.</p> Just to say that the above Ben is not me ;)

/me finds package handling nice and easy in Debian…… but I can see what they’re saying, and the concept is good.

]]> By: sil http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1179 sil Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1179 <p>Nope, the above Ben is kapowaz Ben. Plus, he knows how to add http:// in front of a <span class="caps">URL</span>, heh heh. :)</p> Nope, the above Ben is kapowaz Ben. Plus, he knows how to add http:// in front of a URL, heh heh. :)

]]> By: mrben http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1180 mrben Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1180 <p>fsck. Autocomplete from another site is my excuse :(</p> fsck. Autocomplete from another site is my excuse :(

]]> By: rds http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1181 rds Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1181 <p>Just out of curiousity, what’s missing from <span class="caps">ROX</span>? I have my own list I’m slowly working through (very… slowly…) but I’d be interested in what you see missing.</p> Just out of curiousity, what’s missing from ROX? I have my own list I’m slowly working through (very… slowly…) but I’d be interested in what you see missing.

]]> By: sil http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1182 sil Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1182 <p>Missing from <span class="caps">ROX</span>: any applications at all that are decently useful and support drag-and-drop saving. Thunderbird doesn’t support it; nor does Mozilla. (Moz <strong>does</strong> support dragging a <span class="caps">URL</span>, sort of, but that doesn’t cut it.) It’s all well and good having Edit do stuff, but it’s a toy editor. Yes, there’s rdsEd, but that really came along after I got out of Rox :)<br /> An IM client. OpenOffice support for drag-and-drop saving. A decent amount of active developers who are doing the sorts of things that the Gnome project are doing, like Beagle and Dashboard and udev/hal/gnome-volume-manager. Proper, real applications packaged as AppDirs: not AppDirs that link to your previously installed packages, but real AppDirs. Some kind of solution to how we handle dependencies in AppDirs. A revised filesystem layout, <em>a la</em> GoboLinux. Really, I think that the <span class="caps">ROX </span>Desktop is too thin a shell to go on top of a standard Linux distro; there are too many holes in it where you look through and see the underlying OS, and it’s totally un-ROXy. What’s needed is the <span class="caps">ROX</span>Linux project to work, with Applications and Library directories and LibDirs and the like, and it never really got off the ground.</p> Missing from ROX: any applications at all that are decently useful and support drag-and-drop saving. Thunderbird doesn’t support it; nor does Mozilla. (Moz does support dragging a URL, sort of, but that doesn’t cut it.) It’s all well and good having Edit do stuff, but it’s a toy editor. Yes, there’s rdsEd, but that really came along after I got out of Rox :)
An IM client. OpenOffice support for drag-and-drop saving. A decent amount of active developers who are doing the sorts of things that the Gnome project are doing, like Beagle and Dashboard and udev/hal/gnome-volume-manager. Proper, real applications packaged as AppDirs: not AppDirs that link to your previously installed packages, but real AppDirs. Some kind of solution to how we handle dependencies in AppDirs. A revised filesystem layout, a la GoboLinux. Really, I think that the ROX Desktop is too thin a shell to go on top of a standard Linux distro; there are too many holes in it where you look through and see the underlying OS, and it’s totally un-ROXy. What’s needed is the ROXLinux project to work, with Applications and Library directories and LibDirs and the like, and it never really got off the ground.

]]> By: rds http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2004/11/08/installation/comment-page-1#comment-1183 rds Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.kryogenix.org/adpb/2004/11/08/installation/#comment-1183 <p>Sounds about right. (Though I think you give rdsEd way to much credit. ;) ) Though I think a good number of those gripes could have been avoided if they would just have started with the idea of slowly moving in one idea at a time. Say, start with a Filer that did AppDirs, get everyone saying “hey, that’s nice,” and get some AppDirs out there. Then slowly move in, say, DnD saving.</p> Sounds about right. (Though I think you give rdsEd way to much credit. ;) ) Though I think a good number of those gripes could have been avoided if they would just have started with the idea of slowly moving in one idea at a time. Say, start with a Filer that did AppDirs, get everyone saying “hey, that’s nice,” and get some AppDirs out there. Then slowly move in, say, DnD saving.

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