DSL Ideas and Suggestions :: Making DSL a little easier



Does Synaptics count as a package management tool?
[jump]A graphical package manager and icony file manager are both available through myDSL.

There's a lot to be said for text (and/or hotkeys) over images, and I think I'll say some before this coffee kicks in and makes me rational...
A  picture paints a thousand words, as they say, but I tend to disagree when it comes to a 48x48 pixel image. There are very few icons I look at and can even figure out what the image *is*, nevermind what it symbolizes. If I'm going to have to learn what each icon does, I might as well learn a hotkey instead. Hotkeys take less system resources, and they don't produce any visual clutter. And finally, how many icon-laden desktops are in existence that don't already use a text label next to the icon? Very few I would guess. So apparently the image itself serves little purpose beyond decoration. Or at least that's my opinion.
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package management tool

It's called "MyDSL."

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I did look at Rox filer last night and it makes viewing documents so much easier. There's a lot to be said for images over text.

People are going to have very different views about this because some are a lot more graphically-aware than text-aware. I think that's why Apple has had success with left-brain types like artists compared to more right-brain types like researchers and accountants who simply want something that crunches numbers, never mind if the inputs and outputs are graphical.

Rox has a big edge when looking at images since they can be viewed as thumbnails instead of as file names. I don't think it makes much difference if you're looking at file.txt in rox or emelfm -- either way you're looking for a file name unless you associate a unique icon for files (which I do by adding MIME-types to distinguish between different kinds of text files, such as adding .log for files that pertain to the computer -- but the same could be done in emelfm by adding the MIME and giving it a unique color).

mikshaw:
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There are very few icons I look at and can even figure out what the image *is*, nevermind what it symbolizes.

I agree with you about certain icons, particularly for applications. I think, though, there are ways to use MIME types to associate data with certain icons -- whether the icon says "text" or "spreadsheet" or has a very clear representation of what that file is (see any of the screenshots posted at my blog).

As far as having an icon AND text, I don't have a problem with that since a box full of MIME-type-text icons isn't going to be very useful. The text under those icons generally tell you a file name, not a file type. That's different from well-conceived and more generic application icons that represent what application is (e.g., an envelope for an e-mail application). I think one of the best sets of icons in this respect were the ones included in NeXT, but early versions of Mac were also more intuitive (before there were myriad applications available).

I'm not pro- or anti-icon, I just want useful and intuitive icons. I'm familiar enough with certain applications that I know the logos and make associations that way. That works well on my own computer. If I'm setting something up for someone else, I don't make any presumptions and try to use icons that are basic and represent what pressing them will do.
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package management tool


It's worth remembering that the two most successful desktop OSs (whether we like them or not) do not have package management tools.

It's arguable whether, for a common-or-garden user who just wants to get on with it with common applications, a desktop OS needs package management at all.  Locating and resolving dependencies etc can sometimes be so much work you wonder if it's worth it.  And I have to wonder whether, for non-cpu intensive progs on modern systems with plenty of capacity, the gains of using shared libraries versus static compiling (and thus having no dependencies) are always worth it also.

Fedora/Red Hat users will well know what I'm talking about. Recall Eric S Raymond's now famous I-quit-Fedora rant:

http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/13640

(Yes, he ignored the warnings and was a bit silly - but that's another issue).

Obviously package management comes into its own is for (eg) remote upgrading an entire server, for example, or for undertaking repairs to a broken system.
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It's worth remembering that the two most successful desktop OSs (whether we like them or not) do not have package management tools.

Actually, they do. Most users, though, either don't know they have those tools available to them or they bypass them altogether and cobble their systems together with applications they buy, encounter, etc.

Apple has used Darwin Ports and a project called Fink (edit: apt-get for OSX). Windows has used various implementations of package management since at least NT. And while it's somewhat limited, Windows' control panel has the add/remove programs dialog which is supposed to make it easier to keep track of applications and their libraries via the registry (which itself operates similarly to databases like those used by apt, yast, etc.). The manager detailed in the MS link below is for their own packages related to their updates. I'm not pointing it out as being comparable to Synaptic but it does relate to your last point about upgrading the OS. As far as comparisons could ever go between that and something like Synaptic, it's a lot easier for Debian or any other distro to aggregate lists of applications in their repositories than it is for MS and other companies to aggregate applications because MS generally doesn't sell or offer software from other vendors. Debian can do it because the packages are "free;" MS can't because those things usually aren't free.

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac....me.html
http://darwinports.com/
http://www.finkproject.org/
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windows....fr=true
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