?? So the general idea is: if you are not IT-skilled and dont have the time or skills (!) to go over this not so easy material including the software and hardware internals, too bad for you. And we cannot call linux an alternative for Windows. Obviously I had a different perception. BTW I use it myself (slack 10 -> 10.1 and gentoo on alpha).

And also: Linux is NOT for those people that do not have the ambition and/or time to learn their new OS.

Linux will never be Windows. And as I see it, if you complain about how Windows does stuff better, why don't you use what you think is best for you? Life is about choice, make yours and stop complaining about it.

I am seriously getting tired of discussions like this one, that is why I am now going to unsubscribe to this thread and hope that newbies can understand that Linux != Windows, quoted from the site of oneandoneis2 (Good reading!).

Regards.

You obviously have no idea how many open source programs/libraries there are in the world. It is literally impossible for a distributions package management system to include absolutely everything. Also, in some cases, a program might use 3 or 4 libraries that nothing in the default install uses so when you go to install it your stuck getting 4-5 packages instead of just one. However, you'll note in most of these cases the package system IS smart enough to know to get these extra packages.

Fact is you can't satisfy everyone. You guys bitch and moan about having to deal with installing a few dependencies now and again when you install packages that aren't included by default. Next guy bitches and moans about xyz distribution being too bloated because it includes too many extra libraries by default.

Every distribution pretty much comes with at least one piece of software for every task. They will pretty much always have 1 music player, 1 movie player, 1 office suite, ect. ect. If you want to install another one that is totally fine. You typically have two options... First one is to build it from source, second is to use the distributions package management system. Unless you found something really obscure it almost always exists in the package management system but will often require extra dependencies. Why? because there is no such thing as being able to control what libraries somebody uses when they develop a piece of free software, they have the freedom to use anything they want. You try and take that freedom of choice away and the developers will just laugh at you and move on there merry way. If you have a problem with what somebody chooses to use as there dependencies then don't use there software.

Bundling programs and it's dependencies in packages is an absolutely terrible idea. What you want is a dependency checking system (like portage, yum, rpm, yast, apt, ect.) that will fetch dependency packages along with programs. Why? Because if you install 5 programs that all link against libwww do you really want to download the libwww binaries 5 times? No thanks, I'd rather download it and install it with the first package that needs it and have the subsequent packages be smart enough to understand it is already there so I don't have to download it again.

That's right. The onus is on the user to learn the software, not on the software to be self-evident to the user.

That's right. Here's a metaphor I just thought up, to cover this very situation:

Stupid telephone company (Telefonica) cut my phone line and ruined the DSL I have with my ISP,

I only have the ubuntu CD and nothing else, I had to download packages elsewhere so I understand. It is true that without an internet access, one people would get into serious troubles using linux. Hence it is bad for developing countries without internet access.

If internet is not possible, then there are 2 options:

- use CDs/DVDs, I think debian sarge may help a lot (2 DVDs of packages). It come with more language support as well.

-Another distro that is good for no-network environment is slackware. You usually just download one package only from linuxpackages. It has lower level of i18n support. Work pretty well for english/spanish but need lots of hacking for CJK.

Yep, that sums it up pretty well.
I'm no brain surgeon, but I found time to learn the system, and if I encouter problems then I RTFM and can figure it out!

right -- the last thing Linux needs is a bunch of demanding users

I'm really confused at some of the replies I've read. Some people claiming
that not only should they get free stuff, but they should get it on their own
terms. What has happened to our community.
I remember a time when someone would have a legitamate gripe (software
installation improved passed that point a couple years ago) and the community would rally to find a solution.

Now it seems people can't be "bothered" with learning something. Frith forbid someone actually come away with a basic understanding and thereby a solid foundation for more learning about THEIR computer.

On the other side we still get huge doses of RTFM, "go back to windows noob",
and any number of personal attacks against almost ANYONE asking a question.

NOTE: I have always found this paticular site to be an exceptional example
of the RIGHT way for the community to behave, as proven in this very thread.

By the way I really liked your analogy oneandoneis2.

Zack

I'm pretty sure Linus would be horrified at some of the arrogant stuff trotted out on this thread.

I've written a whole bunch of 3d GIS apps which, while useful to me, would not be usable by the general public. Therefore, I feel a RESPONSIBILITY to make sure it is usable before I release it.

I can't understand why programmers should feel no desire to make their apps as easy to use as possible. However, having read this thread it is obvious that a huge percentage of programmers have no interest in the operability of their offerings before they dump them on the net. (That is, if they actually ARE programmers and not just jumped-up scriptkiddies.

Furthermore, not only do they expect other computer users to be as clued-up as themselves, but they seem to REQUIRE that that those computer users have adequate resource to IT and the web.

To use your motorbike analagy (deeply insulting as it is), If all I can afford is a bicycle, then I could be pretty sure that any self-respecting motorbike rider would raise third digit in my direction, while he splatters me in mud.

No, guys, I really don't think that this is the point at all....

Cov,
I agree that it is usually in the best interest of the programmer to make his stuff as usable as possible. I hate the agruement that "Linux is only for the hard core computer users". My Mom uses Linux and she doesn't know anything about her computer... but I admit I was the one that set it up for her. However, I also can't stand it when people claim they are entitled to something in a particular piece of free software. Most developers try there best, but the users have to keep in mind if they want something fixed they need to provide good (critical is ok... negative is not) feedback and bug reports.

I can't figure out is a good solution to your networking problem. If you want to be cutting edge at some point your going to have to download something. Distributors can't afford to send you new CD's every time a package gets updated or a security patch comes out. Most developers can't afford to do anything as far as distribution past posting there stuff on a mirror somewhere. If you can think of a good way around using the internet and a good package management system to do upgrades I'd love to hear it, but so far I've not heard any good replacements for the current system.

Most distributions pretty much work like this. You tell it to install a package through the package system and it downloads the package. Then it looks at the package headers (sometimes it actually does dependency lookups before it downloads... Gentoo for example just reads the ebuild file) to check dependencies. If you have all the dependencies it will install your package, if not, it will have to download the dependencies and install them first. I can't think of a more traffic efficient way of doing it. You have to concede it is impossible for a distribution to include every possible dependency for any package present and future. Including dependencies within packages is terribly inefficient when it comes to network transfers (you end up download lots of things multiple times). Every package management system I currently use also has a switch to not install anything but tell you the state of the dependencies for the package so you can easily make a quick decision about whether or not you want to install it.

I can't really see why you bring Linus up when this is a discussion of FOSS and not the Linux kernel itself.


No, apps should not be easy, they should be powerful. Easy is only required when you need many users that pay money. "We not need that".

Of course programmers want their application to work and work well, if they wouldn't, then why would FOSS be so successful as it is? The thing is that FOSS is driven not by money as proprietary software is, it is driven by quality in the software. Proprietary software needs users that pay money, so they need to attract people. Since people = mostly newbie or non-techies/non-hackers it is better to aim for those people than hackers. And it is a proven fact that non-hackers do not want to spend time learning software, they need to learn fast. This has been proven with the success of Microsoft (try to find more examples by yourself).

FOSS only needs to do one thing, and that is to do it right. Non-proprietary software is driven by quality of the software, the programmers therefore spend their time trying to do make the software powerful and effective. At the same time trying to make a program easy is hard, and it takes time. Some FOSS programmers make their software easy, most don't. If they don't, don't blame them for it. Why should you?

Look at sendmail, it was (is?) very widely used, but it is easy to learn? No, at least I don't think so.

The conclusion:
Our first goal is to make good software.
Our secondary (or even further down the list, maybe) is to make it easy to learn and use.

But FOSS programmers often don't do FOSS programming for a living, it is a hobby. When you have a work, you can't spend too much time working on your hobby. So spending time making the software easy without compromising the main goal is hard, and takes extra time. And making the software easy is so low-priority that most hackers throw that goal away and ignore it, and it will not hurt them, or their software. So why blame them for doing that?

Regards.

It's all about choice and difference of opinion. Easy for some people might be hard for others. Some programmer might understand where you're coming from and release something really really easy to use, with that person's mindset in mind. Other programmers may not really care at all, and create the most difficult/mind-boggling program to use, where some people can use it, and other people can't, all that difficult programming just to bust your chops, heh.

People have a tendancy to be self-centered. It would be nice if I could control the world and get everything my way

Sheesh!

Okay, instead of saying EASY I should have said USABLE. Or Intuitative. Or maybe I should have just hired a lawyer.

Either way, I don't really understand why we can't standardise our dependencies so that we don't send our users to 'Dependency Hell'.

Still, reading some of the stuff here, it would seem that the BOFH is indeed alive and well and contributing to this forum......

How? Where is the solution? Do you have any suggestions?

Either:
1) Remove dependencies and put everything inside the package. That would make all packages huge and cost disk space and bandwidth. We don't want that.

2) Install all dependencies by default with a distro. This would make the distro huge. We absolutely don't want this.

3) Do whatever we can to make sure we do not have two libraries that do the same thing, this will at least narrow down the number of libraries. But this will not remove the dependency problem and I think that this 'solution' is already existing out in the wild right now. At least can't recall two libraries doing the same thing, so this solution won't do much difference.

4) Anything else?

Btw, if you would change "easy" to "usable" it would look like you are saying that most packages and package managers today are unusable. So I would instead suggest that you hire a lawyer. :P

Regards.

Most software is written by a single programmer to scratch a particular itch that programmer
has. They write a program that does one thing and it does it well. Well it so happens that
some other people need that exact same functionality so the programmer gives it to people
to help them. Next thing you know these people are complaining that is doesn't also do
"something else that it wasn't designed for". Maybe the programmer adds more functionality
to help out the others. Maybe they say "Hey, screw you. I gave it to you for free and told
you exactly what it did." The bottom line is the programmer has NO RESPONSIBILITY to
make the software the way YOU want. If you pay them, they may be more inclined to do so,
but saying "You OWE ME your software and you OWE IT TO ME to make it the way I want it
is insane and will, 100% of the time, make people not want to HELP you anymore.

Now sometimes when you get several people working on the same project a lot of itches get scratched and it takes longer for the entire group to become frustrated, but it will happen and you see projects simply quit or entire teams of programmers leave and are replaced with "soon to be frustrated and leaving the project" programmers.

NOTE:
This is my opinion.
I said MOST software.
I said SOMETIMES several people blah blah....

Zack