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(a)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(a)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.