<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Original Post: Re: Fedora usability : a new project?<br>
<br>
This is not an issue for me after Rahul and David's guidance, but I did
have a few minor comments.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid20060809160024.7E16673464@hormel.redhat.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:45:30 +0530
From: Rahul <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sundaram@redhat.com"><sundaram@redhat.com></a>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Rick Stuart wrote:</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote cite="mid20060809160024.7E16673464@hormel.redhat.com"
type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I really like YUM, but I REALLY think that it sucks to explain it to
users who are new to Linux.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Why? It has a consistent command line interface and it is no worse than
any other command tool that I know of.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/">http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
Like I said, I like the CLI. The user community I work with,
(corporately and around my neighborhood) does not do CLI. RTFM is not
an answer for them.<br>
<pre wrap=""> Package manager is nice, but then there is
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>that pesky root password requirement....."So, I'll just log in as root
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>so I don't have to type that password!" It is miserably slow. Does
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>it even connect to YUM?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Yes, It uses yum.
I am not seeing all the available packages I
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>can see with 'yum list available'. If that's not the right tool, then
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>why is it on the menu under 'Add/Remove software'? Don't make me say
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>the U-word.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Click the big "List" button.
</pre>
First, I will say that I did take another look at the package manager
and yes it does list all installed and available apps from all my
repos. The search tool works just like "yum list | grep [whatever]"
which is nice. The 'Big List Button" generates a list that I could
see might be imposing to a user, but if you have the viewpoint that
users should not be installing software (I agree in a corporate
environment) then who cares, right?
<blockquote cite="mid20060809160024.7E16673464@hormel.redhat.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:27:23 +0200
From: David Nielsen <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:david@lovesunix.net"><david@lovesunix.net></a>
</pre>
<pre wrap="">
You should always provide some kind of authication when installing
programs globally, not doing so is inviting all kinds of security issues.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Agreed. If I have set a policy that this user can install software,
then challenge him for his password, not Root's and, for the corporate
controls, log the activity.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid20060809160024.7E16673464@hormel.redhat.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The software manager doesn't seem slow to me, however the UI locks up
due to it not being threaded - Katz' has strong arguments against adding
that kind of complexity to the code. I think we might need to make him
compromise a bit to make the UI not appear like it died - users tend to not
like that behavior, myself included.
Ubuntu has the basically same setup was we do.
</pre>
- David Nielsen<br>
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
</blockquote>
All told, after looking at it again, I have no problem with pointing
users at the package manger except that I REALLY don't want them using
the root password. Perhaps when PolicyKit can help there, but I think
the user should be challenged for his password rather than just get in
to package manager.<br>
<br>
It is slow, but I compared it to Windows' Add/Remove and it is really
no worse.<br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>