[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Not really, simple command line tools should be installed in standard locations and use the PATH, both Linux and Mac OS X have that right.



It is no different from what you have to do on Linux. What's your point?



Application bundles are not needed for simple command line tools. That is why a hybrid system allowing the best of both words is the correct path forward in my opinion.

Basically, that the installer, whether that be a Windows MSI, OSX Application Bundle, or linux self-extracting tarball or distro package, should be able to handle all that setup by itself, without the user needing to babysit.

And I genuinely don't know much about OSX, possibly there is some way of installing an Application bundle that also does the necessary post-install setup for complex offerings?


For calibre, it is still heavily recommended to use the standalone binaries, so I had to write my own system service for triggering updates (manually or automatically). I also ported it to OSX, although I can't really test it I have been told it works as expected.
On OSX, it symlinks the CLI tools, running as root, after mounting the DMG and copying the application bundle.

You will hate to know that the latest Mac OS X El Captian defaults to disabling root entirely (ie rootless) with no way to change that unless you reboot in a special way. root still exists, it is just that nothing can become root (sudo and su stops working) and a set of system level directories are locked in stone, unable to be touched in any way. If interested:

google El Captian System Integrity Protection



No he agrees that distribution differences and the need to recompile are both what is killing the Linux Desktop. For the Linux Desktop to succeed, the Linux distributions must agree on how to handle all of these issues or be stuck in the past so to speak.

Oh, I agree distro differences need to be resolved. It seems to me to be a linked issue with non-recompiled /opt software -- essentially, commercial, closed-source software MUST be able to install in an easy, cross-distro manner with the same stability as on Windows and OSX.

Sandboxing, containerization seem to be separate issues, of general security. Although also good things to have.
Drag-and-drop install is just a method, one-click installers should not be fundamentally more challenging to the Linux Desktop.

DEBs and RPMs I believe can already prompt you to install them, and you can put a standalone /opt -contained application in it, but of course the main issue is multiple competing standards.

Then he has changed his mind. Many many years ago I remember reading a rail of his against the damn registry nonsense. I will look for the link.

Well, I think the issue may have been more about the single point of failure, with a binary registry that is the source of all information.

There has to be some sort of consistent way of figuring out what opens what and which applications are available.

Linux doesn't have a registry, per-application desktop files are the metadata that says which applications do what, and and there are curated lists of mimetypes ("shared-mime-info").
The mime database reads all those and caches the information, and actually throws it all away and recreates it from scratch IIRC every time a package post-install scriptlet triggers the update-{mime,desktop}-database command.


It's similar to the way system logs are plain text files, and why systemd bothers so many people.

I am not disagreeing. I think Windows could make some improvement here as well. As could Mac OS X by the way. No Desktop system is perfect, but a lot of new ideas have come forward recently and it seems like no one on the Linux side sees their value to help unify and fix the Linux Desktop.



Agreed. Getting the different Linux distributions to make any consistent changes (or even decide on a standard Desktop user experience!) has been like herding cats. It simply isn't going to get done until someone like Linus pushes for it. At least, he is now seeing it as the problem it has always been.



Yes but I am hoping for much more from Linux. They have a chance to set up something really good here if they can just focus and get something done. I am a big user of Linux but not for Desktop use. I use it to house my research data, to create software to manipulate my data and run statistical analyses. Almost all via ssh. I would love to be able use Linux on the Desktop in some sane way that did not require me to basically become my own maintainer.



Not exactly. All of these are related to the user experience and as a developer, I have to worry about and deal with all of this nonsense, as do you.

Take care,

KevinH

Yep -- this about sums it up.
"I would love to be able use Linux on the Desktop in some sane way that did not require me to basically become my own maintainer."

Until that gets solved, we will probably just see a few things, available specifically against "whatever the current stable version of Ubuntu is".


For Windows, the Windows Store is trying to solve this, but I like the look of Chocolatey myself.
So does Microsoft, they modeled OneGet after it.

And of course OSX curates applications and tools through homebrew/cask.