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

[Dan Kegel]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Ben Klein <shacklein at gmail.com> wrote:
>> That's a fine attitude from the developer's point of view,
>> but that means that Wine *doesn't care* about Ubuntu
>> users who expect to be able to use Wine by doing
>> "add/remove" in the system menu.
>>
>> And I think we do care.
>
> No more than any other distro, to be honest.

What I meant was, I think we do care about users of distros
that are shipping wine-1.0.  I don't know how many do, but
I suspect it's not just Ubuntu.

>> 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."

>> 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.

> 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.

> 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.

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.
- Dan