Examples could be things like specific configuration defaults or general decision-making in leadership.

What would you change?

  • @[email protected]
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    fedilink
    511 months ago

    I think the point is that if one needs to read a thousand pages of documentation before they can start using a new operating system they will just give up regardless of how good it is.

    Installing packages is probably one of the first things you’d want to do so there is a lot of value in keeping its design intuitive.

    The ‘you can make an alias or script for it’ argument only works if someone already has a working understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Which you can assume it someone gradually gets introduced to a Programme, but not if they are making a big switch like installing a new OS.

    • @Samueru
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      5
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Oh I totally agree with that. But I don’t think the regular a new user should be using CLI tools to install packages. There are plenty of GUI tools that should be doing that for you instead.

      And if they did, it should be very simplified with a wrapper script like in the example above, iirc the common command update-grub is a wrapper script that simplifies it, it is a shame this isn’t more common with other tasks.

      This could be even standardized, like regardless of the distro if you type installpkg vim, the installpkg script would do something like this that will run it thru the most popular packages managers to do the simple operation:

      # Install with 'pacman' (if available)
      if command -v pacman >/dev/null 2>&1; then
          sudo pacman -S $@ || exit 1
      fi
      
      # Install with 'apt' (if available)
      if command -v apt >/dev/null 2>&1; then
          sudo apt install $@ || exit 1
      fi
      
      # Install with 'dnf' (if available)
      if command -v dnf >/dev/null 2>&1; then
          sudo dnf install $@ || exit 1
      fi
      
      echo "No package manager found"