Hacker News Reader

Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

> Someone should explain why Linux has been the latest of the big operative systems to have a user-friendly app store, when they were the first to have one with apt-get!!

I think you answered your own question. Package management (together with distribution policies to make those packages work together) has solved this problem for Linux already, for all software packageable by distributions, which includes pretty much everything needed to make a usable system. An "app store" just makes it easier to get one-off non-redistributable proprietary apps, which Linux historically hasn't cared much about until other OSes started to, at which point a few Linux distributions started wondering whether catering to proprietary app developers would make the system more popular. (Personally, I'd argue that apps follow platform popularity, not the other way around.)

View on HN

From my days in Ubuntu... I remember that when I was installing some programs, it was asking me for dependencies. That's not user friendly.

The App Store is user-friendly. Do you want that program? Download it! No worries of dependencies. So it doesn't matter if it's proprietary or not. It's a matter of user experience and wanting to make it easy for non-techies. They have improved a lot but it's sad they weren't the first to make that change.

Huh? Longtime Ubuntu user here, I have no idea what you're talking about... Desktop Linux has plenty of problems, no need to invent new ones to complain about. Unless you were installing programs manually you shouldn't need to worry at all about dependencies on Ubuntu (or Debian).

How else does one install programs other than manually? You can't magically wish for Chrome to appear on ubuntu, you have to either use Synaptic, apt-get, or the software center (on recent ubuntii). All of these at least prompt you about dependencies.

'Manually' probably means not using a package manager - either with the configure/make dance, or with a binary installer like Google Earth used for a long time. In those cases, you still need to sort out dependencies manually.

Yup

   apt-get install <something-in-repository-or-ppa-you-added>

will bring down all the dependencies needed. That's the reason they package stuff against release numbers, so the dependencies are all consistent.

    dpkg -i <some-random-deb-you-downloaded>

may give dependency errors.

I get dependency errors on Chrome under Ubuntu 12.04, when I do a dpkg -i google-chrome-stable-whatever.deb.

But a quick apt-get -f install after I get those errors sorts it out.

Absolutely; if the dependencies exist within the appropriate Ubuntu repositories, or the ppas you have active, then the needed libraries can be installed.

Random downloading of debs from Web sites could lead to a situation where a different version of a dependency is needed. "foo needs libnaff-ubuntu345 but libnaff-ubuntu345 is not going to be installed" type errors result.

If you open the .deb in Software Center, it'll take care of the dependencies for you at the same time.

On the command line, you can use (ubuntu-specific) `gdebi <packagename>.deb` to automate that process for you.

Ubuntu Software Center doesn't prompt about dependencies... it just goes ahead and installs them. At least that's the default behaviour on 12.04 on my two machines.

i don't believe ubuntu has ever required users to worry about dependencies. that was solved in apt before ubuntu came into existence.

if you used synaptic to install programs, it highlighted dependencies in the GUI, but that was really just irrelevant information - there was no user interaction required other than clicking the install button on the thing you wanted.

I've been using it for 5 years. When I install a program via apt-get, it does ask for my permission to install certain dependencies. At which point I just have to say yes or no and it will proceed or abort. I don't see how that's a problem.

On Ubuntu to install a third-party app, like Chrome or Skype, you just double-click the dpk, a wizard pops up, you click Install, and all dependencies are taken care of.

The process is much better than on OSX. Think about how no app installs Growl automatically.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com