"Download & Install" vs "Repositories & Synaptic" and the need for a new URI [Was: Re: Going forward [Re: Automatix?]]

[Matthew East]

On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 11:11 +0700, Chanchao wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 13:04 +1200, Jason Taylor wrote:
> 
> > "Installing new downloaded software is one
> > of the most common tasks performed by desktop users at home and in
> > small offices. Until the Linux suppliers can make this task trivial,
> > they will continue to miss out on a whole world of users beyond the
> > command line geeks."
> 
> To which the totally obvious response is "Ha! We don't need any of
> that, we have Repositories and Synaptic!" [chuckles, gloats, hi-five's all
> around]. 
> 
> [Bear with me with the following, it gets interesting near the end. :)]
> 
> But is that a good response?  For sure, having Synaptic is great. It's
> especially great if you know what you're looking for and if it's in the
> repositories that you have enabled.
> 
> But even then, is that the way people go looking for software, browsing
> Synaptic?  It is not. Because Synaptic is only Step Two.  The first step
> is FINDING OUT what is the most suitable software anyway, and what it's
> called.

Try gnome-app-install. You can open it from Applications ->
Add/Remove... It addresses steps one and two at the same time. This
harping on about helping users to install things from their web browser,
while well-meaning, is totally missing the point, in my view. Usability
efforts should be concentrated on showing users the simplest way to find
and install software: this _is_ through repositories, because it is
inherently simple and secure.

Matt
-- 
mdke at ubuntu.com
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF
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