I'm on an Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop computer. I click on the big green Free Download button. It downloads a .tar.bz2 file. I double-click on that in the Firefox download manager. It opens the Gnome archive extractor. I'm looking at... .gif files? .so files? I see something called "thunderbird" and another thing called "thunderbird-bin". I double-click on those and some other dialog pops up that says "No applications found for 'thunderbird'".
Will desktop Linux ever solve these basic usability problems?
Or will this always just be user error! you're doing it wrong!
It blows my mind how many comments here think you are wrong. You are absolutely correct. A new user does not care how great x,y,z feature is if they can't do basic things that are ubiquitous in other operating systems. New users might hear Unix is better, but if it doesn't feel that way, they're going to go back to what they know works when the next deliverable/project/essay/game comes out.
> New users might hear Unix is better, but if it doesn't feel that way, they're going to go back to what they know works
For anyone who doubts the above, think about how much help you'd have to give many of your family members (spouse, parents, kids, etc.) for installing Thunderbird or another popular desktop app.
For all of my family members, the moment they have to open a terminal to do something basic they'd say "that's it, I'm going back to macOS (or Windows)."
The problem is deb files don’t work on all distros and browsers tend to hide the specific distro from the user agent for privacy.
Never link to a deb or rpm as the primary “download”. It should be a flatpak or app image and then an advanced options section for distro specific packages.
The problem is flatpack/appimage are equally bad/opaque, they solve one problem at the expense of being better off just in windows or osx.
tar.gz is opaque in a different way - the solution would be more like an interpreter - something which has a good guess how you should install/run the file.
There is the issue also of integration with the distribution, this is a problem with distribution apis - package maintainers are invested in their formats and distribution list not solid apis with which to interact. If you could build against such a set of Apis you could bundle an interpreter which just knows what to do.
Tar.gz is a hell of a lot simpler than any other format, it's not the issue, it's the desktop distros who are underfunded/at fault.
> If you download a .deb file on Ubuntu, click on it, it will install it
Yes, this is true.
But it is no help on RPM-family distros, or Arch-family ones, or Alpine or Void or whatever.
> and do all the right things.
No, mostly, it won't. Because the file won't be added to the OS's list of repositories and it will never get updated.
This is not automatic behaviour, but it can be: Google does this right. Do this with Chrome or Google Earth or whatever and it just magically happens, and that is the Right Thing™.
“It will never be updated” is a property that is just as true/false on Windows or Mac applications. What do people do? They build self updated into their programs!
And like you said, Google does it. They do it with a single deb you click on.
I feel like package managers on distos are a thing that kinda make people forget that applications can be distributed “normally” outside this chain.
OTOH do not forget that Arch is a family of distros now, not a single distro, just as Debian is.
In fact I suspect that it is the 2nd biggest family of distros, after Debian.
Debian encompasses many dozens: Ubuntu, plus dozens of Ubuntu derivatives including Mint, Elementary, PopOS, ZorinOS, Linux Lite etc.; LMDE; Devuan; MX Linux; SpiralLinux; etc. etc.
[1] That will happen in time anyway. This is a flagship app.
[2] I would not expect any distro to include a major version in its stable release. So, even if they do that, it will take months to percolate out.
[3] When it happens, it will need an OS version upgrade.
This is a standalone app release, not an OS release. It is in many OSes and it will make its way to them in time. You are conflating 2 different things.
The question we are discussing here is: I run T'bird on my own box, and I want to try the new version; how do I do that?
There are 2 possible solutions to this: either provide distro-native packages (as Google does; this is mainly appropriate to proprietary apps, which T'bird is not); or, provide some kind of cross-distro package. Since both Snap and Flatpak need support tools installed, and AppImage does not, that makes AppImage the best choice, IMHO.
Snapcraft and Flathub will do their own thing in time.
On which note, T'bird 102 is already on Snapcraft, but it does not pick up existing T'bird settings or profiles.
I believe the GUI-based DEB installed was removed from recent Debian/Ubuntu versions. You can of course install it from the CLI but that's terrible from a user experience point of view.
If Linux distros implemented every feature "new users" wanted then you would end up with something nearly identical to ChromiumOS (and those same users would probably just run ChromeOS.) If you want that then go run that.
EDIT: Everyone here knows how to type "sudo apt install thunderbird." People are failing to install bleeding edge software. This shouldn't be surprising or upsetting.
This isn't just a feature, this is installing apps. Many users are failing to install apps. Users on this forum, even, which is telling because this forum is a sort of filter to select those who are more tech savy than the average person. There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed, which involves a solution that isn't "switch to chrome OS".
I would hazard a guess that many users on this forum are really only familiar with macOS and a smattering of CLI magical invocations.
Package managers exist for a reason. Flatpack, snap etc all exist. You can't just hand wave real complexity away by yelling "usability!" without having fiat power over an incredibly diverse ecosystem.
The lowest common denominator for installing software on Linux distributions is well below what an incurious user will put up with. If you don't want to understand that kind of low level tinkering, you have to wait for whatever ecosystem you bought into to catch up.
That might mean moving back to Apple's curated experience. That's fine; so long as Linux itself isn't a curated walled garden, it'll never be as seamless in every instance, and that's not for everyone.
> There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed
Addressed by whom, exactly? "The Linux community" is busy addressing the things they care about. Nobody is telling anybody to use Linux if it doesn't work for their needs.
I think we're assuming that if an application ever wants to be "mainstream", it has to be useable by people who don't know what a command line is, let alone what "sudo" means.
I'm not sure why it matters. In discussions like this there seems to be the assumption that Linux must be usable by non-technical people, and if it isn't, then someone is doing something wrong.
Linux is immensely useful to me and everyone else who uses it. It doesn't really bother me that my mom doesn't use it; she is perfectly happy with Windows. If someone made a Linux distro that was exactly as polished and easy-to-use for non-technical people as macOS or Windows is, it would not affect me at all.
Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care? Certainly my mom doesn't, and as far as I can tell, most Linux users who are happy with it don't either.
Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it.
I doubt it. I have never seen anyone in the Ubuntu community for example claiming that their goal is the "mass adoption" of Ubuntu. That's, obviously, an impossible pipe dream. Can you provide recent examples?
Yeah... I know the tactic and you want me to go for a hunt of some comment somewhere. Otherwise it's a dismissal.
I'll just use common sense and say that all the evident effort that is put into Desktop environments and user applications is not just to keep their (tiny) user base happy or to be used less.
> Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care?
I think it's basic human desire for things to be relatable, but more than that there are those who experience the tyranny of 'modern' life - if you interface with the world, it is perhaps natural to want to do so simply, constantly switching contexts is not productive.
I suppose, I do really care, because every time I am forced to use a system which I don't really want to use, is another time I don't really like the world I live in, I am resentful, and ultimately I really want to not care at all about the device in question.
So, for a wide range of devices I interact with, I view them as trash, because I don't care about trash either, except to remove it from my home on a regular basis.
There are others like me, I know, and there are others in similar positions but not about linux I know as well, e.g. anyone who has ever read a good book and wishes the author were more well read, and simultaneously is affronted by the cheap dime novellas they encounter while e.g. browsing a department store.
"Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it."
There isn't, yet. There are various companies which have sought to bring it there. To use the (perhaps bad) author metaphor, we haven't had our JK Rowling moment yet.
There have been pushes, e.g. Ubuntu, Redhat, but so far market forces have conspired against us, not necessarily because no one cares or no attempts have been made.
It's not market forces conspiring against you, it's nature. You're not making the system simpler, just building more systems inside it.
Linux based OSes will never be popular and have the same freedom they have. The principles the developers have that make it free are the same ones that create these "usability problems" which make it so unpopular.
I guess I don't buy this - there are systems which offer a lot of freedom and are still popular.
Legos, Jeeps, Cooking. HTML, Minecraft, some real-world, software options.
"Usability" can be something you buy on top of the simple system, or it can be free, depending. These aren't diametrically opposite properties of systems.
I'd prefer if I could use a single OS for most of my needs instead of having to context switch between platforms.
In particular, I hate that I need to have a Windows machine for gaming in addition to a Unix machine for everything else. If Linux were a substantial competitor on the desktop, more developers would feel compelled to port their games to Linux, and I wouldn't have to make that choice.
Oh you know what I mean. "Mainstream" distros have GUIs that wrap package managers. Also my girlfriend figured apt out like a week after installing a debian based distro. It's not exactly rocket science.
This is at least partly on Thunderbird’s end. The more user friendly thing to do these days would be to distribute packages for each distro, which would behave a lot more like you’re expecting.
But “desktop Linux” is not an entity that can solve anything. It’s a loose collection of people and organizations all doing their own thing. If Thunderbird gives you an installer on Windows and an archive full of files rather than an installer on Linux, well…
This problem is largely solved via flatpak. The link can download a small config file that tells your software installer gui where to grab the package. It then installs and updates like you’d expect any app.
Software does need to stop linking to these tar files.
Personally i'd rather download a tarball with the binaries, put the program in a directory of my choice and if needed install the necessary libraries from my distro's package manager. So i wouldn't like it if programs stopped distributing those.
They surely have their own technical problems, but AppImages that maintain themselves are particularly friendly as well.
It's about as similar to the 'download untrusted software, double click to run it, and hope/pray/assume it handles updates itself' workflow found elsewhere as you can get.
I have several non-technical family members using Linux. They don't struggle getting software at all, regardless of it not being just-like-others.
There's software portals just like the stores on other platforms and they generally bridge the gap between packages/containers well.
Nobody installs from archives like Slackware anymore, or they shouldn't.
AppImages still dynamically link to libc. They don't work on Alpine and Android. They'll probably break on distros that are built years apart from when the AppImage is too.
Just stop distributing binaries, it's unprofessional.
If your family members need binaries of bleeding edge software and you're worried about their ability to use their computer you should be building them. In that case you'll be able to ensure compatibility. I don't think encouraging novice users to download random binaries from the web is any better than them not being able to use the absolute latest version of an email client.
Exactly, figuring out how to make an exe on Linux is a step backwards, not forward...
You need to then secure the source, handle security concerns, install AV, you might as well use windows or OSX which have extensive controls for these things already inplace...
You... kind of are though, to the extent that what you tried wouldn't work on Windows either (equivalent to trying to run a program in a zip without extracting it). Extract the directory and run the thing called thunderbird in it.
And Thunderbird could just as well give you a .deb file if you're browsing from Ubuntu or a link to whatever software library your distro uses.
It's not really a Linux thing, it's a Thunderbird thing.
The equivalent would be for Thunderbird to link a .xapp file for Windows users. Good luck installing those by yourself, same with random tar.bz2s.
Of course, downloading random executables is not The Linux Way. I understand the pattern as a holdover from Windows, but it really shouldn't be the way people get taught to install software. Your distro either has a graphical package manager built in that's in control of this type of software (through their native packages or through Flatpak/AppImage/Snap/whatever) that will also keep your software updated.
IMO, distros should come with a "quick start" to explain the concepts of the software store and Thunderbird.net should default to .deb files so most people can just install it the normal way.
The equivalent would be for Thunderbird to link a .zip file for windows users, which is actually a pretty damn common way to distribute software (or at least it use to be) so that you don't need to be an admin to use it, and would have the exact same feature of having random dynamic libraries and stuff like that sitting in the folder.
My experience is that tarballs and RPMs are most common. Regardless there's a lot more diversity in how things are packaged on Linux than on Windows or OSX.
Even if I get a tarball on OSX I can double click on it and then drag the application into the "Applications" directory or run the installer. I'm not sure why this is so challenging on Linux.
Both macOS and windows made the choice to make programs mostly self contained things that can be just dragged in.
Linux distros have a complex network of dependancies, config files, and general crap that requires sophisticated tooling to manage which is different on different distros. All to save a few kb of storage space.
When you download a tarball from the internet containing an application, usually (unless they messed up/don't know what they're doing) that means most if not all dependencies are fully contained in that archive, except for things you can't really do that for, like libc. The point of a tarball is to avoid the system package manager, which makes it easier to reach more distros at the cost of an increased risk it simply won't work on some systems (due to missing system libraries or different versions).
The real reason macOS and Windows are easier to distribute software on is because there's only one Windows and only one macOS. "Linux" is not an operating system, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, RHEL, etc. are all different operating systems that just so happen to share a kernel and a similar ecosystem of open source software. So compatibility between them is more of a coincidence than anything else.
Luckily nowadays we have Flatpaks and AppImages, which both solve the problem of simplifying app distribution and installation universally for all distros. Although devs will probably get a lot of hate if they only distribute their app as a Flatpak or AppImage and don't also offer tarballs/debs/rpms...so app distribution is likely to remain complicated for a while.
> Even if I get a tarball on OSX I can double click on it and then drag the application into the "Applications" directory or run the installer.
All without opening or requiring the user to open a hideous terminal just to run the app.
> I'm not sure why this is so challenging on Linux.
Desktop Linux fundamentally can never solve this problem. All of the packaging alternatives of alternatives have created a mess and confusion around which distro can open what and not only these alternatives even work out of the box, there is no guarantee that all Linux distros will be supported for that.
At most it is a 'solution' creating a new problem; whist still looking for a problem to solve.
I think you are doing this wrong. If I want to install some software on linux, I install it from my distro's package repository or I compile it myself. There's no reason to expect different linux distros to have binary compatibility. This isn't closed-source software on a backwards-compatable ABI like on windows, there's no reason to install binaries from an unsigned source.
If the developers of thunderbird want, they can supply a binary compiled against your specific distro/version, or a statically-linked binary, or a container like an AppImage
What's truly astounding is that Windows and Mac have developed their own Linux like distribution managers over the years indicating it's probably far better than the proprietary crap they created in the first place.
It is astounding that you think phones need you to join a "cool, secret club". Open app store, click install is not new, not secret and much easier than download stuff from websites to sideload.
I think the prudent thing to do would be to replace the "Download Thunderbird" button with a "Get Thunderbird" one which has instructions for how to get it via distro repos at least for Ubuntu/Fedora (and maybe flatpak/snap if they endorse them?), alongside a "Download for manual installation" which replicates the current behavior.
You don't understand how archives work and are trying to run a program with many files from an archive before first extracting it to a folder in your filesystem.
You could have taken this time spent blaming Linux and used it to google around a little bit and learn something new. I recommend learning a bit about how your filesystem works and why it can't find linked files from within an archive. This is essential computing knowledge.
The fact that you are not aware that Ubuntu comes with a software package manager means you are still inexperienced and should not blame the system until you have spent more time with it.
You similarly shouldn't blame a car for bad UX because you have to take a class and multiple exams before understanding how to use it?
This mindset is why Linux will always have basic usability problems.
> I recommend learning a bit about how your filesystem works and why it can't find linked files from within an archive. This is essential computing knowledge.
Really? Is that _really_ essential computing knowledge?
On macOS, you download a disk image, then drag the icon into the application directory. Many publishers include a shortcut to the application directory and a background image with an arrow and instructions. It's primitive, but it works, and hasn't needed to change in like, 20 years. It requires no knowledge of linked files, or even what a disk image is. Drag and drop. Done.
If you can't install an app like that on most Linux distros (I don't think I've ever seen that), then Thunderbird probably shouldn't suggest that as an option. I've moved away from using Linux as an everyday OS because all these little usability things add up and suck too much of my time.
On ubuntu you open Software, search thunderbird, and click the install button. Or you open the terminal and type sudo apt-get install thunderbird.
How come you were able to learn how to do it by drag-and-drop on macOS, even though installing an application by D&D is completely unintuitive and unique to apple, but learning how to do it the linux way is an insurmontable task that you can't expect normal people to figure out?
Imagine if the web worked like that: You couldn't click a link that takes you where you wanna go, instead it's "essential computing knowledge" that you must open a separate tab, type the name of the other page you wanted into a search box and find the page you were looking for on the results page.
Why is it so hard to have a button that installs Thunderbird?
On a brand-new linux desktop, I click the terminal icon and run the following command:
`dnf install thunderbird`
And I get thunderbird.
I'm sorry, but any reasonably complex system is going to come with a basic reading requirement. This system is much more smooth and off-the-shelf than Windows or OS X package management. Linux operating systems by far have the best modern package management.
We can blame traffic engineers all day for naive drivers, or we can compromise and hold both engineers and users accountable, requiring appropriate certification.
If reading a few pages of a quickstart manual is too hard, a simple Google search of "How to install programs on <Linux Distribution>" will immediately show you what you need.
If you can't think to do this, or feel entitled to not do it, the problem is indeed between the chair and keyboard. Any user who feels this way is in desperate need of basic research skills.
If you expect Linux to be like macOS, you can only be disappointed.
It is a different operating system with completely different trade-offs. People are trying to improve usability on Linux (and things have changed substantially for the better since I first used Linux in 2006), but generally, the OS and software will hold your hand less than macOS. Actually, even Windows probably holds your hand less, macOS is clearly an outlier here.
People who like using Linux generally put up with the occasional nuisance or the necessity to sometimes dig a bit deeper when there's a problem for the increased flexibility and independence.
> Why does everyone act like a free product not being everything for everyone is some kind of moral failing?
Probably because the free software movement is making (very vocally) it a moral failing that all software should be free. If all software must be free, then all free software must be everything for everyone.
This RMS-style ideological "free software movement" is a tiny minority of the people who actually use, work on, or care about software like Linux. It's best to just ignore them.
I sort of read the OPs message ironically.
The OPs point is that this stuff is broken compared to how a Windows or Mac user would do things.
Windows/Mac users just click download, and double click. Linux could get to the same spot (more or less) by using Flatpak. I think that has to be the answer here. It's absurd to expect a developer to build their app for a dozen different distros.
> I recommend learning a bit about how your filesystem works and why it can't find linked files from within an archive. This is essential computing knowledge
Billions of people use computers (most of which are, for historical reasons, called "phones") that require none of this "essential" knowledge, and they do just fine. Don't you think humanity is better off for freeing all these people from having to spend their brief time on Earth from having to learn about archives and filesystems? Sometimes difficulty isn't a mark of virtue but instead just pointless pain.
So do I wget the big green Free Download link instead of click on it? Do I then cd to my Downloads folder and tar xf on the file? And then I cd into the extracted directory and ./thunderbird?
User has no business in learning anything about file systems. This is basic UX error and one of many cuts, which are keeping Desktop Linux on its 1% market share.
The easiest and best way for you (you'll get updates through signed packages, etc) is probably to install via the Ubuntu Software Center.
Though it can be difficult to download and run random software from the internet, I have to say, most Linux distributions have got the software distribution challenge through their package managers right compared to OSX and Windows. First thing I do on an OSX machine is install homebrew which helps a little.
>The easiest and best way for you (you'll get updates through signed packages, etc) is probably to install via the Ubuntu Software Center.
Even that aspect is a confusing mess. On a Ubuntu Desktop installation, click on the 'Show Applications' icon in the dock and you'll see icons for:
* Software & Up...
* Software Upda...
* Ubuntu Software
The first two have virtually the same icon and [as per my transcription above] the names are truncated but are presumably "Software & Uodates" and "Software Update" --why two almost identical looking apps for this?
The third "Ubuntu Software" [which is the one I actually need to install 3rd party applications] isn't even visible until I scroll to the second screen of icons.
So three different apps for installing / updating software. Two of which look almost identical. And that's Ubuntu being the supposedly most user-friendly distro!
I don't use unbuntu. But doesn't it's software centre always try to push you to snaps? Or can this be disabled. Last thing I would want is snap variants.
Moving to Snaps gets us to a world of sandboxed applications, defined permissions, and OS version independence. That's the world that exists on mobile, and it's pretty great. Shouldn't desktop learn from mobile's successful experiment in sandboxing?
They should, that's why Flatpak is excellent for wide-spread, cross-distro software support.
Snap is a slightly worse, proprietary sandboxing mechanism pushed by Canonical, the people making money off it. It has some fundamental problems (boot being slowed down by all the snaps being mounted, for example, Firefox acting weird and sometimes not even launching until I reboot since 22.04) and some ideological problems (the fact you can't host your own snap store without paying Canonical, the fact Snap blatantly refuses to follow standards like XDG or even just folder naming in the home directories, forcing a lowercase "snap" folder on everyone).
Some people are against the appification that's taking a toll on user freedom. Some people are in favour of the excellent permission monitoring and dependency conflict resolution it allows. Both sides seem to conclude that snap isn't the right answer.
This thread is a perfect example of why we don't have clarity on what kind of distribution management we should have. We had:
1. Tar files of compressed binaries
2. No use your release's package manager
3. No, snaps
4. No you fool, flatpak is the superior solution.
5. I'll just finish this off by saying distributing source code is the obviously best way, you posers.
Nobody knows what kind of management we should have. Some people prefer directly distributing executables (AppImage). Some people prefer packages like Android/iOS (Flatpak). Some people prefer compressed files with installer scripts, like Microsoft's MSI files (.deb/.rpm). Some people prefer just a flat folder with binaries they can plonk down anywhere.
I personally prefer the distro-based approach, but for tools that need to be kept up to date independently of the rest of the system I'm a Flatpak fan.
People, collectives, and companies have preferences. There is no one single way.
In a similar vein, how do I distribute Windows software? Do I put it up on the Microsoft store, do I provide a download with instructions for my msix file or is appx more suitable for my use case? Do I add a compatibility layer for .exe to sacrifice the security sandboxing brings to make the file nice and clickable? Or do I use .msi to use the system UI that's easy to set up (but impossible to navigate for computer illiterate people). Or wait, maybe Steam and Epic Launcher are a better fit? Hell, maybe I can get away with uploading the APK to the Amazon App Store so I can target Android and Windows 11 in one go!
What about macOS? Mac Store, .dmg disk image, simple .zip file, or maybe a self-extracting installer? Do I need to include one of those weird screens that tells the user to drag an icon into a picture of a folder? That's what a lot of third party software had me do when I first tried it, though it took me a while to understand what it was asking of me!
Or is it better to use Brew/WinGet? It doesn't have the GUI, but it allows serious people to set up my software exactly how they like it.
> That's the world that exists on mobile, and it's pretty great.
No, it's not. Unless you do some weird hacks that aren't officially guaranteed to work (and now that the old READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission has been fully deprecated, don't result in the most natural UX flow, either), Google's sandboxing on Android has e.g. broken the scenario of using a file manager to open a locally stored HTML file in a browser, because following the official API, the browser won't be able to resolve any relative links to other HTML documents or subresources like images/stylesheets/scripts.
Other multi-file file formats are similarly broken, and this more or less applies to all the sandboxing solutions I'm aware of, no matter whether Android, iOS, Windows, Mac or Linux. The only exception I'm aware of is that the macOS desktop sandboxing has some provisions for handling "related" files that only differ in the file extension, but even that of course doesn't handle all scenarios – the aforementioned HTML file example still wouldn't work for example.
The startup times are ridiculously slow (multiple seconds or even worse) at least on some machines (I've only ever experienced them to be sluggish, but some people say the opposite, so...) and this is particularly egregious for e.g. firefox or a password manager (bitwarden).
Because I just couldn't bear it anymore I uninstalled the firefox snap and installed the flatpak instead. Flatpak solves similar problems, but doesn't seem to be as sluggish, at least for the applications I've used.
I have no interest in snaps, flatpak or appimage. I can't stop my phone's apps from updating whenever they feel like it without breaking many of them. I can and do control software installations on my machines.
>I can't stop my phone's apps from updating whenever they feel like it
If you're on Android
Play Store > Settings > Network Preferences > Auto Update Apps...
You can also set the option to not update automatically on individual apps. When they show up in the Updates Available tab, click the hamburger menu next to one and there's an option to turn off auto-updates. Handy to stop YouTube automatically updating and wiping YouTube Vanced!
You can blame Linux distros as a whole, for being obsessed with dynamic linking shared libraries.
The Linux kernel itself has a well publicized policy of not breaking user space and binary compatibility, but pretty much all distros regularly break binary compatibility, they require software to dynamically link to os provided shared libraries, and they don't allow statically linked programs to be distributed using their package managers.
Packaging and distributing software for windows or macOS is really easy.
Doing the same for Linux, particularly desktop applications, is a huge pain.
It's a point that Linus Torvalds has often bemoaned[0][1].
Packaging software for Windows is clearly a pain, because every time I install a game I get a download, followed by a launcher, followed by one or several MSVC++ runtimes, then another download, then some kind of extraction phase, a restart and then a menu. Unless I'm one of the first people to download the game, of course, because then I get a popup stating that the file I downloaded can't be trusted and that I should delete it.
It's an automated Rube Goldberg machine. Linux used to have these as well! I remember clearly the hacky automated Java 6 install script and the VirtualBox drivers that came as a several executable hundred megabytes in size.
You can static link if you want. You need to watch out for core system libraries like glibc (just like you need to watch out for Win7/8.1/10/11 on Windows) but that's about it.
I mean you can put up a `.deb` with a statically linked binary on your download page right? You can also use stuff like App Image right? It's not like nobody has ever put a go binary into a .deb before.
I don't think comparing "state of packages got off of apt" to "state of downloaded installers for Mac/Windows" is an apples to apples comparison.
Yep, several projects I know are leaning into AppImage to get around dealing with installers. The biggest problem with AppImage is that it _is_ just a binary, so things like desktop shortcuts don't come with it. AppImageLauncher does solve this issue (and create a "canonical place" to place your programs, like /Applications/ on mac).
I do agree it's fragmented and frustrating where we've ended up for installers. My main critique is more that the state of linux packaging _isn't_ what thunderbird is doing here.
You can statically link your apps just fine as long as you follow the license for the libraries you're linking (in the case of libc, the LGPL.) Before you get upset about this Windows does the same thing with their C runtime (although the license terms are different.) Ever seen the installer for it when you install another app? That's exactly what's going on.
Go nearly always does this for example (although in some version they switched to dynamically linking to glibc for the stub resolver) and you can take statically linked go binaries and copy them to totally different OSes as long as the architecture is compatible. I remember taking a copy of syncthing and copying it between my Android and a Raspberry pi at one point (or maybe it was a kindle and a raspberry pi) which run totally different OSes and it worked just fine (ignoring the Android stupidity of course.)
I’ll blame Linux as a whole for every app needing several deb files (one per distro Ubuntu/Debian/etc and one per LTS), several rpm files (one per distro RH/Fedora/etc and one per LTS), and several <100+ chars omitted for brevity).
On other platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS) it’s fairly common to distribute GUI apps as a single binary so you don’t need an army of package maintainers. Perks of having many years of ABI stability.
I believe most projects that serve debs from their own download page do not try to package for each distro separately, and instead opt to package up requirements as needed.
I can't comment deeply on deb vs rpm, it is kinda disappointing that we have this split, and I don't know if there's a great way to merge it back.
Mac does have a good distribution story. This also exists on Linux in the form of app images. The one missing piece is that Mac has the Applications convention. AppImageLauncher[0] solves this, but really it would be good for Gnome/KDE to just integrate this concept. That gives the (important!) "have the application show up in the application launcher" option.
I do not believe one could qualify Windows programs as being distributed as a single binary. A single installer, perhaps! But many Windows programs dump files all over your file tree to do things, and then goes to touch stuff in your registry. There's a reason we have "portable executables" for windows as its own download option!
That's exactly what the problem is. The diffusion of responsibility makes it a decades-long problem and nobody has the responsibility or the power to fix it.
It’s indeed not unreasonable to want that, but there does not exist any incentive structure that would cause it to exist. It’s not the fault of some person or group of people doing something wrong; it’s simply a logical consequence of what Linux is.
Sure, I’d be fine with any standard. It’s just insane how just about every distro has its own sporadically updated repo instead of sharing common packages. Projects that need to be patched and rebuilt should be the exception, not the rule.
Scroll down and you’ll see people arguing about supported features because they’re running an ancient version of Thunderbird supplied by their distro.
> On other platforms (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS) it’s fairly common to distribute GUI apps as a single binary so you don’t need an army of package maintainers.
You can do this on Linux, too, be it by compiling a static binary or bundling everything as an AppImage or what have you.
Sorry yes I overreacted to the first sentence without understanding the tone.
I think it's unfortunate anyone offers .deb (or similar) downloads really - the many Linux distros don't have a single packaging mechanism, so why pretend they do, or that your app's not going to work on the ones you don't provide?
Just say it's built for Linux, perhaps here's a binary, here's the source if available, this is the preferred name, go and check your package manager.
...And that's why Linux still languishes on the desktop, QED.
Google proved the point with Android and thus fixed Linux with APK files and then it was a runaway success.
The need to fix this problem with Linux is so obvious and that it hasn't you'd have to reckon Microsoft must have found a way to divide and rule over any agreement process.
More to the point it shows the inherent weakness in open software - that is better open products have difficulty in competing against commercial ones because of stupid squabbles amongst the Open community - disagreements over minor technicalities and useability issues† means the greater objective has been lost.
This is all very annoying for average users, especially so when we've huge monopolies such as Microsoft and Google running the show. With little effective choice users capitulate to the inevitable.
Anyone who'd argue with this assessment, don't bother arguing with me, read the stats instead. Comparing the numbers of Thunderbird versus Gmail users would be a good place to start.
† For instance, when considering to use Linux the average user is horrified at having to choose from hundreds of different distros so it's no wonder he/she gives up. The sheer number of distros is madness, it's such a fractured effort. I can't think of another comparable instance in the tech world where things have gotten so out of control.
> More to the point it shows the inherent weakness in open software - that is better open products have difficulty in competing against commercial ones because of stupid squabbles amongst the Open community - disagreements over minor technicalities and useability issues† means the greater objective has been lost.
What "greater objective" do you refer to? My objective is to have an OS that I have control over and can reasonably understand. For me that tends to be debian. So I guess for me the greater objective is satisfied.
The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with. This situation does not exist at present despite the fact that the computing industry has existed for over 75 years.
For starters, this is a serious
social problem as computing has become ubiquitous and is now essential for almost all of the population worldwide. Unfortunately the only really practical solution to suit the needs of typical average users is for them to go to monopolies such as Microsoft, Google, etc.
It's a serious social problem for at least two reasons: first, many people cannot afford costly software from these price-gouging monopolies; second, in more recent times these monopolies now sap users of all vestiges of their privacy as a condition of use of their products and users have no way of stopping the leakage.
The fact that governments haven't acted to break up these monopolistic practices and to stop the privacy violations is a disgrace. It's also a testament to the power of these mega corporations not to mention the sorry state of our democracies (in that corporations hold the ear of government better than does the populous).
OK, I've stated the bloody obvious that just about every thinking person in the open software movement is aware of so where does that leave us?
As there's no middle ground - that being either a choice of choosing from competing like products or software supplied by revenue-neutral cooperatives that would pay software programmers and then charge users a modest fee for their software, or both - then we're only left with two alternatives - the monopolies and open source software. (Here perhaps I should point out that I'm principally referring to key software that's universally used by all users, operating systems and such, Windows, MS Office, Gmail, etc.)
Before going further I must say I'm strongly in favor of open source software and use it where ever possible. So what's wrong with it? Nothing really except the situation above and, unfortunately, that is a big problem.
The principal driving force for the developers of open software is that it interests them or otherwise they wouldn't develop it. Moreover, for most, this self-interest overrides any magnanimous feeling or desire to improve the software lot for the multitudes (note, I'm not saying develops don't have a magnanimous streak I'm sure many do, it's just that self-interest always comes first, especially so in the absence of money/payment for their efforts).
To say this isn't the case simply denies or belies the facts, we wouldn't have so many versions of Linux if this weren't so. Similarly, software like Thunderbird, Firefox, LibreOffice and such would be much more user-friendly, instead, we see a never-ending stream of new features rather than sorting out issues with boring utilitarian features the lack of which drives both users and help desk people alike to utter distraction.
If you want an example of this then there's hardly a better instance than Thunderbird, I've been rialling against its problems and issues for years both here on HN and elsewhere, even with this latest release Thunderbird still lacks
sensible ergonomic features that Eudora Mail had from the outset quite some decades ago!
Right, both your objectives and those of other open software users have been satisfied and that's fine - and you are not to blame, as everyone on the planet has self-interest at heart and that comes first.
The trouble is that the greater unwashed isn't often listened to - not at least until there's been an outcry for years. Moreover, this situation is more likely to prevail with open software as commercial operations have a financial incentive to fix problems (at least they usually do so for the most glaring and egregious of issues).
On the matter of having control over one's software I can only concur with you to the fullest extent. Over the many years I've been using software both professionally and for personal use the single biggest problem I've had is the lack of control that I've been able to exercise over the software.
Some would say that to solve these problems users should either write new programs from scratch and or recompile open software with suitable changes. Yes, it's one solution but hardly viable in many situations. As someone who programs, I'm only too well aware of the fact.
All that said, as I see it we are no nearer any realistic solution.
> The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with.
Well that's not my objective. If it's yours, then good luck with that battle. I'm okay ignoring users who don't want to put in the time necessary to become proficient in GNU/Linux. I mean sure it would be nice if there were some unified simple way to do things, but I personally wouldn't use a Linux-based OS that I don't like simply to decrease fragmentation. Basically the whole point of free software is that you _don't_ have to do that if you don't want to.
Regardless I wish you luck in all the development/community work you put into turning your vision into a reality.
You are complaining about something that would cost huge amounts of money to develop not existing for free, but not proposing any way to raise that money or provide an alternative incentive structure causing it to exist.
> The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with. This situation does not exist at present despite the fact that the computing industry has existed for over 75 years.
Sure it does: iOS, Android, Window, macOS, Linux. You're not complaining that there isn't a choice, you're complaining that the free choice isn't highly polished. Yes, it'd be nice if it were, but the fact that it isn't is just a logical consequence of the forces involved; it's like ranting that the sun rises in the east.
"You are complaining about something that would cost huge amounts of money to develop not existing for free..."
I was not implying that such a project be started at this late juncture as clearly what you said would be correct if it did.
Perhaps it's best to illustrate what I meant with an example (there are of course many variations on this theme). Had the seemingly dead-in-the-water project ReactOS had at its outset decades ago in 1996 charged a small sum of say $10 to $20 for its Windows-like compatible operating system sufficient to cover costs then by now we'd have a viable clone of Windows that Windows users would be very familiar with and actually use.
Right, in the broad sense Linux is also an alterative to Windows but even with Wine installed it's still a very difficult call for many Windows users - the proof thereof is in Linux's take up numbers - even after decades, Windows users haven't moved to it in sufficient numbers to bother speaking about.
If the ReactOS project had paid its developers a living wage from the outset then it's hard to believe that by now - over a quarter century on - that ReactOS wouldn't be a viable alterative to MS Windows.
Given the longstanding and continuing angst many users have with both Windows and Microsoft's profiteering monopoly, it stands to reason they would readily jump to a viable alterative if it were available, especially so if its price was cheap in comparison to Windows. Similarly, there'd be precious little difficulty in getting large numbers of talented developers - and many developers means a quick finish to the project (er well, at least a much quicker finish than the current haphazard arrangement has produced, as the project stands now it could be strongly argued that it's not much further ahead than when it first started).
Perhaps this is a bad example due to possible controversy but I think not, specifically because there are many, many users who are disgruntled with both Windows and MS. Furthermore, as much of ReactOS's development has taken place in Russia, I doubt that any potential cries of plagiarism and or of copyright breaches from Microsoft would hold water, as we're all tragically witnessing, Russia isn't too enamored with the US or helping its corperations not to mention the way it's protected Snowdon. Any objections from Microsoft would be further weakened if the project were to demonstrate openly that it enforced clean room code development.
There's a lot more I could mention about this matter but I'll leave it here for the moment.
"Download this blob and run it to install software systemwide" isn't something that works well on any platform anymore, FWIW, and you shouldn't do it even (especially) if it's cleanly package in a self-executing installer.
Ubuntu provides thunderbird both as a stable release and as a containerized snap with rolling release semantics. Snap downloads are authenticated and secure. Get it from here if you want the latest and greatest, though they haven't blessed 102 as stable yet (it's still "latest/candidate" as of right now): https://snapcraft.io/thunderbird
In this case, though, I think you're complaining overmuch. What you got was a tarball intended for install from the command line, which is a distribution format well-understood by Linux hackers since before most of the commenters here were born. It's certainly not a "basic usability problem" to provide software in a consistent format for 30 years!
On the user error bit, all I can say is that it is a trade-off. If you wait until your distribution does the hard work for you, by releasing the updated package, your experience will be far less painful than it is under competing operating systems. Of course, that does mean waiting.
If you think that those competing operating systems don't have usability problems, well, all I can say is that is far from the truth. I went through the process of setting up Windows the other day and found the software installation mind-bogglingly frustrating. In every case, I was scavenging websites for software. Some of those websites felt dubious. In the case of a couple of drivers, I was dealing with the equivalent of that .tar.bz2 file.
I'm not going to claim that the Linux world is perfect. I am going to claim that the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence.
Thank you for explaining why the Linux Desktop is a giant usability failure and how 'defining' Linux support is an impossibility.
Rather than be able to support ONE operating system 100% of the time like what you get with Windows and macOS, Desktop Linux support is an unnecessary M * N support matrix of distros, packages and desktop environments and you always end up having to select a chosen few; meaning you always anger a bunch of Linux users using exotic distros (even though they run Desktop 'Linux').
Linux packaging is beyond a dreadful disaster of in-fighting and a malestrom of frustration and confusion for the user who dares to bother. Majority of the software on Linux is still shockingly distributed via ridiculous .tar.bz2 files or requires opening a terminal to ./ execute it, if not then it is either the alternatives of AppImage, Snap, FlatPak, etc, etc which don't work on all systems out of the box. They are still solutions looking for a problem.
With Windows, and macOS packaging for them is already built into the OS and works consistently and natively as expected. A problem long solved by them but on Desktop Linux it is still an issue for a quarter of a century.
You're welcome to look at the Linux situation that way if you choose to, but claiming that Windows and macOS packaging works consistently and natively is a huge stretch of the imagination.
I had to install a Windows system the other day, and it was frustrating. For the most part, software had to be scavenged from various websites. Some of those sites felt less than reputable while others were avoided because they were less than reputable. Once I managed to download the installer from the developer, I found that they were rarely consistent. While most appeared to be some sort of wrapper for MSI, many were not. The user interfaces and procedures varied wildly, even with software from Microsoft themselves. On top of that, I had two drivers that were shipped as a zipped collection of files. In the case of my printer drivers, I had to run an executable file buried in one of the subfolders. In the case of the USB-RS232 bridge drivers, I had to call up the properties dialog in the device manager to update the drivers.
I am not going to deny the kernel truth in your claims about Linux. Installing software can be a mess. On the other hand, I rarely have to face that truth. Almost everything is handled by the package manager. In the case of hardware, the drivers are usually built into the kernel. The end result is that software tends to be faster and easier to install and update on Linux. At least from my experience.
TBH that's a feature not a bug. If you don't know what to do here you probably don't know enough to evaluate the safety of the software you just downloaded. Your distro maintainers will pick it up soon and it will show up on your machine the next time you run apt upgrade.
Note that no one is stopping you from running thunderbird. It sounds like you downloaded a dynamically linked binary distribution and there's probably just an elf file you need to run. Otherwise if the binary is incompatible you can build it from the source (I've never tried thunderbird, Firefox is a bit much but it's doable and there are of course ways to automate it such as running a Gentoo prefix or using the spec files from your distribution itself.)
EDIT: Linux is fine for everyone. Installing bleeding edge software from web sites is not for everyone.
> Note that no one is stopping you from running thunderbird. It sounds like you downloaded a dynamically linked binary distribution and there's probably just an elf file you need to run. Otherwise if the binary is incompatible you can build it from the source (I've never tried thunderbird, Firefox is a bit much but it's doable and there are of course ways to automate it such as running a Gentoo prefix or using the spec files from your distribution itself.)
You should put yourself in the mind of someone who doesn't work with computers for a living. Then, read that to yourself again and see how much of it is complete nonsense. You should not have to know what any of those words mean to use an operating system, and if you do that is either the fault of the OS or the software, not the fault of the user.
> You should not have to know what any of those words mean to use an operating system
Why not? Different OSes can serve people in different niches. This is like saying "you don't need special training to ride a tricycle, therefore the fact that you need it to drive a car is the fault of the car". If people don't want to use Ubuntu, they are free to use macOS. I will continue using Ubuntu because I know how to use it and it works for me. What's the problem?
Ok, so I'll go to software center and click a button to install Thunderbird. It won't be the absolute latest version but I don't really care since computers aren't that interesting to me.
Who is complaining? I don't often see Linux users complaining that its market share is low, outside of free software ideologues. This seems to be 99% a strawman.
I don't care if Linux has 0.00000001% market share as long as it still does what I want.
> I'm on an Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop computer. I click on the big green Free Download button.
WHY? Why would you ever do that? It is not "you are doing it wrong" it is "you are wrong for doing it at all". Even Windows got the memo and got win-get now....
Come the fuck on, really? Are you really asking someone why they would click the button that says download and is prominently displayed and then acting like they are stupid for expecting it to download?
99.9% of Windows users do not use win-get, and you know this. Stop pretending that bad UX is just the user being stupid.
You are on Ubuntu so shouldn't you have to install software from the Software app (or whatever it is called now), which is a GUI over apt and snap? I get my Thunderbird updates through the system update tool. Same for Firefox, BTW.
Generally you install software from the app store, which is called "Discover" in Ubuntu. However, the newest version of Thunderbird hasn't been shipped out there yet, so you might have to wait a day or two. It is available as a candidate release though, so if you want to try out Thunderbird 102 right now, you can open a terminal and type:
sudo snap install thunderbird --candidate
And yeah, I think it is a mistake for the Thunderbird website to not guide people to the software center.
Linux really just needs to adopt AppImage as the default manual install package. A single download that runs the actual application when you click it, no installation necessary. It may have a larger file size due to bundling dependencies that are already on the machine, but people who are bandwidth or diskpace limited can use their repo or tarballs instead. Just make the default option the simplest for non-techies to deal with.
Okay. Why should the Linux community care about this? It is not a business trying to sell something to as many people as possible. It’s a diverse set of people and companies each working on whatever is important to them.
If consumers want consumer-level support, they can buy a Mac. What’s the problem?
Because the Linux community also cares about expanding freedom- and privacy-respecting general purpose computing to as broad a user base as possible. Simplifying the user experience is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, requirement for that.
> Because the Linux community also cares about expanding freedom- and privacy-respecting general purpose computing to as broad a user base as possible.
This is, at most, a niche fraction of the Linux community.
Most people and companies involved with Linux care that it works for their own needs, not about abstract "software freedom" ideologies.
I find it funny that people are perfectly fine using the appstore and not being able to just download apps from a website (easily) on mobile (amny even say it is a feature), but when it is not possible on desktop than it is somehow a massive usability issue that users never be able to adjust to (apart from the fact that MS and Apple also try to push you to their appstores).
> Or will this always just be user error! you're doing it wrong!
I suppose this is what my reply will boil down to, but also isn't that fine? You could do something unusual on macOS or Windows and there too throw your hands up in mock shock that it was to be labelled 'user error'.
Anyway, when I want to install software on Linux I type `yay -Ss software` (on my work/personal machines) or `apt search software` (on a Debian derivative image) etc., and then install what I've found similarly.
Thunderbird could do better here - greenfield software today might offer a Snap or Flatpak package there for example - but I don't think download via vendor website is the norm on any distribution; it tends to work on macOS & Windows, but is decreasingly primary even there; it probably could launch Ubuntu Software Center (or whatever it is) as it does App Store.app on macOS - but who wants to look up what to do and maintain everything like that for N top Linux distros?
If it were me I think I'd just have a dummy button, conveying somehow that it 'works on Linux, you should refer to your package manager'.
It has. AppImages work exactly as a user would expect them to. Even if the AppImage is not marked as executable, one of the problems I can imagine a new user encountering, Dolphin (KDE file manager) asks if I want to trust and run the file anyways.
It is on Thunderbird for just distributing a weird tar file. Preferably, their download button would take you to an installation instructions page.
And idea how to get Dolphin to "register" the AppImage as an application? (so it shows up in menus). Manually making AppImage .desktop files is always a bit clunk and you don't get the proper icons. I know there is some thrid party tool that does it more properly, but I wonder if there is an integrated way
I swear this used to work automatically and at some point it was removed.. or maybe I'm misremembering
If you extracted the entire thunderbird folder from the archive instead of attempting to execute a single binary in a compressed archive, you could have avoided this entire flame war. And you would have had a functional email client
> Will desktop Linux ever solve these basic usability problems?
Never.
Desktop Linux will never solve these simple usability issues since the developers are too busy fighting for who is the smartest one of them all.
As with that, little to no-one cared about Thunderbird. I should not expect the world to care either, especially on Desktop Linux, which both are complete failures after years and years of issues.
Will desktop Linux ever solve these basic usability problems?
Or will this always just be user error! you're doing it wrong!