appdb issue: can't search for apps platinum on 1.0.x!

[Ben Klein]

2009/2/28 Dan Kegel <dank at kegel.com>:
>>> Another way around this, as Scott Ritchie pointed out, is
>>> to arrange for what's in Ubuntu to be less stale.  However,
>>> there are only two ways to do that: either do a stable
>>> release more often (which is difficult, and which Alexandre
>>> doesn't seem inclined to do), or get Ubuntu to accept an
>>> unstable snapshot into their stable repository (which I think
>>> they are not inclined to do).
>>
>> Maybe someone should tell them that 1.0.1 is "broken" compared to
>> latest development release. This isn't untrue - 1.1.15 has better
>> success with a lot of apps.
>
> Their reply is probably "well, then do another stable release.
> Our policy is that we prefer to bundle only stable releases."

We should at least try! From what I've seen, Ubuntu like bleeding-edge
stuff that likes to break other things, like pulseaudio.

Maybe their problem is with the 2-week release cycle. How many
releases would there be between Ubuntu releases? 6 months, 13 releases
of Wine. Still, isn't it worth contacting the Ubuntu Wine package
maintainer to get their viewpoint?

>>> Yet another way to show that we care about Ubuntu
>>> users would be to make it drop-dead simple for
>>> the average user to add the Wine repository and get
>>> the latest wine.  The current download instructions are
>>> really too complicated.  We need instructions that are
>>> no more complicated than
>>>
>>>  First:
>>>   Click *here* to add WineHQ's repository
>>>
>>>  Then:
>>>   Do Applications / 'Add / Remove', and choose Wine
>>
>> The instructions were like this at one point: download this script,
>> run it, go to Add/Remove. Again, I think it's unproductive to hide
>> information from the users.
>
> And it's even more unproductive if your instructions are so
> long that users can't or won't follow them.
>
> I'm trying to introduce rank beginners to Wine, and
> anything beyond "Click Add/Remove, then choose Wine"
> is stretching it.  I can see their eyes glaze over.

I think you're assuming too much of your target audience, but that's just me.

>> At least with the current instructions
>> they can see *exactly* what's going on, and they don't have to worry
>> about manual editing or the user-unfriendly command-line ...
>
> The current instructions tell them to manually edit
> their software sources.  It's too much typing for them.

If you can present a better way of adding Scott's repository into
their list, then please do. A little copy-and-paste won't hurt them.

>> I'd also think the average user might be sceptical of an all-in-one
>> script that changes the configuration of their system. "Why is this
>> thing asking for my password? What is it doing? Can I really trust
>> it?" etc. etc.
>
> In fact, it's common practice for repos like rpmfusion.org to
> have a tiny package that just adds themselves to your software
> sources.  (See http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration )
> Scripts are right out, though.  It has to be a package,
> because you can't run a script with a single mouse click.

Maybe this is not a bad idea: provide a package with the correctly
configured /etc/apt/sources.list.d/foobar that also registers the GPG
key with apt. It's certainly possible! The only problem would be for
distro upgrades (say between Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04) where the name of
the repository changes. But with good instructions, this should be
trivial.

> I think it's important for us to focus on usability of installation.
> Thinking like developers has got us a long ways; now we also
> have to think like users.

Unfortunately, new users of Linux systems, particularly Debian-based
distros, are often confused by package management in general. My
brother, who really is a whiz with Windows systems, couldn't work out
how to get new software into Ubuntu. He thought that because
individual developers didn't provide binary packages, he had to
compile everything. I tried to teach him how to use synaptic, and he
said "This is stupid. It should be like MacOSX where you just download
a package and it's installed." I'm sure I don't need to go into the
benefits of centralised package management for Linux-like systems on
this thread ...

I think that properly educating new users is more valuable than
telling them "click on this magic link that does it for you".