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RPM packager

Started by minou, 2011.08.28, 07:35:09

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Do you want an RPM/YUM implementation for OS/2 that uses the Unix/Linux "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard" (/home, /var, /usr, /etc..)?

Yes
14 (41.2%)
No
18 (52.9%)
I don't know
2 (5.9%)

Total Members Voted: 0

melf

One problem with you rpm-guys postings here is your attitude:

minou says: "All the complaints I have seen on rpm were people who most likely shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer."

dmik says: "Which means, responding to the common "I want to install software where I want it to go" argument, that this argument is no longer valid. The developer of the software knows it much better."

I'm sure you know a lot about programming, but you seem to know very little about how to listen to and deal with users and to consider user's preferences.
/Mikael

lewhoo

dmik:

You are perfectly right in your argument - saying that most users do not need such features as this "freedom" of where to install,etc. Other users,those "geeks" can still be "geeks". However, these averege users are already using Windows,MacOSX and shiny linux distributions. Those "geeks" use mostly linux.

Do you plan on exchaning many (if not most) OS/2 users that do not fit in those categories to those that fit? Well, I wish you good luck. However, I am afraid that the result will be just loosing lots of eComStation individual clients.

If you want to make the ECS as "simple" with installations as linux, than I am afraid it may be too much for me. I have to use linux every day for scientific work and quite often I have to face these "developer had much better idea where to install than user" issues. It is a mess I am into only because I have to be.

And finally - I really do not understand your attitude. You should focus on what user wants, not what is more convenient for you. Without users, ECS will not exists, no matter how happy with its future design developers are. Or maybe, as I said, you are hoping to obtain so many new users that you won't have to worry with loosing current ones. I'm affraid this possibility is rather illusory.

miturbide

melf: I agree with you.
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

dmik

melf, excuse me, but you have probably misread me. In that paragraph I was talking about the average user. It looks like you don't consider yourself as such, so you should probably refer to the section related to "geeks" in my post.

miturbide, answering your question. There is nothing to double click (yet), but you can install software with a single command line, e.g. if you want to install the latest version of Odin, you will open a Command Prompt and type:


    yum install odin


That's all. And since the installation is completely unattended (for 99% of the software), there is no "installation procedure" to follow except the above yum command. Speaking about the current state of affairs, there is nothing comparable to a single double click when it comes to installing applications on eCS (even using WarpIn, don't forget that you will have to download .WPI files + all requirements and then locate them in your Downloads folder, etc.), so YUM/RPM will be already a major improvement here.

miturbide

dmik. Like always, you are free to do whatever you want.  But my main problem is that you are reducing the user experience on the software installers.

So with RPM you will have to open a command line and type to install an aplication. While Windows, MacOS and OS2 with WarpIn had installers that you can simple double click them and follow the wizard to install the software.

RPM may be technical superior to WarpIn, but the user experience in WarpIn is simple. Users don't want to loose that.
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

dmik

lewhoo, sorry, you seem to not read me well too. I say quite the opposite -- the whole move to RPM is to deliver software of a better quality. It's the end user who benefits best of all from this move in the long run (even though not everybody understands/believes in that, but that something we expect).

Regarding your Linux experience, I didn't understand what you mean and I don't see how it relates to eCS and/or RPM. Feel free to clarify.

melf

Quote from: dmik on 2011.08.29, 23:34:21
melf, excuse me, but you have probably misread me. In that paragraph I was talking about the average user. It looks like you don't consider yourself as such, so you should probably refer to the section related to "geeks" in my post.

I doesn't really matter if you referred to the me or "the average user", the attitude of "developer knows best" is still there. I miss the user perspective and the will to try to understand.
/Mikael

dmik

#22
miturbide, do you seriously think that

1. Download WPI.
2. Read requirements.
3. Find and download requirements.
4. Double click / unzip / whatever all requirements.
5. Double click WPI.

is simpler than

1. Open Command Prompt
2. Type yum install <package>

If your answer is "yes", then there is nothing to discuss. You just need to try it first.

melf, it is still there, but the context matters. Does the phrase "the surgeon knows it much better" when it comes to fixing a "bug" or installing a new "feature" to your body offend you too? If the answer is "yes", see above -) I think what you miss here is honoring your own longstanding habits by developers (so you care about yourself in the first place, not about other users). While no doubt that the developers should take users' habits into account, sometimes these habits become an obstacle for further improvement of the experience and this is just the case.

To all: Please be more specific when you criticize something. E.g. "I don't like A because I need B and A makes B impossible. I need B because of C". I will try to comment on that with my knowledge. I'm here not to flame with you guys (I have neither time nor will for doing that), I'm here to explain & help & collect your constructive feedback ("my attitude is longer than your attitude" is not constructive).

miturbide

(dmik: I'm responding in your same terms)

Do you know what "user experience" means?

if your answer is "no", then you are right.
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

DougB

I doubt if this will make developers happy, but I don't have time to respond to each point individually.

If a developer is not smart enough to reduce a program to the simplest user experience (including installation), their software is not going to be used by very many people. As I noted before, Linux software seems to be a contest to see which programmer can make a program that is the most difficult to use. This is great fun for the programmers, but it is not any fun for the potential user. Adding a horrendously complicated installer to the mix (no, I won't waste my time trying to type a couple of hundred characters to install a program), and you have a totally useless pile of garbage.

As noted, I do have the option of not using any of it. I fully expect to make full use of that option. ECS is not Linux, and there is no excuse for making programs that are complicated to install, and use. Very few of the current crop of ported Linux programs are usable as it is, so I can't see that they will get any better by using a fancy installer that makes more work than it eliminates (for the user). True, it may cut down a little on the porters work, but is it really worth it when it destroys one of the best parts of eCS? Personally, I doubt it.

dmik

#25
miturbide, my answer is yes, I know what it is. This doesn't make it clear what is your answer to my question though.

DougB, you are right. I second your words completely. The whole RPM thing is about "reducing a program to the simplest user experience (including installation)". Interesting to note that if I express the very same thing with different words ("the developer knows much better"), I face hates from the very same people which experience you think this should simplify -) May be you should first decide who do you think the majority of the OS/2 users are: geeks, average users or blonde girls. My opinion is that the average OS/2 user has basic knowledge of the command line.

The RPM interface doesn't have a shining UI yet (like e.g. the one in Apple's AppStore) but what you already get is very close to it and much simpler than anything that OS/2 users have been having until now. Yes, you have to type, but not hundreds of characters, of course. Just three simple words in most cases.

I agree that creating a nice UI for the installer first (and thus hiding the RPM/YUM details from you completely) would be more user-friendly, but the thing is that we need a new software manager tool right now. Otherwise we would have to hold all our releases or provide them as ZIP only (which is much more difficult to manage than yum install <pkg>, you must admit). For example, it is simply impossible to use WarpIn to create a proper installer for the upcoming Qt 4.7 release.

And one more important note. Yes, having RPM in action will indeed make these ported Linux programs you mention more usable, that's one of the main points. If you want details, I can explain why.

Your argument about the amount of work for developers is a pure speculation: according to your own words, you don't know what RPM is and therefore you cannot know if it will cut down their work or increase it.

miturbide

dmik you don't seem to understand why the people complains about RPM on the forum.

Once you have a nice installer like WarpIn, nobody wants to go back to use the command line (no matter if it is easy as "yum install odin"). No matter if it grabs all the requirements and installs it for your. 

Also, my first RPM experience (the one that was inside an WarpIn installer) was terrible.
Loot at the RPM-YUM documentation for the end user: http://svn.netlabs.org/rpm/wiki/RpmHowToEndUsers
Do you think it is easy and looks nice for the end user?

RPM/YUM may be powerful and fine for the backend, but you need to show an frontend with a GUI that will make it easy for the user to install and un-install, to select packages, etc. 

But maybe I also need to test RPM further, which installer are working right now with RPM and YUM? I will give it a try.
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

dmik

miturbide, of course, I understand your argument about WarpIn vs command line very well. More over, this is the reason why I am here on this forum. I know what people think about it and I want to explain that you should not fear RPM. It is easier than it looks like. Except for the "scaring" command line, it is even easier than WarpIn.

I understand that your first RPM experience was terrible. Believe or not, but so was mine -) But hey, nobody is perfect at first shot. We've been constantly improving the OS/2 reincarnation of RPM and related stuff. It's quite acceptable now.

Regarding the HowTo page. This starts to resemble the useful talk, finally -) What part of it do you mean in particular? I think that the first paragraph (Handy YUM and RPM commands) is quite simple to understand (again, I consider OS/2 users as people familiar with the command line on a basic level). The subsequent paragraphs contain too much low level details and should be moved somewhere else.

I do also have an idea of making an even more simple Wiki page that will only mention the install command and give a couple of examples. This page will also contain a very simple instruction on how to bootstrap RPM (this all will be done before we release anything in RPM). Any suggestions are welcome.

Regarding testing it further. You can only install a bunch of the Unix command line tools with it plus things like zip/clamav ATM which is probably not very interesting for you. Please wait until we release Qt4.

Pete

Hi dmik

Could you clarify if you will be repackaging *all* available os/2 software so that it can be installed/updated by rpm?

If you are not then rpm simply becomes yet-another-installer-for-os/2 with a limited selection of packages to install/update.

I certainly do not agree with your "developer knows best" concept. However, I may be a "geek" - I also used to dismantle motorcycles and build "chops" from them which must be close to what you meant about users rebuilding cars to suit their ideas.

I've used rpm a few times when playing with linux systems and never enjoyed the experience. I think this is because I like to know *what* is installed and *where* on *my* system.

However, before writing off all your work I will test rpm - are there any rpm software packages to try to install yet?

Regards

Pete





Pete

Hi All

This is another thread that seems to be becoming rapidly inaccessible - I cannot get page1 of this thread to appear no matter what I try.

In the hope that it will help the os2world guys debug the problem(s) this is what I currently see when I try to access page1 of this thread:-

8: Undefined offset: 0
File: /home/os2worldcom/httpd/html/components/com_smf/smf.class.php
Line: 449

Regards

Pete