On 02/14/2014 01:41 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:

On Fri, 2014-02-14 at 13:02 -0500, Przemek Klosowski wrote:

On 01/28/2014 03:12 PM, Richard Hughes wrote:

On 28 January 2014 18:43, Przemek Klosowski <przemek.klosowski@nist.gov> wrote:

There are two separate issues here: 'abandonment', and 'GUIness'. As to the
latter, I think it's a mistake to have a primary application installation
tool that only deals with GUI apps, because it relegates text-based tools,
such as 'units', to a second-class status of being hard to find and to
install.

That's not the tool we've designed and built. We've built a GUI
application installer, not a package installer.

While it's not the fault of the installer,  I am concerned about that
distinction. For better or worse, a lot of useful tools seem to be out
of scope for a 'GUI application installer'. GCC, perl, git, octave, R,
units, mysql/sqlite3,  this kind of thing.

Do you actually want to use a tool like Software to install gcc?

I just can't see why you would. You know gcc is what you want. You don't
need a shiny description and some screenshots and user reviews on a 1-5
star scale. 'yum install gcc' seems a massively better fit. Who would it
benefit to have something like gcc in Software?

I see what you mean, but how do you install it, and other examples I provided? It's not just gcc:
it's gcc-gfortran, gcc-arm, mingw64-gcc, msp430-gcc, etc.

If we are providing a next-generation UI for installing, to replace yum, I think it is a step backwards to take away the full search coverage of yum. Let's follow gmail's example: no folders, no fixed hierarchy, just good search. It took me a while to get used to it but I like it now.

Maybe I am getting old and grouchy but I think it's an example of the disturbing trend to have a separate tool for every little variation of every function. Just in the last two days I had to consider:

- separate installers for different types of applications

- having to use all of yum check, yum-complete-transaction, package-cleanup --cleandupes, and rpm --rebuilddb on my failed update

- separate droid apps for reading reddit, slashdot, hackaday, etc.

Computers are supposed to simplify life!
...
Heh, I see my mistake now...