PackageKit major annoyances

Mark markg85 at gmail.com
Thu Dec 18 20:40:00 UTC 2008


Hey,

I'm using package kit now to try and get used to it but it has some
major unexpected annoyances.
It where 2 issues when i started writing this but after the first line
here mplayer was done installing.. the message that follows is No. 3
now in the major annoyances.


1. While i was searching for my packages to install (in this case
mplayer) i was looking at the bold font. My first idea that that was
the name of the package but no someone somewhere decided to make the
short package description in BOLD and first.. making it hard to find
the package name itself because that's just not there (the rpm name
is! but the package name that is defined in the rpm spec file is
nowhere to be found. I think that should be written in bold then the
description below it and the rpm name + architecture should not even
be there

2. WTF All my packages are double... which ones do i need? Oke, for me
not a problem but for new users that just started using fedora and
have no clue about what architecture they use it WILL be confusing to
them to see 2 packages named "mplayer" (assuming they even find that
package) where only the architecture is different. Hell i sometimes
don't even remember what architecture i installed! So just show the
packages for the installed architecture and the noarch packages! the
rest is really not of any interest for most users! Or add a filter to
only show the packages of your architecture.

3. Oke, mplayer is done installing now and now it asks me to run it..
why? I really can't think of a valid reason to even ask the user that!
it's pointless! It's not a package installation wizzard like you have
when you install nearly any package on windows! Just remove this part
out. it's pointless and only lets me think: "omg! yum -y install
mplayer isn't so bad! just STFU with your messages and install what i
tell you to!"

4. Another (minor) thing. I installed the rpm fusion package (so that
i can install mplayer) and apparently i hadn't confirmed that i was
willing to use rpm fusion.. so PackageKit came with a message to ask
me if i'm sure that i want to install a package from that repo with
that name.. bla bla bla.. Then the irritating thing came. It asked for
my password.... AGAIN!! When i clicked the apply button in packagekit
to install mplayer it came with a password prompt but does it have to
ask that again to confirm that i want to use the rpm fusion repo? well
i don't think so! Yum doesn't do that so don't do that in PackageKit.

Further more packagekit is way to early on in development to use in
fedora! It's getting better all the time but can i do a groupinstall
already? (like for example the KDE group)!
packagekit just needs more time (few years i guess) to mature. The way
things are now is not good for new users that want to experiment with
linux. it will scare them off (one of the many things)
Can i have the old package manager back that could do those things but
just looked ugly? just untill packagekit has all the features that the
old package manager had.. or quit fooling around and expand a already
proven system, Synaptic. I never understood why another package
management system was needed.. nearly every distro has it's own
package management application... such a big waste.

O well, this was just my opinion about PackageKit. I hope something
can be done about those 4 points i summed up.

Thanx,
Mark




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