This really sucks but at least pyenv exists. Basically distros care so little about their users we have to use external tools to use python2.
"Everyone has has a chance to migrate" . Doesn't work that way, just yesterday I spent a few hours trying to get scripts that are really good and would take me forever to migrate that are in python2 to work on an ubuntu based distro and this is with pyenv, custom venv,etc... just when you get python syntax worked out you are faced with deprecated or uselessly renamed imports and modules.
This is the shitty aspect of using foss stuff. I don't pay for it so I have to accept their decission. But in the broader sense, inability to influence things like this even with a ton of other people willing to pay for it is frustrating.
You know what would be great? If the community can vote with money pledges. So it you have 1000 people willing to donate $10/month to support python on sysv init then if volunteers don't want the money we get an external person getting paid 10k/month to support these packages even if the corporate types, developers and "devops"/sysadmin people have no use for it.
The free part of foss is expensive but I think the middle ground is to collectively pay for the support. I try very hard to avoid python2, I am not a developer and I very easily lose at least 1h/month on average to resolve these issues.
Do you all know why 2023 will not be the year of the Linux desktop? Because desktops are a commercial market and consumers/users cannot sway what the Linux desktop experience is. They either accept things as they are or pay for them by spending time reporting bugs, troubleshooting stuff, asking questions on random sites,etc... a lot of this has to do with change and maintenance requiring human time and resources. It's great when there are no issues and volunteers donate their time but it would be great to be able to pay with money also to support features or resolve issues. You can even make sure multiple people pay an equal amount to avoid wealthy people having too much or an influence but it still will not affect regular volunteer work.
I was hoping Ubuntu and Fedora would have such features.
You shouldn’t be using the system-provided Python for anything except system-wide tools that can be packaged and marked dependent on the system Python package (and any Python packages which are packaged as system packages - don’t use “pip install” system-wide). The system-provided Python is mostly there to support system packages/tools that happen to be written in Python.
Stand-alone applications should use pyenv/venv because you can’t guarantee which version of Python is the system-wide one (and you don’t necessarily want to tie your app to the distro’s release schedule). Dependencies should always be in a venv as to not interfere with the system-wide ones or other applications.
If the removal of Python from distro repos breaks your things then it’s a wake up call and you’ve been doing it wrong the whole time. Fortunately it’s an easy fix.
> You shouldn’t be using the system-provided Python for anything except system-wide tools
That does not sound like a user friendly programming language.
The version compatibility of Python is a joke and has been after 2.7 to 3 to. Which is the main reason I don't use Python for anything but bash-like scripts.
One major problem is that some version of Python was supplied with most Linux/Unix distributions - this allowed people to get started without thinking about this problem and then end up too deep in the hole by the time they realise.
Other languages or OSes that don't have their interpreter bundled forced you to think about the problem from the start and build a way to ship a stable version of the runtime with your application.
Python, as a server-side programming language is not too bad. You can standardise on a version and bundle that interpreter version with your application itself in whatever artefact you produce (whether a Docker container, tarball with Python binaries + source or entire VM image with the right Python version installed).
Desktop distribution is a pain, but that's not limited to Python; any language that can't compile to a native binary will have this problem - even Java, despite having much better backwards compatibility, still isn't prefect and sometimes requires an older JRE to be installed on your target machine.
As a matter of practicality I agree but for one not everyone knows this and for another distros like debian don't support what you are saying. We are resorting to pyenv because distros refuse to maintain different application specific python environments. You can pin python versions and deps per package if needed.
> Do you all know why 2023 will not be the year of the Linux desktop? Because desktops are a commercial market and consumers/users cannot sway what the Linux desktop experience is.
And... you believe that Microsoft and Apple are swayed by users? More than Red Hat and Canonical? I don't buy that for one second.
For sure, market studies, focus groups,etc... look at windows 7 for example, fixed a lot of complaints users had about vista but to your point, their customers that have influence are those that pay the most which are bigcorps with MS and multimedia editors with apple. Do you know why MS is bloated and "slower"? Because of all the technology they support from decades ago and all the interpperability layers in between. A vbscript from 2000 still works to automate stuff on windows 11 even with the advent of powershell for example. They could save money and crapton of security issues by getting rid of the windows script host just as an example but they would make paying enterprise users unhappy and less likely to buy more from MS.
> For sure, market studies, focus groups,etc... look at windows 7 for example, fixed a lot of complaints users had about vista
That's true. Now look at 8, 10, and 11 and tell me with a straight face that they still care.
> Do you know why MS is bloated and "slower"? Because of all the technology they support from decades ago and all the interpperability layers in between.
Then surely the comparison is RHEL, where companies pay for compatibility and stability, not "we <3 bleeding edge" Fedora or "volunteers maintaining a coherent system" Debian.
Yes they do care, about profit that is. Doing random stuff users want isn't usually profitable though which is why I like the configurability of Linux. But if users who pay up demand something they will listen unless it contradicts with a more profitable business strategy.
> Then surely the comparison is RHEL, where companies pay for compatibility and stability, not "we <3 bleeding edge" Fedora or "volunteers maintaining a coherent system" Debian.
Unfortunately, RHEL and SLED are both targeting enterprise users, very little of that is desktop as well.
You know who else succeeded in the Linux desktop that isn't really considered proper Linux? ChromeOS on the ChromeBook.
If only these new laptop makers like purism or system76 took a similar radical approach where they would indeed listen to paying users more directly better than existing bigcorps, that would give Linux on the desktop a chance at market share gains that are significant. Then I would be comfortable gifting a Linux laptop to a non-technical user who can call a support line when having issues or needing a feature.
> That's true. Now look at 8, 10, and 11 and tell me with a straight face that they still care.
Do you see the Metro start screen anywhere on Windows 10 or 11?
If they weren't swayed by user input, why did they throw away all that time, effort, and energy put into the the Metro UI and go back to the start menu paradigm?
Your distro exists to provide other people's software. The distro doesn't develop the software themselves. The Python 2 organization has decided to end Python 2. It is completely and decidedly unsupported by anyone as of over two years ago.
If you want to complain about Python 2 being unsupported by the Python foundation, you're free to. But no distro can in good conscience keep distributing a thoroughly unsupported piece of software that's probably full of security bugs.
Regarding the "year of the Linux desktop" thing: Apple is much more aggressive than any Linux distro when it comes to dropping deprecated stuff and forcing their users to move on. Apple hasn't shipped Python 2 for a long time, they ship Python 3.
"Everyone has has a chance to migrate" . Doesn't work that way, just yesterday I spent a few hours trying to get scripts that are really good and would take me forever to migrate that are in python2 to work on an ubuntu based distro and this is with pyenv, custom venv,etc... just when you get python syntax worked out you are faced with deprecated or uselessly renamed imports and modules.
This is the shitty aspect of using foss stuff. I don't pay for it so I have to accept their decission. But in the broader sense, inability to influence things like this even with a ton of other people willing to pay for it is frustrating.
You know what would be great? If the community can vote with money pledges. So it you have 1000 people willing to donate $10/month to support python on sysv init then if volunteers don't want the money we get an external person getting paid 10k/month to support these packages even if the corporate types, developers and "devops"/sysadmin people have no use for it.
The free part of foss is expensive but I think the middle ground is to collectively pay for the support. I try very hard to avoid python2, I am not a developer and I very easily lose at least 1h/month on average to resolve these issues.
Do you all know why 2023 will not be the year of the Linux desktop? Because desktops are a commercial market and consumers/users cannot sway what the Linux desktop experience is. They either accept things as they are or pay for them by spending time reporting bugs, troubleshooting stuff, asking questions on random sites,etc... a lot of this has to do with change and maintenance requiring human time and resources. It's great when there are no issues and volunteers donate their time but it would be great to be able to pay with money also to support features or resolve issues. You can even make sure multiple people pay an equal amount to avoid wealthy people having too much or an influence but it still will not affect regular volunteer work.
I was hoping Ubuntu and Fedora would have such features.