[imiric]

This looks nice, thanks for sharing.

Though IMO the main issues with APT/dpkg are not related to their UI. It is their decades-old internals, and very limited support for transactional/atomic upgrades and rollbacks. Upgrading an APT system is the same launch-and-pray operation as on most Linux systems. I see that oma has an `undo` command, which is great, but I wonder how reliable that is in practice.

I think that every modern OS should support safe upgrades and rollbacks. Nix and Guix are obviously built from the ground up with this in mind, but they both leave a lot to be desired as far as UX goes. Nix more so than Guix. It is these package managers that would benefit the most from a good UI/UX polish.

So for a new OS/distro, I would start with a package manager with solid fundamentals, and work on refining their UI/UX, rather than do the same for one with fundamental issues such as APT.

BTW, I was interested in learning more about AOSC, but the main site is in Chinese with no English translation, so I guess it's not meant for global use.

[ZeroAurora]

The AOSC team is working on website i18n recently, so check back later!

You can visit the [wiki](https://wiki.aosc.io/) in the meantime.

[bobajeff]

Yeah not to knock their contribution but I was hoping they'd help make system package management as easy as npm package management. If I want to install say r-studio and octave apt will install a bunch of packages with dependencies. But what if I decide I don't want r-studio or any of the other stuff related to r on my system? I can't just do apt remove r-studio.

This is why I I've been using conda, appimages and chroot jails lately. Still no solution though.

[everforward]

You can use 'apt autoremove' to remove transitive dependencies that aren't required anymore. I think you sometimes have to run it multiple times, though, because it won't recognize that a dependency of a transitive dependency is no longer required after removing the first transitive dependency.

[bobajeff]

Thanks, that actually sounds like that will work.

[craftkiller]

What doesn't `apt-get purge r-studio` accomplish? Are you saying you want your R/python files deleted too?

[pantalaimon]

Yea dpkg installations are notoriously single threaded and laden with scripts.

Compared to e.g. Alpine's apkg, installations take quite some time.

Installing multiple (independent) packages in parallel would seem like a straightforward improvement - or installing while downloading unrelated packets.

[happymellon]

https://wiki.aosc.io/aosc-os/is-aosc-os-right-for-me/

I see both English and Chinese languages in their wiki.

[contrarian1234]

That's like someone gives you a nicer car and you say "yeah but it doesn't fly". Having a better UI for APT is a separate goal from.. making the next package manager? or improving Nix?

The reality is that Ubuntu LTS (and APT by extension) is pretty much the standard OS of Linux. Even if there are better solutions, that's sort of irrelevant. And APT users could use a better UI

[imiric]

> That's like someone gives you a nicer car and you say "yeah but it doesn't fly".

No, not really. It's like someone giving you a car that looks like a Ferrari, but has the internals of a Fiat.

To be fair, I'm not discrediting this project. I think it's great that someone is thinking about these things. I'm just saying that I would've started with a project with solid internals, rather than put lipstick on a pig.

[medstrom]

You make it sound as if it's pure aesthetics, but... an interface that makes it easier to undo a change is far from being lipstick on a pig, it's an upgrade in real function.