The endlessly spinning wheel in Ubuntu software update has returned me to the command line, which no average user of a modern operating system should ever, ever have to use...
Update: To be clear (I apparently wasn't clear enough), I often use the command line. What I was trying to say is that "regular" (i.e. non-nerdy) folks should never have to do this.
@dangillmor I run apt manually 99+% of the time to avoid exactly this situation. Should it be necessary? No. Is it necessary? Yep. And it's why Linux will never, ever be a common desktop system.
@lauren@dangillmor maybe not but ChromeOS and SteamOS seem reasonably popular in their markets and are more or less a desktop Linux even though Linux nerds often don't consider them such. The real problem is that it takes a billion dollar company with thousands of staff to do the QA necessary to make that appliance-like experience shine on a limited selection of hardware, which is not anything like how traditional Linux projects are organized and funded.
@raven667@dangillmor It's irrelevant if Linux is hidden underneath -- whether it's CrOS or Android, or a toaster. What matters is the UI experience, and Linux is a dumpster fire for non-techies in that respect.
@lauren@raven667@dangillmor The big disaster was Qt's lack of a true open source license in the late 90s. That blocked KDE from making headway and triggered the rise of Gnome, which is excruciatingly poor. (KDE 3.x was nice, in a CUA/Motif-ish sort of way, and there were a lot of decent apps for it: with StarOffice and the right widget set it offered a Windows-like office desktop experience and it could have gone the distance. It's still there and Qt is open source now, but it's embattled.)
@philsplace@lauren@raven667@dangillmor I agree completely. (I gave up on KDE completely when KDE 4 came out. Couldn't make head nor tail of it at the time.)
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