Re: how about making upgrades easier

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Re: how about making upgrades easier
by Jason Hanford-Smith on Wednesday 11/Apr/2001, @16:05

This whole things helps back up the Minnows(*) argument that GNU/Linux is nothing but a geek toy. The arguments put forward regarding upgrading everything en masse are untenable. To expect your average user to upgrade through successive version (4 in the matter of a few months), is asking too much.

If you examine the Windows release schedules, you'll see that although major functionality is brought in on every major release, it doesn't stop major application upgrades in the mean time. And these certainly do not require a complete low-level upgrade.

Regarding binary distribution vs. source compilation, let me just say, if you ever seen a genuine newbie (or even a casual computer user) get to grips with Windows Update you'll know that most people are too afraid of "messing around" with what they perceive as a working system. They may need the upgrade, but if something were to go wrong, they wouldn't know how to fix it.

Telling these same people to download and compile source code (and try to unravel the compilation error messages !) is ridiculous.

Even RPMs should be considered too difficult. There should be no reason why the whole upgrade process can not be handled behind the scenes. The compilation process (if it's to be done) should be hidden behind a GUI. The RPM installation should be hidden behind a GUI. There should be no reason why anyone has to open a command line to upgrade KDE.

If this means that a generic installer is created for each binary distribution, this should be a small price to pay for increased ease of use.

Just my tuppence worth.

--Jason

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(*)min·now (mn)
n., pl. minnow or min·nows.

1. Any of a large group of small, freshwater fishes of the family Cyprinidae, widely used as live bait.

2. Any of a large group of Microsoft Windows users, widely used as live beta testers.

Related Links

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·   Also by Jason Hanford-Smith
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Re: how about making upgrades easier
by Ingo Klöcker on Thursday 12/Apr/2001, @08:11

>If you examine the Windows release schedules, you'll see that although major functionality is brought in on every major release, it doesn't stop major application upgrades in the mean time. And these certainly do not require a complete low-level upgrade.

Every new version of M$Office or M$IE installs a lot of new libraries. And you have to reboot several times. If this isn't a low-level upgrade why has Windows to be rebooted?

OTOH if you upgrade KDE you don't have to upgrade the kernel or X. Only some libraries and the KDE packages. So upgrading KDE is certainly not low-level. You don't even have to reboot after upgrading. ;-)

Regards,
Ingo

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