Original Post: Re: Fedora usability : a new project?

This is not an issue for me after Rahul and David's guidance, but I did have a few minor comments.

Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:45:30 +0530
From: Rahul <sundaram@redhat.com>

  
Rick Stuart wrote:
I really like YUM, but I REALLY think that it sucks to explain it to 
users who are new to Linux.
    

Why? It has a consistent command line interface and it is no worse than 
any other command tool that I know of.

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/



  
Like I said, I like the CLI.  The user community I work with, (corporately and around my neighborhood) does not do CLI.  RTFM is not an answer for them.
   Package manager is nice, but then there is
> that pesky root password requirement....."So, I'll just log in as root 
> so I don't have to type that password!"  It is miserably slow.    Does 
> it even connect to YUM? 
  

Yes, It uses yum.


  I am not seeing all the available packages I
> can see with 'yum list available'.  If that's not the right tool, then 
> why is it on the menu under 'Add/Remove software'?  Don't make me say 
> the U-word.
  

Click the big "List" button.

First, I will say that I did take another look at the package manager and yes it does list all installed and available apps from all my repos.  The search tool works just like "yum list | grep [whatever]" which is nice.   The 'Big List Button" generates a list that I could see might be imposing to a user, but if you have the viewpoint that users should not be installing software (I agree in a corporate environment) then who cares, right?

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:27:23 +0200
From: David Nielsen <david@lovesunix.net>

  
You should always provide some kind of authication when installing 
programs globally, not doing so is inviting all kinds of security issues. 
  
Agreed.  If I have set a policy that this user can install software, then challenge him for his password, not Root's and, for the corporate controls, log the activity.
The software manager doesn't seem slow to me, however the UI locks up 
due to it not being threaded - Katz' has strong arguments against adding 
that kind of complexity to the code. I think we might need to make him 
compromise a bit to make the UI not appear like it died - users tend to not
like that behavior, myself included.

Ubuntu has the basically same setup was we do. 
  
- David Nielsen
  
All told, after looking at it again, I have no problem with pointing users at the package manger except that I REALLY don't want them using the root password.  Perhaps when PolicyKit can help there, but I think the user should be challenged for his password rather than just get in to package manager.

It is slow, but I compared it to Windows' Add/Remove and it is really no worse.