On 6/7/20 9:33 PM, Joe wrote:
Wouldn't that be something like Android? Where the user no longer owns his computer, and therefore cannot break it, where there is one and only one minimally-customisable user interface, where only software approved by the OS vendor is available.... where the software probably wouldn't be open source, as there would be no point....
My comments were not about software access or users' 'right to brake a computer.' It was simply to be able to install and use an application. I don't think having the ability to install and use an application without resorting to kung-fu Linux is asking too much.
I have an Android phone and tablet, and I absolutely hate the OS. It is such incredibly hard work to do anything that the masses don't routinely want to do. I managed to find a web server that would interface with a PHP server, and there's a version of MariaDB available. But I couldn't get them all running for more that a few seconds. To achieve that, I'd have had to use a third-party rooting tool, which might contain anything, to adjust the OS running parameters to allow three serious applications to run together. I used to run all that stuff on a PC, and much more, with fewer resources than this tablet. I've been spoilt by Debian.
This 'the masses' vs. 'the elite' narrative is not useful here. But if I must follow your comments; masses or not, computer has to be functional. We disagree on how to make it so. I think that Debian allows for much more than Android (which was not my point of reference) is great. I think that you can today install something like Picard on Debian and cannot find it to use it, is, well, not so. Again, I'm not wanting to install and configure a virtual machine, only a simple, to my mind, application like Picard.
Let's face it, Android is a media appliance, and that's what the masses want. That's probably where Ubuntu will end up. It's where your stable OS with a great user experience would end up, because that's the user experience that the masses want. It's not what I want from a computer.
I think I've responded to this 'masses' narrative. But I will add; why not work to bring a much more stable and secure OS, such as Debian, to the 'masses'? That will be a dire public service need fulfilled. Among your 'masses' I do not think there you will find a soul who prefers to have a virus infested Windows machine. Or, one that forces them to buy a new hardware ever so often, as OSX. Though, now I add, with the fast growth of 64 bit computing, that leaves many an old machine useless, such as will not install latest versions of Firefox, Tor, Thunderbird, etc, this too is not a great mark on the Linux world. I got into Linux when the pitch was: an operating system that will run on your old computer that Microsoft will no longer support. That line has since been lost in the Linux world. And sadly so. Once an OS with potential to reduce e-waste, now a contributor, except of course, if you have a life to waste trying to find and get old applications to run on 32 bit systems. BTW, OSX has such a website devoted to PPC apps. Does this exist in the Linux world?
