Re: Cannot re-install synaptic on Buster.
On Mon 15 Apr 2019 at 13:31:04 (+0200), tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 11:15:48AM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 09:56:04AM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > > On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 10:42:19AM +0300, Reco wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Apr 15, 2019 at 09:14:30AM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
[...]
> > > > A short-term solution at best, although I'll avoid Wayland in buster.
> > >
> > > Why do you think it is a short term solution?
> >
> > Because GNOME. GNOME's upstream said their word loud and clear, and that
> > word is - 'thou shall use Wayland for it is our favorite toy now'.
>
> Yes, for GNOME users that's right. And GNOME is Debian's default DE.
> But not the only one, and you don't even have to have a DE (I haven't
> one, for example).
>
> > A modern GNOME project is known for feature removal [...]
>
> I don't like myself many of the choices GNOME has taken. Nevertheless,
> its intention is to make user's lives more enjoyable [1], and that
> is commendable. For "my" end users (i.e. those for whom I play
> "local friendly hacker") I tend to help them taking their choices.
> Some are fine with modern GNOME (that means I have to have some
> working knowledge of that), others run away, screaming in horror
> (they usually settle on something like Mate or XFCE).
>
> Myself? As I already said: to me, a desktop environment is an
> abomination. Give me a "classical" window manager and I'm your
> guest.
>
> As elsewhere, I'd say: diversity rocks!
>
> > Luckily for us, Debian stable users, we're promised a lack of behaviour
> > changes during the lifecycle of a stable release. And Debian keeps that
> > promise most of the time [...]
>
> You make it sound as if there were some cabal behind Debian. I think
> Debian (folks) will be happy to keep alternatives viable as long as
> there is someone around willing to do the legwork.
>
> Watch again systemd: while the default in Debian, it is perfectly
> possible to install a Debian system without it (mine is SysV, and
> I do play around with installers for raspi). And quite a bit of
> the necessary legwork (SysV init scripts for packages et al) *is
> being done by the respective package maintainers, many of whom may
> be systemd proponents... just because they think your choice is
> important!*
I've always assumed that there are Developers who, like us,
avoid various types of software, like DEs, and so there will
always remain possible methods of circumventihg them.
> For me, that's awesome. That is how civilisation works. That's why
> I tend to go berserk every time I see mud being slung at them.
> We might disagree, but we shouldn't sling mud at people giving us
> software for free. Discussion, Bug reports, patches, all fine.
> But no mud.
Yes, but sometimes the mud appears from nowhere, just through poor
attributions and excessive snipping (removing the context). For
purely technical comments, it's less important, but for opinions
it's vital to know who's actually saying what.
> > > This is more or less my situation. After a detour through Gnome I
> > > finally came back to fvwm, and glad I did.
Never left fvwm in two decades!
> > Ah, that's the thing. They give you mutter (it's a GNOME thing) and they
> > give you weston (a reference 'window manager').
> > Both lose in usability to my openbox setup.
>
> Hey. It's free software. Shouldn't we be rather saying "we give
> ourselves [2] this and that?" Who's "they" anyway
>
> Now let me step down from my soapbox.
I agree. We have to accept that we depend on people scratching their
itch, and we can't dictate to them, only suggest, help or persuade.
Or even just help other users to realise they need time to change
things. In the case in point, I feel sure that the people who
developed synaptic will think about how to separate privileges so
that the well-liked GUI can run as a user, communicating with a
administrative daemon that does the privileged work.
> [1] I'm applying some amount of Hanlon's razor here
> [2] In the reciprocal, not in the egocentric sense
Cheers,
David.
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