Installing Firefox 3.6: One more reason Linux isn't ready for prime time | Hacker News Reader

Installing Firefox 3.6: One more reason Linux isn't ready for prime time

blogs.computerworld.com

10 pointsilamont25 comments

Poor Linux distros. They try so hard. Nobody ever makes installers for Linux software (they don't even provide binaries unless it costs $1000+.) So the distros do their best to compile, test and maintain neat, orderly package repositories that won't vomit all over your filesystem and don't have tons of bugs and backdoors. And for this they are chastised, because it takes time to prepare a release. Meanwhile, Apple can take their sweet time with App Store approval, reject anything they want, not even give you the _option_ of installing things the hard way, and for this they are applauded. Clearly what Linux needs is more shiny buttons and less freedom.

>Clearly what Linux needs is more shiny buttons and less freedom.

Which is why Google Chrome is a potential game changer

I don't know what it's like with Ubuntu, but certainly OpenSuse has offered one-click installs for a while, e.g.:

http://en.opensuse.org/Firefox

These aren't terribly difficult for developers to set up, certainly easier than creating an installer for Windows. I wish Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc. offered this sort of download as the default, with tarballs only for users who know what they're getting themselves into.

The main pain is presumably in generating these for different distros. Novell's build service is supposed to make this easier, but I haven't tried it:

http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/supported_build_targets

One more thing that would help with this is if more browsers used the distro in the user-agent string, which would help with presenting the right installer to the user. Distro-built versions of Firefox certainly include e.g. "SUSE", but not the version. Windows and Mac browsers send the OS arch and version ("Windows NT 5.2", "Intel Mac OS X 10.5") so just sending "Linux x86_64" seems silly.

If Ubuntu wanted to, they could make it trivially easy, and upgrade everyone to Firefox 3.6 The reason they don't is because of their update policies.

For example, Ubuntu 9.10 comes with kernel 2.6.31. If there is a bugfix or patch, they will update you to 2.6.31.whatever. They will continue those updates for as long as that release is supported. However, they will never upgrade you to 2.6.32 or above. They will just continue applying fixes to 2.6.31.

This same policy applies to Firefox. With Ubuntu 9.10 you get Firefox 3.5. They will give you 3.5.9999, but never 3.6.

To get 3.6, you will have to wait for Ubuntu 10.4.

The reason for this policy is to maintain stability. They know that one package at version X is compatible with all the other packages at version Y, so don't upgrade anything and compatability will be maintained.

This is reasonable, but I think they need to make an exception for something like Firefox. There is no reason that Firefox 3.6 won't be compatible. It just works. They are sacrificing the user experience in favor of some esoteric update policy that users are not even aware of, nor do they understand.

User experience is priority one. People care more about Firefox than every other app on the system. Upgrade it Ubuntu!

They actually think that to get the latest version of my application I should upgrade my operation system?

Really???

The naive belief that users will wait at least 6 months to get a simply-installed version of a software update that other platforms already have is laughable. Especially when that hardware could run two other OSs that don't have that requirements.

Nobody's sure whether this is Firefox's problem or each Linux distro's problem. But since some distros seem to advocate themselves as desktop OSs, I suggest they take responsibility for solving it - and produce up to date packages of Firefox and other essential desktop tools.

There is very funny comment to this article. I sincerely believe that it is ironic.

"I've never liked Linux. Firefox is faster and more reliable. Less buggy too."

The installation issue doesn't just affect novice users. The entire package management idea is utterly broken. Most of the time the packages are not created by those who create the software. They are embodyments of someone's idiosyncratic idea about what should go where.

Package maintainers keep inventing new contrived ways to distribute files all over the place. Reading the documentation of the actual software often doesn't help me find out where everything is and how it can be configured.

The default sources.list keeps falling behind the older my installation gets and there doesn't seem to be any recommended way to keep it up to date. Of course I can add package sources of more recent OS versions, but that seems like a rather more dangerous thing to do.

Package managers are supposed to help me deal with dependencies but they end up creating new dependencies of their own.

Linux is not ready for the mass market because average joes are not able to use the newest version of a browser?

Righty right, because your average joe (a) does not care about the newest version, (b) does not know what a browser is (remember that video?).

Moreover, Preston Gralla does not seem to have a clue what package management is about. "Unbuntu"? Seriously?

He uses the word "Unbuntu" once, and the word "Ubuntu" three times. Therefore I'd imagine that "Unbuntu" was a spelling mistake, and probably doesn't have a great bearing on his knowledge of package management.

It does have a bearing on him being able to say that for Joe Sixpack, Linux is indeed not ready for primetime. The average Joe can probably spell "Windows Vista" and "OS X".

Sure it's his fault for not rereading and checking for typos but come on, is it really that unthinkable to accidentally type "Vitsa", "OSX" or "Unbuntu"?

I'd call it a typo, seeing as he demonstrated three times that he knows how to spell the word.

> Moreover, Preston Gralla does not seem to have a clue what package management is about.

He clearly does. The article is about the lack of packages for Firefox on the latest Ubuntu. Attacking a typo doesn't make this argument invalid.

A web browser is the most essential piece of software on the desktop these days. FF 3.6 has significant speed increases that make users happy. If Ubuntu wants users, it should care about this.

If you're asking an end-user to care about 'package management' then you're likely proving his point.

How? Package management is simply a different model entirely. One that doesn't encourage people to go download random files and give them full privileges on their machines. It's no harder to go to System > Administration > Add/Remove Software than it is to go seeking out some software on the web, downloading it, installing it manually and making sure that you have whatever other software it needs. I dare say that asking users to care about package management is a solution to the problem of Windows installers.

Package management is simply a different model entirely.

Heh... isn't that a bit like saying functional programming is only an entirely different programming paradigm? :-)

PM is superior to manual installs, but fast software (FF 3.6) is preferable to slow software, and PM shouldn't limit choice.

I'm not asking an end-user to care about package management, he is. He suggests that users should install new versions of software themselves instead of relying on managed packages.

Someone who absolutely has to have the latest and greatest is most likely an advanced user and still can just add another source to his package manager.

Right, you know, just like current users of the popular desktop OS'es. They go, grab the latest and greatest and install it themselves, just like they usually do. And they care not a whit what 'package management is' nor what 'adding sources' means. He's saying having to care about package management is antithetical to the notion of 'ease of use'.

Heh, same thing happened to me when I downloaded Thunderbird 3.0 to my Linux machine. I didn't know what to do next, and I searched the web in a bewildered fashion. Then I sent a Pidgin message to a colleague and he said "you don't install it, you just run the executable right in the directory." Oh. Thanks. Same thing with Firefox 3.6.

Funny thing is, I think Add/Remove software on Ubuntu, and its command line variant apt-get, is excellent, and I find Linux very easy to use on the desktop.

Of course, to get dual monitors to work with this laptop I had to hack /etc/xorg.conf. And don't even ask me about audio or video -- I wouldn't know a codec from a driver. But for day to day coding in C and Perl, and for doing investment fund accounting, I have found a well-worn groove (rut?) within which I can thrive.

Waste of bits. The article, the comments, all of it. You owe me $0.003 of electricity, ilamont.

C'mon, the comments are the best part!

If the average Joe wants the bleeding edge, get him to try Debian unstable. I guarantee that he'll go running back to the comforts of the more stable distro. I can say this because I did so as well. :-)

when will chrome become mainstream for linux?

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