Ubuntu testing Snappy for Desktop Next

So this lets you convert debian packages into a snappy friendly format?

Is that why you're posting this link? Does it have a more specific meaning in this context?

I'm just curious and wish you had posted at least a short explanation with the link.

I don't like feeling stupid fellow human.

Thanks! We used your first suggestion because it's more informative.

I guess those things could be a configuration thing within apt?

Basically I can see it being frustrating in the future with only being able to get a version of something through apt and then trying to not install dependencies that you have through another package manager.

That's an issue I sometimes have with homebrew and macports on macs plus python pip. Basically, some things you can only get through macports, some things only through homebrew and some things only through pip.

Then you have to reorder the imports to not fuck up compiling something for every single thing you are trying to compile from source. And it is extremely annoying because you actually have no idea which imports are causing the issues. Now add to that that different packages may require the dependencies to be compiled in a certain way and you are in a world of pain.

> Developers can just publish their apps directly on their own schedule.

As a Debian user I do not see that as a feature, I see that as a risk.

One of the biggest reasons I use Debian is because package management is done the way it is, but a lot of people complain because the packages in Debian Stable are out of date. I think the disagreement here isn't on whether the software in Debian Stable is up to date, it's actually about what the definition of stable is. Many people prefer bleeding edge. For me, I prefer Debian's definition of stable, and I don't want the developers of the software being able to push it to my systems on a whim because on rare occasion developers have been known to use their users as their testers, and this is a risk I want to minimize.

Regarding your other points, could you expand a bit on decoupling the OS from the applications? Everything else sounds like it could be a feature request against apt, do you have a moment to file them? It sounds like you've got some good ideas.

Regarding the first point, I had that happen. Just deleted the lock file and it worked great.

I agree on the second point, but what is wrong with ppas?

It's just a lot of little things... It's not that ubuntu is bad, it's just that, well, there is no reason to use ubuntu when there are distributions that do much more much better.

- PPA's are perhaps the most terrible way of providing more up to date packages than what is available in main repos. Typically they'll 404. You're also trusting some random person on the internet to maintain your system. I much prefer arch PKGBUILDs.

- You'll commonly find out of date packages. As a developer this is particularly frustrating. I don't want to just unpack an archive to my rootfs. I also don't want to wrestle debuild just to get a newer library. I understand that LTS support is important, but it really isn't that important.

- The whole amazon fiasco from a few years back ticks me off. Yeah, I know you could disable it. It's just that they did that by default in the first place.

- upstart sucks, and in spite of the fact that they're moving/moved, they hung on too long because they are stubborn.

Let me ask you this: What are the advantages of ubuntu over other linux/gnu distributions?

Ok so I don't mean to be a hater but that demo looks like I'm supposed to be impressed by stuff that apple had in os x in 2001, as well as recent iOS additions in 2007. It's 2015 and this is just beginning development now.

Diff priorities, diff resources, blahblahblah. But come on -- there ARE quite a bit of man hours since 2001 in gnome, kde, X11, Mir, compviz, Maemo, etc. Enough that recognizing Apple started doing things right so long ago that a unified response to at least copy let alone improved would have yielded significant results at least by 2010.

</hate>

GPLv3 makes no such impact. Now, if they had a CLA (which Canonical's projects infamously often do), you could make that argument.

> But GPLv3 is just a way to make suckers develop for Canonical for free - at the end of the day - you have no rights over your own contributions and they have 100% ownership.

This is the text of the GPLv3: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html It doesn't contain anything of the sort.

Cydia has repositories just like Debian, but there are multiple independently operated ones in a default install; they accept proprietary software .debs, and don't take as active a role in shaping the system into a coherent whole as a standard Linux distro (to avoid clashes, packages get reverse-DNS style names), but they do cooperate with each other and with saurik (the developer of Cydia) - I'm sure other people could tell you more about what that looks like. They manually review package submissions before adding them, but they don't have the resources to subject every one to an Apple-like testing procedure. Adding custom repositories is exposed in Cydia's UI and is common. (Among many legitimate uses, this is also commonly used to add repos which host pirated copies of paid Cydia packages and App Store apps. Oh well.)

Cydia has some additional functionality compared to stock APT:

- Purchases - are basically handled as a separate layer; they're the only part of Cydia which is centralized, and are done through a web UI hosted by saurik. IIRC, once the package is purchased, Cydia's version of APT sends a device identifier header when requesting .debs, and repositories have to check with saurik's server to decide whether to return 403 or not. By itself this is pretty easy to crack, so many popular packages add their own DRM (yuck).

- In addition to the short textual descriptions, package metadata can contain a "depiction" header containing a URL which Cydia will display in a web view when the user navigates to the package. This is intended to (a) allow each repo to design their own UI and maintain independence, (b) provide richer package info more flexibly than a fixed description UI would allow, e.g. including videos, and (c) allow repos to display ads, which they need to survive as payments aren't handled through them.

(I originally had a somewhat long paragraph here on how utterly horrid a UX this is in practice, but it's not really on topic, so I'll leave it at that.)

"Barely works" is still often more convenient than using apt-get directly.