Installing a program is confusing.

[dogsolitude_uk]

Erm, just wanted to jump in here and say that I opened the Software Manager, typed in 'Firefox', and got precisely one actual Firefox result, right at the top. It had the name 'Firefox' on it, and underneath was written 'Safe and easy web browser from mozilla'.

The other results in the list were other packages, and 'bits' of Firefox with weird names like 'firefox-locale-af'.

I would venture to suggest that the one you want is the one at the top of the list, marked 'Firefox', with the Firefox icon.

Admittedly it was a bit more difficult to work out what's what when it came to installing Netbeans and the Java SDK, or installing Python (none of them 'looked right' to me: when I typed in 'Python' I got 'Inkscape' at the top of the list!), so I ended up downloading the files from the respective sites.

So I agree that maybe it could do with a bit of tidying up in places, but I don't think that trying to pre-empt what the user wants is the way forward. Perhaps instead indicating whether something installs a 'whole user package, including user interface and all the gubbins' might be an idea, but the idea that everyone on Linux is an end-user who needs/wants buttons is a bit presumptuous I think.

[Goz]

Yes, I can tell what is the program I want and yes I can uninstall everything I do not need, but can the average computer user do that????

Yes they can. The vast majority of Linux users started out as Windows users and are just users.
I'm one of those people. I started with Linspire eight years ago. I found using Linux was no harder than using Windows..In fact I found I preferred the Synaptic package manager over installing the Windows way.
For me,the Linux way is intuitive and friendly. I like it.

[latinomanz]

For you but is it for most people?

Well then a test gotta be done to see if people find Synaptics intuitive but I am not saying to get rid of Synaptics by any means but just to highlight the one users probably one and for me not always the main/desire options is at the top, sometimes a few dependencies are at the top so imagine an old grandma trying to figure out what people want.

I have not used Apple App Store but I supposed it is more intuitive then Synaptics, also if I want to install a program in another directory or drive, how the hell can I do that with synaptics?

So synaptics is great but it can be improved.

[ynnebbenny]

Yes it's mighty confusing, and a real turn off at times.
I tend to install the windows version of the software within WINE than the Linux version.
Doesn't make sense why they don't have an equivalent to an exe to instal the software.
Pretty foundational stuff really.

I'd much prefer these sorts of issues resolved than fancy pantsy Desktop cubes etc.

[philipz]

Yes i do remember the days when there wasnt a software manager and all that was there was synaptic and it was a bit confusing to me coming from windows with the whole idea of dependencies and stuff, but now its alot easier to deal with, and software manager makes it easier as it sorts the more popular entries at the top and has people reviews of them, which makes it easier to identify what people would normally be looking for. I recently added a post in this board of what i thought could be improved on the software manager and update manager and while checking some of the other linux distributions on vmware, I saw that mageia had in its software management software, the ability to only show gui applications and i think that maybe the solution to the issue posed by latinomanz. I personally look at software manager to be the newcomers alternative to synaptic, so why not make it as easy for them as possible. So I was thinking that you have two modes for software manager, it defaults to 'beginner's mode' which can be toggled on and off either as a button like 'categories' or in the view menu as 'only gui packages'. So in beginner's mode, only gui apps will be displayed and i think this is something doable. I think tracking the number of times a software is installed through software manager as the primary requested installation (as dependencies also do get installed through software manager), it could make this process even more easily doable and also improve the results shown in the software manager.

[philipz]

Well I did some checking with latinomanz example of trying to find Firefox in the software managers and here are the results.

Mageia Software Management (Packages with GUI) shows 1 result
Lubuntu Software Manager shows 3 results
Ubuntu Software Manager shows 11 results and 128 technical items (not visible unless you click them to show)
Muon Software Manager shows 11 results
OpenSUSE Yast2 shows 13 results
Linux Mint Software Manager shows 97 results