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Comment by alan_cx | Hacker News Reader

Have your retirees tried installing something them selves?

I, today, had a very quick look at installing Libre Office on a Fedora VM. Windows: download exe file, double click, it installs. Now go look up the instruction for Linux. So absurdly, hilariously complicated. I thought of Linux fanbois, and began to laugh, then cry. Right there is one reason Linux has a long, long way to go.

Yeah, fine for geeks and great for running server services, as I have been doing for decades, but as a general desk top for normal human beings? No way. Not even slightly. Sure Windows has its issues, but you know what? It works.

But, I'll give your Mint a go. See if that is as easy as Windows. You never know....

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The biggest problem I have is what to do when a newer version of something comes out. Sure I run 3rd party repos for things like Node.js... but getting Postgres 9.2 on Ubuntu is an exercise I can't imagine a normal GIS person undertaking. Sure a developer or sysadmin would dive right in. But on Windows, it's download exe and run. Mac it's download DMG and double click. For linux it's "hope they have the release I want to use in their packaging system".

I don't use Postgres, but on their website they tell you that 9.2 is the default on Ubuntu, and how to downoad other versions. Trolling? Or is there a real issue here?

http://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/ubuntu/

It's hard to argue that secure boot, on which your machine comes with keys installed by Microsoft (I don't trust them) and requires the user to know how to a: install another set of keys to run Ubuntu (or b: disable the feature entirely and forsake bootloader signing)... should be blessed

... but that users installing a piece of software as complex as a database server, on a system where packages are cryptographically signed, can't be arsed to follow the instructions on this page provided by the vendor, that was the first search result on Google, to install the vendor key and to download vendor packages from the vendor's own PPA repos.

Now try latest PostgreSQL with latest PostGIS, especially when a new release is out, but the Windows binary is still missing. Building PostGIS for Windows is not for the faint of heart.

For mint, just search for LibreOffice in the package manager and click Install. Maybe enter a password prompt for administrator privileges.

Isn't LibreOffice in Fedoras' repository? It should be GUI-clickable to install it. (In Ubuntu, it is. I would be very surprised, if Fedora didn't have something similar.)

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