Ingo Molnar: Technology: What ails the Linux desktop?

[probono]

Ingo Molnar points out that "to fix desktop Linux we need a radically different software distribution model: less of a cathedral, more of a bazaar", (...) "totally flat package dependencies", (...) "a guaranteed ABI platform going forward".

I couldn't agree more.
Must-read blog posts and discussion.

Ingo Molnar - 17.03.2012
Technology: What ails the Linux desktop? Part I.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/10992219946 ... gdeFDfRzNe

Ingo Molnar - 17.03.2012
Technology: What ails the Linux desktop? Part II.
https://plus.google.com/109922199462633 ... SdDJnscewS

[badhabit]

Great find!:) Surprising one too, to hear such strong critic from such a high ranked linux guy, like Ingo.

What could be done to increase the awareness about this problem in the linux community? When I tried to discuss this problem with collegues or linux fellows, they most often don't see a problem at all in this limitation... frustrating. :/

Or even further what could be done to overcome this dead end linux seems to be stuck in? Also, I googled for responses to Ingos post, seems to be noticed by some tech sites and blogs, but overall ... not directly "great, someone was now saying it loud...let's fix this now once and for all!"

[ike]

I just can't believe distros like ubuntu, which was created to be user friendly, can't realize this stuff and realize that they alone could change everything and make software distribution and fun usage on linux perfect in a matter of a couple monaths to a couple of years. Repositories are great, but they are horrible if they are the one and only thing. Developers care more about their software than distros do, and maintainters will never be able to honor the original care the developers put into the user experience.

Linux will never succeed if it keeps believing that leaving voids for maintainers is higher quality than giving the developers a clear pathway to delivering the experience they want to create. Maintainers are lovely people but they aren't the creators. A distro should not try to take the responsibility of a huge and growing third party catalog. There will never be enough people.

I'm so impatient, and I wish i could do more, but I have not enough time to be an animator as it is. i definitely don't have time to learn and practice code (except scripting stuff useful in animation). I think that so much in Linux is great and if they could just make installing and using software (the main point of an OS) easy and stress-free... everything else would click and the floodgates of greatness would open...

[badhabit]

I just can't believe distros like ubuntu, which was created to be user friendly, can't realize this stuff and realize that they alone could change everything and make software distribution and fun usage on linux perfect in a matter of a couple monaths to a couple of years. Repositories are great, but they are horrible if they are the one and only thing. Developers care more about their software than distros do, and maintainters will never be able to honor the original care the developers put into the user experience.

Linux will never succeed if it keeps believing that leaving voids for maintainers is higher quality than giving the developers a clear pathway to delivering the experience they want to create. Maintainers are lovely people but they aren't the creators. A distro should not try to take the responsibility of a huge and growing third party catalog. There will never be enough people.

I'm so impatient, and I wish i could do more, but I have not enough time to be an animator as it is. i definitely don't have time to learn and practice code (except scripting stuff useful in animation). I think that so much in Linux is great and if they could just make installing and using software (the main point of an OS) easy and stress-free... everything else would click and the floodgates of greatness would open...

While talking about ubuntu, at least ubuntus Matthew Paul Thomas (MPT) seems to understand the problem to some degree (see this video about that repositories do not scale enough http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT5fUcMUfYg), but I fear he is to affraid (or not powerful enough) to change something such so deeply embedded in the minds and distros.
He accepted 2010 the strong coupling between operation system and applications (and the resulting consequences) as a problem for ubuntu, see this launchpad bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/578045

(sadly, Mark shuttlworth gave around a 2006 a strong commitment for the integrated repository solution: http://benjamin.smedbergs.us/blog/2006- ... ng-system/)

What to do ? I'm not sure... trying to increase the awarness of the problematic structures, fighting the to often to find conservative-devensive thinking "everything is perfect already" among linux people.
Showing to people that (practical and architectural) alternatives exist... maybe by posting and hinting to portablelinuxapps on a ubuntu bug disucssion (the above one) as solution proposal ...