Re: How to install X-Chat in five hours (or more)
On Tue, Aug 05, 2003 at 01:33:19AM -0700, Ian Hickson wrote:
> Part of the problem I had was that I had a vague understanding that
> there was something called "apt", but that I didn't know what it was
> or how to do anything with it. The man page said to see apt-get's;
> apt-get's man page suggested the tool was a back-end but didn't really
> give any clues as to what front end to use.
Not directly, but the "SEE ALSO" list does include dselect(8) which is
what you really should have used.
[...]
> To the end user (me), apt-get is arbitrarily verbose. "Selecting
> previously deselected package libbla3.2"? "Get:1 ftp://apt sid/main
> libbla3.2 3.2.10-9 [827kB]"?
>
> Look at operating systems used by less intelligent users. They just
> see:
>
> [################# ] 60% 2 minutes remaining
I don't see how some extra verbosity hurts. apt-get still displays a
percentage and a time estimate.
Frankly if verbosity loses us some users, too bad. I'm sure we pick up
more users because of the same. To rant a bit, the thing that bugs me
the most about MS Windows is how when it breaks randomly you can't fix
it because it runs on smoke and mirrors and doesn't give helpful
information on what went wrong. With UNIX/Linux you get details
and you can fix it.
> I think Debian's package system is remarkably nice. Unfortunately,
> it's UI leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem is probably
Which UI did you use? We have a few. apt-get is not an interface for the
Debian newbie. dselect and aptitude are GUI tools if that's what you
need.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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