How are these dialogs going to show anyway? You want to uninstall 1 thing, and you get a 2nd dialog with the dependencies? Multiple dialogs are the most annoying thing since popups.

- On an x86_64 system, you can’t install i386 arch packages even though they’re visible in the UI. It will allow you to start the install and then will error out with, “package already installed.” They will show as installed in the UI after you install them via yum.
- It should not be permitted to have a manpage that consists of “consult the website for documentation”.
- The filtering and sorting options frankly suck when you return a large number of potential matches and need to scan through them for what you actually want. There needs to be some method by which you can sort them or otherwise filter down packages besides the current filters, which are frankly useless to most users.

I agree with what you’re saying about new applications in the menu being more visible at first install.

The rest of the argument however, I think is larger. You’ve got to be asking who’s using Fedora? Who do we want to use Fedora? Who do we want to use PackageKit? Let’s face it, the majority of Linux users are at least technically-savvy and able to grasp things quite quickly. The long-hand filenames for RPMs are a lot more instructive than some windows executables. Version numbers aren’t alien to these people I speak of, architectures might be and the concept of a repository for software instead of downloading executables from the internet and running them, with a built in setup program is the big gap we have at least with regards to converted Windows users.

I’m still a new Linux user myself. Personally, I don’t think PackageKit at present is being too technical. It’s purpose is inherently advanced, just as firewall configuration is. If someone can’t do it, they get someone else to do it. I just think you’re trying to solve a problem that not even Windows has solved properly. If a user isn’t comfortable with installing software then they’re not going to do it and they’re unlikely to be the type of user who is running Linux. How dumbed down, and how best to communicate vital information to the user, about very important things such as package installation, is such a wide debate. I just think it’s wholly out of the scope of this topic.

A bad user could rollback a kernel update and use an exploit valid for older releases for example.

You and I can find out what’s going on. We can go poke packag-kit from the command line, or bypass it and use rpm directly. In fact, for most people the whole “X other packages are going to be installed even though you didn’t ask for them” dialog is just a nuisance. When we do impose on users’ time, we should give them information that we expect to be most appropriate to them: an executive summary, not a technical briefing. We are trying to get in and out of their way as fast as we can with a good conscious (”Excuse me user, I’m afraid we do need to talk at considerable length regarding this SMART result”).

When we are installing new apps the result should be “OK, here is where it is on your menu.”

When removing apps, yes, users do want us to confirm that removing X will get rid of their web browser.

I’d certainly argue to keep the long-hand, fuller, more accurate and technical names of RPMs to be installed being prominent in the UI. It’s a vital descriptor.

How vague is ‘Document Viewer’? It’s fine for the Fedora menus and the like, but I don’t think the majority of us identify our programs with baby names like ‘document viewer’ one-hundred percent of the time.

As Richard said regarding pacakge descriptions, even in the example how is ‘evince backend for dvi files’ any more helpful than it’s full-long-hand package name? It’s not.

Great to see the 0.2.x branch getting closer to general release on Fedora 9.