With Dell comes great responsibility: Perfect Apt

[Mateo]

They need to make it so that apt remove also removes the home directory configuration stuff. I have a lot of .something directories that I don't know what they are. I don't know if I have the software installed or not. So it adds up to wasted space.

[jdong]

They need to make it so that apt remove also removes the home directory configuration stuff. I have a lot of .something directories that I don't know what they are. I don't know if I have the software installed or not. So it adds up to wasted space.

APT cannot decide whether or not you want to be purging per-user information, nor does it know how to purge per-user information for packages.

What an application decides to write to the system after it is installed is out of the scope of the package manager, and it is not realistic to expect it to be able to clean it up, or to assume users would want APT purging what it thinks are configuration directories.

The little bits of space wasted by text configuration files are probably very insignificant, while if there were any files of significant size, they probably are of some value to the user.

[dspari1]

Apt doesn't break break distribution upgrades, users do.

There is a LOT of testing that goes into the upgrade paths, even with the universe repository enabled. The problem comes when users change their configurations in ways the developers can't expect/plan for. If you _ONLY_ used software from the main/restricted/universe/multiverse repositories and didn't make changes that you didn't understand to your system's configuration then distribution upgrades would (99.999% of the time) still work.

This is very untrue(you can't blame the users 99.999% of the time) because when I installed 6.10 to 7.10 after a clean install, I downloaded the files fine, but halfway through the install, some of the files downloaded were corrupt. The installer should do an error check on the files' integrity in a similar way that BitTorrent does to make sure that the computer does not attempt to install corrupted data.

[IgnorantGuru]

The warning is stated clearly on any upgrade documentation, which one ought to read before blindly attempting a system upgrade. The operating system cannot ask "are you sure" "don't do this" for every single possible thing a user might do wrong.... there's a certain 20GB OS out there that does that right now, and is getting heavily criticized for it

I agree to a point, but most casual users don't read documentation. And I don't think an upgrade is a minor thing - there I would say "are you sure" is a good thing, especially as adept asks the user "do you want to upgrade?" after doing a routine update. In fact the little warning could be put in that same dialog - a little description of or link to what an upgrade is and the possible issues (especially if you're hopping over a version).

If we're talking novices (people who don't do system installations and heavy maintenance), caution is advised, especially where it may kill the system. Also, if people stop using updates because they've come to fear breaking their system, they will not get security updates, which becomes a problem. The various levels of update, security update, kernel update, and upgrade need to be better separated and explained - in the window that is doing them.

[Mateo]

APT cannot decide whether or not you want to be purging per-user information, nor does it know how to purge per-user information for packages.

I know it can't do it now, that's why I said they should make it so it can do it.

The little bits of space wasted by text configuration files are probably very insignificant, while if there were any files of significant size, they probably are of some value to the user.

Insignificant to you. To me any wasted space is significant. I paid for the hard drive, I should only have stuff on it that I want on it. And I don't want configuration files for software I don't have installed on my computer.

[jimrz]

Howza' bout I senz you a copy 'o Windows ME???

don't forget to put the "haz-mat" stickers on the package

[kitterma]

Not true. Just one example: Every laptop user that upgraded from Edgy to Feisty lost their sound in the process. I use a plain-vanilla install, with an all-intel laptop. And I lost sound when I upgraded.

This isn't rare.

Oh nonsense. Every user that upgraded a laptop did NOT lose sound. I certainly didn't. For me sound was broken in Edgy and fixed in Feisty.

Guess what, I installed early flight releases of Feisty (on a spare HD), reported bugs when they could be fixed, and guess what, they got fixed.

The developers only have so many different hardware suites to test with and so many people to do testing. They need help. It's to late to complain now. Where were you when it mattered?

[kitterma]

I know it can't do it now, that's why I said they should make it so it can do it.



Insignificant to you. To me any wasted space is significant. I paid for the hard drive, I should only have stuff on it that I want on it. And I don't want configuration files for software I don't have installed on my computer.

Then learn sudo dpkg -P packagename and don't worry.

[Mateo]

Then learn sudo dpkg -P packagename and don't worry.

this removes the configuration files? also, doesn't this depend on you having the deb in your computer?

[kvonb]

Apt doesn't break break distribution upgrades, users do.

There is a LOT of testing that goes into the upgrade paths, even with the universe repository enabled. The problem comes when users change their configurations in ways the developers can't expect/plan for. If you _ONLY_ used software from the main/restricted/universe/multiverse repositories and didn't make changes that you didn't understand to your system's configuration then distribution upgrades would (99.999% of the time) still work.

This is exactly the attitude that will keep Linux back, and has done successfully for decades!

One way around this is to check the entire system for modifications before performing an update/upgrade, then warn the user about potential problems. Apt does this already to a small extent, it warns about modified config files.

If it can't be done, then there needs to be a bloody obvious warning displayed when the user tries to install an evil third party application, or do something seriously system altering like say changing the desktop wallpaper!

This was the argument back in 1998, they said that it was impossible to implement a unified package manager because of all the different libraries and changed config files. But guess what, Debian came along and sorted that mess out!

You CANNOT say to a user that anything you change will "invalidate the warranty" so to speak, this is reminiscent of another O/S's philosophy.

It can be done, and it will be done........eventually .