Linux Desktop Mess - Article - Doubt

[anandrkris]

http://www.linuxadvocates.com/2013/03/t ... -mess.html - Came across this article and want to elicit your opinion on the below point.

I use Dropbox for cloud storage in a Mint 13 KDE desktop and Nautilus integration for it just working fine and can access files in Dolphin as well. (I am aware of the installation tweaks but dint feel like spending time on it just to integrate Dolphin in sysytem tray of Dropbox as I had installed already )

I am a pure desktop user and have a n00bish question. How difficult is it for application developers to develop a client for different File and Package managers?
Is it a real pain point for 3rd party application developers?

[catweazel]

As a matter of principle, which I'll explain in a moment, I completely disagree with the idea that linux needs to standardise. Would you want to drive the same car, same colour, same features, same everything, as everybody else? I doubt it.

What these twits who complain about standardisation fail to recognise is that there is far more choice of motherboards, for example, than there are linux distros.

• Gigabyte GA-H61M-HD2
  ASUS P8H61-MX-USB3
  ASRock B75M-DGS-R2
  Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D2V
  Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D3V
  ASRock B75M-R2
  ASUS P8H77-M LE
  ECS Z77H2-A2X
  Asus P9X79 Pro
  Asus Sabertooth X79
  Intel DH77EB
  MSI X79A-GD65 (8D)

And the list goes on and on and on. Do you hear the same people complaining about the length and breadth of choice in motherboards, screaming "STANDARDISE! STANDARDISE!"?

No. Instead, most of them go out and buy a machine where someone else has made the choice for them. So, that's my matter of principle... "if you're going to complain about X needing to be standardised then what about A? B? C? D? E? ... V? W? Y? Or Z?

Now onto your question...

The answer depends on how developers write their apps. I write C++ applications and I won't use external libraries unless I really have to. It's the plethora of libraries that apps use that's the main problem. Besides that, most distros use either .deb or .rpm, and there's also just raw binaries. That's all that needs to be catered for, really. So, in my bloated opinion, the twits who bleat about standardisation really do not know what they're bleating about.

Cheers.

[anandrkris]

Agree on most of the aspects you've mentioned...Else we would only have Model T of Ford ("any color so long as it is black") ...

Choice is really good thing but compatibility can not be completely ignored. (Imagine each car company decides to have their own specific tyre dimensions or does it? Sorry, I am not much knowledgeable there. At least some critical spare parts needs to have standards?).

So like .exe for Windows, if developers need to package their applications in *.deb or .rpm format i think then it is pefectly fine as long as they work on all desktop environments without glitches. If it is easy, why is Google Drive not having a Linux client yet?

My experience -
But when I installed libreoffice 4 recently, had faced trouble with KDE integration (ugly menu) and it worked fine later after some tweaks. I think they have gnome-integration and kde-integration installation files. What if there are 5 more flavors - Will it not be trouble for libreoffice developers? Also, if KDE is self-sufficient, i will not be hunting for Gnome apps. But i doubt if it is the reality. Unless we accept some of the issues, we can not move forward.

[dee.]

At least some critical spare parts needs to have standards?

Haha, you wish...