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I can't use Linux. This is because each time I've tried to install it I have run into endless hours of installing packages to support packages to support programs to support installers to support drivers to install packages to use. There has always come a point weeks after the initial install when I
am still trying to get it to run when I have realized that X-nix is a hobby, not an OS.*
There should be a single, unified X-nix dependancy list server, containing all hardware and software requirements, limitations, and dependancies. Every disribution should have to be registered on and use this dependancy list. No X-nix software should be taken seriously until the step of registering its dependancies has been taken.
In my not-so-humble, and not-so-informed opinion, this would solve most of the usability problems X-nix has.
*your results may vary. please don't hurt me
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I don't think it's consumer advice. It's more like a new model for installer packages where they'd do a recursive walkthrough of some sort of dependency tree before installation, rather than the traditional method where you get halfway through installation of package A which fails because package B is needed. You download B and install it, but this fails because C and D are needed too, etc., etc. |
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Yes, just about any Linux distribution has something that at least tries to address that, with varying degrees of success. "apt" has worked well for me, and I have bad, bad memories of "rpm". |
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This is the kind of issue that sucks in inexperienced programmers and chews them up, leaving a trail of bad software: a widespread, but seemingly simple meta-problem solvable by a very fundamental mechanism ("recursion"). In reality, the problems are with the detailed execution of this - how human-readable are the descriptions, how good are the error messages, how easy is it to contribute good information, is the list of release servers that gets shipped with the distribution up to date, do users know where to look, are all the little knobs and switches in the right places, etc. |
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Hippo's point is a subtle and valid one, but not one that the poster makes; for Voice, the difference is between an automated mechanism and a manual one. |
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I think this is a mix of
"widely known to exist" - any system administrator would be able to tell you about recursive dependency resolution - and a "let's all" (use the *same* mechanism). |
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[marked-for-deletion] widely known / let's all |
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As for that solving "most of the usability problems *nix has" - keep chasing that rainbow. |
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First of all, you wouldn't be using a computer, whatever you're using, if it weren't for some flavor of "*nix". You damn sure wouldn't be posting to something called "the web".* |
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Using Debian with apt makes this a breeze. Ubuntu may be even easier. Red Hat and SuSE also have pretty decent package managers. |
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For the most part that's all you're going to need. Yeah, eventually you may want to untar something and compile from source, but you won't need to do so. By the time you get to that point, you should be able to figure it out from there. |
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*please don't call my job a hobby. |
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Noexit, I've tried red hat, yellow dog, and SuSE, all with the same problem. I want to use it, I really do, but this stiuation makes it impossible for me. I really doubt that if a nerd with many years of IT experience like me can't do it, the package systems are fine. And why the hostility? |
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Jutta, what hippo said. Surely no _unified_ checker exists, so this is not widely known to exist, nor is it a lets all. |
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As [zen_tom] mentioned, the "Aptitude" package manager used in Debian seems to do a recursive walkthrough. But it is not unified, and does not consider hardware dependencies. |
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I also dispute the "widely known" and "let's all". Pastry for you. |
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Unifying anything is a let's all. (Everybody should use the same thing.) |
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Here's why: People like to complain about differences between instances of the same thing a lot - it's easy to discount the benefits of variety and competition if one is confused and annoyed by unfamiliar interfaces and functionalities. But the reason it isn't unified isn't that people haven't tried (just about everybody who makes something thinks that theirs should be the ultimate winner, right?). If the only difference between a halfbakery invention and the existing situation is that the invention is vastly more successful, and I'm not actually getting a strategy how or why - that's kind of boring to read, in the long run. |
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Since at least some people think that this isn't widely known, we can leave it up - but, really, go use apt-get. |
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//Noexit, I've tried red hat, yellow dog, and SuSE, all with the same problem// |
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The commonality there is rpm. If you still want to try Linux, and it sounds like you do, give Debian with apt a whirl. |
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If the hypothetical omniscient dependency checker existed, it would reject you. Most Linux installations depend on having someone to provide plenty of TLC. |
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On the other hand recent Ubuntu installations pretty much rock. |
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*Most Linux installations depend on having someone to provide plenty of TLC.* |
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