Octopi [linux]

[kokakolia]

So I installed Manjaro Linux KDE to give it a try. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Upon install I opened up the software manager called Octopi. My initial reaction: “what is this garbage!?”. Yes, I say this because there doesn’t seem to be anything useful on this software manager. I  was looking for Discord and Spotify specifically. So instead of getting angrier and more frustrated at my laptop I went back to Linux Mint. 

 

How on earth do people install software on Manjaro Linux? I am genuinely curious now. And what do you think of Octopi?

[AlTech]

11 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

So I installed Manjaro Linux KDE to give it a try. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Upon install I opened up the software manager called Octopi. My initial reaction: “what is this garbage!?”. Yes, I say this because there doesn’t seem to be anything useful on this software manager. I  was looking for Discord and Spotify specifically. So instead of getting angrier and more frustrated at my laptop I went back to Linux Mint. 

 

How on earth do people install software on Manjaro Linux? I am genuinely curious now. And what do you think of Octopi?

Discord and Spotify are proprietary software and so legally they could be sued for distributing it in their app distribution platform without consent from the original authors.

 

It's called them being smart and not wanting to be targeted by lawsuits.

 

You can get the instructions for installing Spotify for linux from one of Spotify's webpages. 

 

As for discord, you'd need to download that from the Discord App website.

[wasab]

What kind of people use software manager anyway? These things are all trash. Slow, unreliable, and buggy as hell. Use your command line package manager like apt, pacman, and yum for software search, installation, and removal. 

 

Your issue has more to do with the repo rather than the software manager. Some repos exclude proprietary software. 

[kokakolia]

8 minutes ago, wasab said:

What kind of people use software manager anyway? These things are all trash. Slow, unreliable, and buggy as hell. Use your command line package manager like apt, pacman, and yum for software search, installation, and removal. 

 

Your issue has more to do with the repo rather than the software manager. Some repos exclude proprietary software. 

The Linux Mint software manager has everything I want though. I guess you can call me lazy. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of things...

[Sauron]

You can get both from the AUR but (to make the process tolerable) you should first install an AUR package manager. You can find more and better information on the arch wiki. The manjaro wiki should have the info you need too but, either way, pretty much anything you read on the arch wiki also applies to manjaro.

[Sauron]

22 hours ago, wasab said:

What kind of people use software manager anyway? These things are all trash. Slow, unreliable, and buggy as hell. Use your command line package manager like apt, pacman, and yum for software search, installation, and removal. 

 

Your issue has more to do with the repo rather than the software manager. Some repos exclude proprietary software. 

That's not the point, pacman won't find packages that aren't in the repositories to begin with and it won't look in the AUR.

[kokakolia]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

That's not the point, pacman won't find packages that aren't in the repositories to begin with and it won't look in the AUR.

YES! I tried that it was just as useful as Octopi. USELESS. 

 

This is will come off as a rant, but it’s no surprise to me that Linux (for the desktop computer) is still as obscure as it was 10~20 years ago. It’s a struggle to install apps on your system if you don’t have the knowledge. I mean, I just heard about the AUR yesterday. And then I also hear that there are different repositories. And to make things even more confusing, there are different package managers and Manjaro doesn’t seem to have a useful package manager out of the box so you have to install one yourself. And that diminishes the utility of an operating system considerably. 

 

As a new Linux user I feel like an amputee at a rock climbing competition. Everyone is having a jolly time climbing cliffs with ease and I am stuck at the base being frustrated and confused to the max. What are legs? What are arms? I just want to reach this Mars bar on top of this cliff. 

 

At the very least Linux Mint is doing a satisfactory job at holding my hand and offering several notable key apps in the included software manager. And yet...this software manager ain’t amazing. There aren’t many apps on this thing. I would guess...about 100. 

 

I know very well that a Linux veteran would immediately open the terminal, install 5~6 packages and then start installing apps...all under 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter if they’re using Hannah Montana Linux or Arch. It’s all the same. A GUI is for losers. Clearly. Only neophytes who shouldn’t use Linux anyway would use a GUI. 

[EPENEX]

1 hour ago, kokakolia said:

YES! I tried that it was just as useful as Octopi. USELESS. 

 

This is will come off as a rant, but it’s no surprise to me that Linux (for the desktop computer) is still as obscure as it was 10~20 years ago. It’s a struggle to install apps on your system if you don’t have the knowledge. I mean, I just heard about the AUR yesterday. And then I also hear that there are different repositories. And to make things even more confusing, there are different package managers and Manjaro doesn’t seem to have a useful package manager out of the box so you have to install one yourself. And that diminishes the utility of an operating system considerably. 

 

As a new Linux user I feel like an amputee at a rock climbing competition. Everyone is having a jolly time climbing cliffs with ease and I am stuck at the base being frustrated and confused to the max. What are legs? What are arms? I just want to reach this Mars bar on top of this cliff. 

 

At the very least Linux Mint is doing a satisfactory job at holding my hand and offering several notable key apps in the included software manager. And yet...this software manager ain’t amazing. There aren’t many apps on this thing. I would guess...about 100. 

 

I know very well that a Linux veteran would immediately open the terminal, install 5~6 packages and then start installing apps...all under 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter if they’re using Hannah Montana Linux or Arch. It’s all the same. A GUI is for losers. Clearly. Only neophytes who shouldn’t use Linux anyway would use a GUI. 

Arch Linux, and to an extension even Manjaro are more for advanced users. If you don't have the skill to use them yet, stick with something easier and Ubuntu based. Also if you don't like the CLI and need hand holding, just use Windows or MacOS.

[Sauron]

12 hours ago, kokakolia said:

YES! I tried that it was just as useful as Octopi. USELESS. 

 

This is will come off as a rant, but it’s no surprise to me that Linux (for the desktop computer) is still as obscure as it was 10~20 years ago. It’s a struggle to install apps on your system if you don’t have the knowledge. I mean, I just heard about the AUR yesterday. And then I also hear that there are different repositories. And to make things even more confusing, there are different package managers and Manjaro doesn’t seem to have a useful package manager out of the box so you have to install one yourself. And that diminishes the utility of an operating system considerably. 

 

As a new Linux user I feel like an amputee at a rock climbing competition. Everyone is having a jolly time climbing cliffs with ease and I am stuck at the base being frustrated and confused to the max. What are legs? What are arms? I just want to reach this Mars bar on top of this cliff. 

 

At the very least Linux Mint is doing a satisfactory job at holding my hand and offering several notable key apps in the included software manager. And yet...this software manager ain’t amazing. There aren’t many apps on this thing. I would guess...about 100. 

 

I know very well that a Linux veteran would immediately open the terminal, install 5~6 packages and then start installing apps...all under 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter if they’re using Hannah Montana Linux or Arch. It’s all the same. A GUI is for losers. Clearly. Only neophytes who shouldn’t use Linux anyway would use a GUI. 

No offence, but this is mostly down to your inexperience. Windows didn't even have a centralized repository system until just recently and I would argue the windows store is terrible; your frustration is mainly due to being used to one type of installation process and not taking the time to get comfortable with another. Arch and its derivatives in particular have fewer packages in their main repository because they expect you to use the AUR. You're not expected to magically know this but you are expected to read some documentation. Once you get the hang of it I assure you the experience is a lot less painful than it is on windows. The instructions on the Arch wiki are pretty straight forward, in the case of manjaro though it's even easier; just install "yaourt" from the main repositories and the AUR packages should become available in octopi.

 

There are distributions that focus more on new users (you mentioned Mint which is one of them) and "hand holding" but I would argue some difficulty in the beginning is a good thing - it forces you to think about what you're doing and learn something in the process. You could use Mint for years and still be none the wiser on how repositories work, which is fine for the average user, but this is a forum of tinkerers, right?

[kokakolia]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

No offence, but this is mostly down to your inexperience. Windows didn't even have a centralized repository system until just recently and I would argue the windows store is terrible; your frustration is mainly due to being used to one type of installation process and not taking the time to get comfortable with another. Arch and its derivatives in particular have fewer packages in their main repository because they expect you to use the AUR. You're not expected to magically know this but you are expected to read some documentation. Once you get the hang of it I assure you the experience is a lot less painful than it is on windows. The instructions on the Arch wiki are pretty straight forward, in the case of manjaro though it's even easier; just install "yaourt" from the main repositories and the AUR packages should become available in octopi.

 

There are distributions that focus more on new users (you mentioned Mint which is one of them) and "hand holding" but I would argue some difficulty in the beginning is a good thing - it forces you to think about what you're doing and learn something in the process. You could use Mint for years and still be none the wiser on how repositories work, which is fine for the average user, but this is a forum of tinkerers, right?

Thanks, that's the kind of response that's really helpful. I personally wouldn't find the documentation unless it's shoved right into my face. I found a bunch of forum posts telling people to use the "yaourt" command but it never worked for. I missed a step clearly. Using Linux, I cannot avoid getting frustrated. But if I stick around and learn a thing or two I guess I'll feel better?

 

That said, I don't really have to learn all that stuff. I am just using Linux on my web browsing laptop that runs Firefox 99.9% of the time. I am not getting wiser that way.

 

Further, is knowing Linux all that useful for an average guy with an outdoor job like myself? I do work with GPS, but all the software I use is Windows only.

[Sauron]

30 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

Further, is knowing Linux all that useful for an average guy with an outdoor job like myself? I do work with GPS, but all the software I use is Windows only.

That's a matter of opinion, however consider the fact that if all you know is windows then your computing experience is controlled by microsoft and, if it ever becomes unacceptable, you may have nowhere else to go. Linux skills translate pretty well to other unix-based or unix-like systems like mac os or freeBSD, so it helps open up your world beyond linux itself.