Linux Challenge actually helps Linux with a lasting impact: Debian and Pop_OS updating 'apt' package manager to make it more fail-safe for users

[SeriousDad69]

No average user just trying to game should have to use the command line, ever. It isn't the early 90s and I'm not running MS-DOS anymore. Just being able to double click on an .exe or .msi file to install something is the first thing most mid-tier Windows users immediately miss. Package managers and repositories is also a foreign concept that I'm not exactly fond up. I remember the last time I daily drove Linux installing qbittorrent from the package manager and it was literally a year out of date lmao. No biggie! I'll just hop over to the qbittorrent website and download the latest version real quick.... oh I have to compile it from source..... lmfao

I never did anything as crazy as uninstalling the gui or bricking my install, but I got tired of the thousands of tiny speed bumps(and the couple huge ones) just wasting all of my time. In my opinion the only hope for Linux gaming at this point is Valve and SteamOS 3.0. If Valve cant make it work, there's no point trying anymore.

[Chunchunmaru_]

8 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

the fact Linux types believe it's acceptable for the option to delete your desktop exists at the end of an everyday app install is exactly why you're staying in 1-3%

judging from my past experiences with open-source devs, I guarantee this got brought up earlier. it took a video from a big channel and relentless mocking to get it changed. hilarious

"you're staying in 1-3%"
You say that like you are arguing with someone and Linux is my wife or my entire reason for a living.
Does it make you mad that someone has different opinions from yours probably because you do not even understand what is means?

If a package follows the debian guidelines (the one you find on the Debian repository, no on ppa's or other websites) there is absolutely no need to do that, I can easily create a debian package that deletes your entire system and making it avaiable to everyone, by putting it on some shady website, then it is the user responsibility to do harm to their system.
Reminder that debian packages can run scripts and do all sort of things.

The entire progamming guidelines on software in linux (KISS, etc) does not even consider hacky workarounds like that, every software must be avaiable in the official repositories,  without it probably it would end up like a mess, and at this point it would be just more convenient to stick in Windows.

Probably if someone can't get their package accepted to the official repositories, either they should just use .snaps or .flatpaks which are already in a protected environment

The ideal solution would just be to hire more package maintainers and developers and put everything in the official Debian/Ubuntu repository
 

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, SeriousDad69 said:

No average user just trying to game should have to use the command line, ever.

So you see, Package managers have GUIs as well. And many of them come preinstalled with a distro.

But I do get the setiment, even as someone who loves the CLi, there are some stuff I feel more comfortable doing in a GUI (like partitioning disks)

[Video Beagle]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Thank you! Everybody else in the thread seems to be acting like System76 and Debian did something wrong when the issue occured. Still don't think System76 and Debian were in the wrong but good for them for trying to combat the hate they've been getting.

"right" "Wrong" "hate" ...stop applying moral judgements and emotions to this.

This is about refining design. Using fresh eyes to show where changes can be made.

[Kisai]

15 hours ago, grg994 said:

Summary

 

2 - Then when trying to install Steam in the command line 'apt' package manager gave a warning seemingly not clear and highlighted enough that proceeding with the installation as such will remove system components and break the system.

 

 

This is a typical, if not super-common "mistake", where the user puts too much faith in the package manager to not break things.

 

Linux is worse for it, but this problem exists with FreeBSD, MacOS and Windows "package managers" as well, with Windows being rather incompetent in resolving packages with cmake.

 

On Linux, because Linux OS's are only the kernel,  not the distribution, the package managers do not make a distinction between OS libraries that shouldn't be removed/updated except with an OS update, and user-installed packages which should never over-ride the system libraries. On FreeBSD, you have this dictinction and thus all the packages and ports use the system libraries and it's reliable to not break on an OS update. The catch in this is that you can't mix packages (pre-compiled binaries) and ports (compiled from source.) MacOS has multiple package managers that aren't made by Apple, and they install things into different places, which results in being unable to use packages from one with the other.

 

What would ultimately fix Linux package managers is to not allow the package manager to update the "OS" libraries except when the OS itself is being updated. Unfortunately the problem with most linux distributions is that the OS libraries are not updated as frequently as some user-installable applications are, which results in needing to install a second copy of the library, a newer one, and this results in dependency conflicts.

 

Unless you're running a user-facing or web-facing server, the requirement to update absolutely everything does not exist. Even if there are security or feature updates you might desire, there's no point installing every single update and creating a circular dependency on your system libraries. Unfortunately this is a problem that primarily exists with Linux. In a perfect scenario, you should still be able to update the OS and user-installed software separately, no matter how old the OS libraries are.

 

[Tech Enthusiast]

9 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

the fact Linux types believe it's acceptable for the option to delete your desktop exists at the end of an everyday app install is exactly why you're staying in 1-3%

judging from my past experiences with open-source devs, I guarantee this got brought up earlier. it took a video from a big channel and relentless mocking to get it changed. hilarious

That is exactly what I wanted to say, thanks.

 

Why does it take a big channel to show that tech experts fail with simply installing Linux,... to actually make a change so REAL newcomers can use the OS, without going trough hours of pain and suffering?

 

All that command line nonsense,... make that OPTIONAL for those that think they need it to feel better. Make the basic functions work without even opening the console. Instant +10% market share, without changing anything but the basic install process.

[Arika]

This thread is a good example of what i've been saying for a while:

 

Linux users don't want new people to come to Linux, they want to keep it as complex as possible so any new user problems can just be blamed on them being stupid and not understanding Linux.

 

Not sure why people are against a change that makes things BETTER for new/inexperienced users unless they wish to keep the air of elitism and don't want things "dumbed-down" to keep out the "normies".

[Master Disaster]

15 minutes ago, Arika S said:

This thread is a good example of what i've been saying for a while:

 

Linux users don't want new people to come to Linux, they want to keep it as complex as possible so any new user problems can just be blamed on them being stupid and not understanding Linux.

 

Not sure why people are against a change that makes things BETTER for new/inexperienced users unless they wish to keep the air of elitism and don't want things "dumbed-down" to keep out the "normies".

They can keep that, this is literally a have your cake and eat it too. I can guarantee that these changes will never make it into pacman, emerge or stow, apt isn't the only package manager out there and the elitists can stick to Arch or Gentoo like they will all be running anyway.

 

And even in the unlikely scenario a hardcore needs to run something debian based, its only one more flag for them anyway.

[jagdtigger]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

The software was designed in a way that wasn't exactly the best for newcomers and could result in extreme situations

You seriously think newcomer will use terminal and apt instead of pop shop which is in fact did prevented Linus from breaking the system?

[Master Disaster]

Just now, jagdtigger said:

You seriously think newcomer will use terminal and apt instead of pop shop which is in fact did prevented Linus from breaking the system?

They will if Google-Fu tells them too, yes.

[jagdtigger]

9 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

They will if Google-Fu tells them too, yes.

Then the user ignores the same warning twice in a row, finding it pretty hard to blame the SW....

[DeScruff]

I'm not quite sure I understand the issue people have...
They are updating the OS to make it as difficult to "break", as it would be to "fix" - i.e: You gotta at least know what you are doing, and need to explicitly tell the computer to do the thing, rather then the computer presenting the option then saying "Is this okay?".
 

You can blame a user for not reading the warning, but people who are out of their element, generally trust that the thing presenting the option knows enough of what it's doing to not present an option that will make things worse.

[Fasterthannothing]

I'll take stupid users for a 100 Alex! But seriously if your installing something through the command line and you can't read a warning get off the computer.

[Fasterthannothing]

40 minutes ago, Arika S said:

This thread is a good example of what i've been saying for a while:

 

Linux users don't want new people to come to Linux, they want to keep it as complex as possible so any new user problems can just be blamed on them being stupid and not understanding Linux.

 

Not sure why people are against a change that makes things BETTER for new/inexperienced users unless they wish to keep the air of elitism and don't want things "dumbed-down" to keep out the "normies".

Yeah we don't want average Joe using Linux because a million guides for Linux have been made and remade and as obvious by this situation new people can't even bother reading a warning much less a guide. This isn't rocket science it's just lazy users thinking they are building a rocket but they never even read the instructions!

[Chunchunmaru_]

50 minutes ago, Arika S said:

This thread is a good example of what i've been saying for a while:

 

Linux users don't want new people to come to Linux, they want to keep it as complex as possible so any new user problems can just be blamed on them being stupid and not understanding Linux.

 

Not sure why people are against a change that makes things BETTER for new/inexperienced users unless they wish to keep the air of elitism and don't want things "dumbed-down" to keep out the "normies".

Actually your reasoning is why everyone just misunderstoods each other without getting into a point.

You are not different from them and this obviously ends up in the usual rant, it's something that is being pushed by both sides because one is obviously just biased and the other do not have knowledge enough to explain properly, and is a linux fanboy without actual understanding

Everything has been explained plently, at least I did, people just do not have asked for questions, including you

We are not fussing about getting things easier for the user, at least me, this is something that should not happen in the first place, and getting a warning for something a dumb package does it's not the solution and not even complies in most of linux software guidelines

 

[WereCat]

9 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

I'll take stupid users for a 100 Alex! But seriously if your installing something through the command line and you can't read a warning get off the computer.

To be fair the command line warning was the same type of text and font and color as everything else in the huge wall of text that popped out with it. It's easy to miss as it was not the last thing that appeared.

[Arika]

37 minutes ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

Actually your reasoning is why everyone just misunderstoods each other without getting into a point.

You are not different from them and this obviously ends up in the usual rant, it's something that is being pushed by both sides because one is obviously just biased and the other do not have knowledge enough to explain properly, and is a linux fanboy without actual understanding

Everything has been explained plently, at least I did, people just do not have asked for questions, including you

We are not fussing about getting things easier for the user, at least me, this is something that should not happen in the first place, and getting a warning for something a dumb package does it's not the solution and not even complies in most of linux software guidelines

 

i have no idea what you just said or what point you're trying to make (maybe a language barrier), but look, this guy literally just agreed with what i said and proved my point:

 

44 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

Yeah we don't want average Joe using Linux because a million guides for Linux have been made and remade and as obvious by this situation new people can't even bother reading a warning much less a guide. This isn't rocket science it's just lazy users thinking they are building a rocket but they never even read the instructions!

 

Linux desktop will never take off while this attitude exists, and unfortunately i don't see that ever changing, especially based on my own experience with Linux issues.

 

I have more devices running linux than windows (3 to 1), but i'm sure as hell not going to ask for help from anyone if i have issues because all i seem to get is one of the following:

• it's your fault
• it's your device's fault
• RTFM (with no links)
• Linux isn't windows

 

it's this weird contradiction where people say "This is the year for desktop Linux" but then turn around and say "fuck off newbies, this OS isn't or you, you're stupid" in the same breath.

 

So unless someone can give me a real good reason as to why this change is apparently a bad thing (an update that makes things less likely to break your DE), then i'm just going to keep believing my original statement of; Linux users want to be elitists and don't want newbies "contaminating" their OS.

[Forbidden Wafer]

What I think is the real issue: it's a freaking desktop OS. It says that when you download the image. It should have a basic form of protection against uninstalling desktop packages. Either only remove if a different desktop metapackage is installed or prevent the uninstallation of the default desktop metapackage. It shouldn't even be listed as removable. 

 

I don't mind the server version letting you nuke everything. But the desktop version doesn't make any sense. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

3 hours ago, James Evens said:

Also disagree with those changes. If the user can't read to bad for him.

 

Maybe I have done that error to in the past: removing a manually installed package to install a updated version from the package manager. Haven't paid attention to the output and just pressed y. Result was I removed the entire application instead of the package. Thankfully none of the data/config  was removed making it a very easy fix.

 

Btw. A UI is not an essential package (at least for me).

 

Debian should not be pushing these changes. There need to be forks of common utilities for the avg joe and the sysadmin. 

 

It would've been cooler to keep it in pop only cuz if it is for the pop fork of apt, so it will prolly not affect a server, unless you are running a pop server(HIGHLY UNLIKELY)

[LAwLz]

11 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

the fact Linux types believe it's acceptable for the option to delete your desktop exists at the end of an everyday app install is exactly why you're staying in 1-3%

judging from my past experiences with open-source devs, I guarantee this got brought up earlier. it took a video from a big channel and relentless mocking to get it changed. hilarious

But it's not like it was a simple "yes/no" option when Linus installed it.

The installer refused to let him continue because it could break his DE, so he looked up instructions how to force install it, ran a program as root, ignored the warning and typed in a safety phrase character by character, acknowledging that essential packages such as his desktop environment would be uninstalled if he continued and he should be absolutely sure that he knew what he was doing.

 

And yes, I think uninstalling your desktop environment should be an option, and I think it should be an option behind safety checks like displaying a big error message and forcing the user to type in a long phrase to acknowledge that they need to be absolutely sure they know what they are doing.

Why shouldn't uninstalling your DE be an option? Why should my OS decide what I can and can't uninstall? Should we apply the same logic to things like phones? "Most people want Facebook so it shouldn't be an option to uninstall it".

"Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, so it shouldn't be an option to change the default to Chrome".

 

 

Please remember that this change is being applied to Debian, not just Pop_OS!.

So this change will impact for example Debian server users and Kali users. Distros aimed at novice users such as Pop_OS! already has safety checks built in. That's why Linus couldn't install Steam to begin with, until he opened the terminal as root and forced it.

 

 

It's hard to make something absolutely idiot proof without harming other users.

In this case, we had an idiot who replied to the statement "This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!" by typing "Yes, do as I say!"

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, dizmo said:

I'd love for you to explain to me why a Steam installer needs to remove Essential and/or Protected packages, including the desktop environment. 

Because the Pop_OS! developers temporarily added a bad package to their repo.

The same thing can happen on Windows if you for example force install a badly package program that messes with explorer. The big difference is that in the case of Windows, you probably wouldn't revert back to a CLI, because Widows isn't that modular and would probably just outright crash.

In fact, something similar did happen with Windows 11 not too long ago, when Microsoft tried to push out a Teams ad and it caused explorer to crash.

 

 

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Operator error is and can always be a thing but it is System76 who screwed up and introduced an issue in to their own product that for no matter how short of a time period could have given any current or potential users a very bad experience even if they didn't do a Linus.

I am not entirely sure I agree.

The first safeguard worked. Pop_OS! would not let Linus install Steam because it would remove his DE. So the first safeguard worked.

The same error would have happened if Linus tried to install it from the CLI.

The problem then was that Linus ran the installer as root, so the warning popped up. That warning is the second safeguard.

The third safeguard is to have the user type in a confirmation phrase and acknowledge that they need to be sure they know what they are doing or else they will break things, which Linus did.

 

We had 3 safeguards and Linus ignored all of them. I don't think adding a forth safeguard will prevent someone from shooting themselves in the foot if they already ignore the three other ones.

 

 

 

  

5 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

I don't even think it's just beginners who can fall into this trap. I've been in situations where I blindly answered "yes" without actually reading, because my "experience" led me to believe it was asking one thing, when it was another thing entirely. Making it harder to break your system is a good thing in my eyes. If you want to mess with packages at such a level, you hopefully already know what you're doing and adding one more command line argument shouldn't be an issue.

I'd say that's not a GNU/Linux problem but rather a Windows problem that has made users ignore warnings.

In Windows you constantly get warnings because things are so poorly made, and the solution is to just ignore warnings. Windows users are absolutely numb to warnings at this point.

However, in other systems (be it GNU/Linux, embedded systems, BSD, etc) warnings are actually important and should not be ignored.

Your first reaction to seeing a warning should be "oh fuck, I am about to do something really bad", not "I can't be bothered to read this, I'll just press yes".

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

That is exactly what I wanted to say, thanks.

 

Why does it take a big channel to show that tech experts fail with simply installing Linux,... to actually make a change so REAL newcomers can use the OS, without going trough hours of pain and suffering?

 

All that command line nonsense,... make that OPTIONAL for those that think they need it to feel better. Make the basic functions work without even opening the console. Instant +10% market share, without changing anything but the basic install process.

Ehm, command line is optional for most things. Just like command line is optional in Windows for most things.

Linus didn't have to use the command line to install Steam. The problem was the fact that he forced the install through command line when the GUI prevented him from fucking up.

If I am unable to install something on Windows I don't boot into safe mode and force a driver install as admin through the CLI and then blame Windows if something goes wrong.

 

 

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

Not sure why people are against a change that makes things BETTER for new/inexperienced users unless they wish to keep the air of elitism and don't want things "dumbed-down" to keep out the "normies".

Because it is not actually a fix, and it is the wrong team making the changes.

Imagine if an Nvidia driver broke Windows and the response was for Microsoft to say "okay, from now on users aren't allowed to install drivers anymore. Everyone has to buy prebuilts from HP and Dell and the drivers the system ship with are the only ones allowed". It's not exactly the same situation as this but I think you get the point. Would you be going "wow, Window users doesn't want 'normies' using Windows since they are against this change".

Does it fix the issue? Yes, the change fixes the issue. But it's not the root cause being fixed, the fix creates more issues, and it isn't Microsoft that should make the fix.

 

Likewise, this change shouldn't be coming from Debian because it was Pop_OS! that fucked up. The change doesn't really help because if someone ignores three safeguards they will probably ignore a forth as well. The issue was also an uncommon, minor issue that doesn't happen often. It was just very bad timing that Linus was trying Pop_OS! at that exact moment.

 

 

49 minutes ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

What I think is the real issue: it's a freaking desktop OS.

Debian, the ones making this change, isn't just a desktop OS. It's one of the most popular server OSes, it is used as the base for some desktop OSes (like Ubuntu) and it is also used as the base for more specialized distros like Kali.

I understand that the concept of distros and such can be confusing for people not well versed in Linux, but things aren't really how you think they are.

[Forbidden Wafer]

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Debian, the ones making this change, isn't just a desktop OS. It's one of the most popular server OSes, it is used as the base for some desktop OSes (like Ubuntu) and it is also used as the base for more specialized distros like Kali.

And that's my point. They get a server OS, just slap a few packages and tune the GUI and call it a desktop OS when it really isn't. If it's meant to be used as a desktop OS, it needs a GUI and specific protections against its removal. 

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

If it's meant to be used as a desktop OS, it needs a GUI and specific protections against its removal. 

It had protections, the GUI wouldnt even offer the option for an override, only apt after you typed in that you are sure about it. Building protection against human stupidity is impossible, period.

[RejZoR]

18 hours ago, bcredeur97 said:

I agree with you but the argument to that is --> we'll have blogs and guides that just put /force or -force or --force-install as you mentioned in every command they list that users will blindly run and trash their systems.
 

I mean, when you're expected to copy and paste long noodles almost no one actually understands, what did everyone expect? This is exactly reason why I hate any kind of Linux problem solving. It's always noodles upon noodles of copy and paste commands you stick into terminal and in large majority of cases people have zero clue what they do and you literally hope for the best when you hit enter after pasting it.

[Paul Thexton]

53 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The first safeguard worked.

No it didn’t. The first safety guard should’ve been the maintainers ensuring that a user application doesn’t conflict with other packages that it shouldn’t do when adding a new/updated package to the public repo.