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by lubutu 5203 days ago
> Without distros, the way to get software is unbearable for Windows converts, where it is just "click, click, done."

Sorry, what? On Windows machines, due to the lack of package management, installing software is not a matter of "click, click, done." You have to google the program, navigate to the website's download area, find the right link, download it, execute it. It asks if you're sure it isn't a Trojan or something, which you promptly ignore (and learn to ignore every other "are you sure you want to execute foo.doc.exe?" popup).

Package management ('done right') is a matter of "click, click, done." Installing software on Windows is an absolutely terrible experience.
2 comments
flomo 5203 days ago
I think you're conflating two different issues. Poor UX for installing 3rd party software has been solved with things like Steam or the Mac App Store, for example.
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lubutu 5203 days ago
Steam and the App Store are nothing more than proprietary package management systems.
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flomo 5203 days ago
Again, that's not the issue. Package managers are great. The problem is how the base system is maintained/updated/versioned.
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Tangaroa 5203 days ago
And on Linux, you navigate to the website's download area and find out they don't offer a Linux version.

There is an open source alternative which is not in your distro's repository, so you have to navigate to the website's download area, find the right link, download it, get accepted to university, take a year of 100-level CS courses, learn the command line on your own because you didn't get it at school, run configure and make, and it does not build on your distro. Not that it matters since the latest version 0.0.3 would not do what you needed if you had gotten it to run.

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jiggy2011 5203 days ago
hehe , Harsh.

I think one of the main problems is that there is no single agreed way to distribute a program.

At least with Windows Installshield wizard kind of became the defacto.

Sometimes I go to a download page and they offer me a .deb file which is great but then I find it is targeted a specific version of ubuntu that I am not running. Sometimes they offer a .rpm, or sometimes they just offer a zip file with a random .bin or .sh inside it that I may or may not have to run as root and may or may not do weird things to my system.

Also you get stuff that asks you to do git clone and make etc.

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