Make Yumex Default Package Manager

[Lars Seipel]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2014 at 09:14:50PM +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
> If we enabled this "mode" they'd be thousands of items, all with the
> same icon. Like Mo says; it's a different app. You want a GUI
> application you use gnome-software. You want a package GUI, use
> gnome-packagekit.

I don't think it's that easy. Sure, if you already know you want to
install a specific package, just using yum/dnf is the obvious solution.

When you don't know the name of the thing you want (or, even, if
something like it exists at all) it gets messy, though. Say I need some
program to convert weird document format X into PDFs or do some other
random task. As searching and browsing available programs with yum is
not a particularly pleasant activity I go for Gnome Software.

Using it is a nice experience but it doesn't get me any results for my
search. I think 'aww crap, no tool for me in the repos' although there
are two perfectly fine command-line programs in Fedora I'd be happy to
know about.

People on this list might know they have to search for "packages" when
there're no "applications" available. That's not true for everyone. My
anecdotal experience from helping out fellow students suggests it's a
common issue. They need a C compiler, bison and make to do assignments
and it just doesn't show up in Ubuntu's software center (at least it
didn't then, maybe they changed that). They don't know what to do and
ask someone with more experience. Well, sometimes at least. The other
(at least as common) option is to start googling and then paste random
commands from some website into a root shell.

I agree with you that dumping gigantic lists of packages on the screen
isn't a solution. But just dismissing the problem as "it's for
applications only" isn't that great, either. Not when most users
probably think of "applications" as being the same thing as programs in
general.

Lars