Ubuntu's Deb-Based Software Center Fails As An App Store

[Mike Frett]

However, if it wasn't for the Ubuntu Store, I would've never switched to Linux. Having an easy to use place like the Store, where I could easily find programs is essential for new people. I'm sorry but Synaptic doesn't cut it for newbies. Being able to actually buy things like Games, is a plus. My first Game I bought on Linux was Torchlight, bought from the Software Center.

I've grown out of it now, but it was essential at first. What Canonical NEEDS to do is provide better support for LTS versions of it's OS.

[s_j_newbury]

However, if it wasn't for the Ubuntu Store, I would've never switched to Linux. Having an easy to use place like the Store, where I could easily find programs is essential for new people. I'm sorry but Synaptic doesn't cut it for newbies. Being able to actually buy things like Games, is a plus. My first Game I bought on Linux was Torchlight, bought from the Software Center.

I've grown out of it now, but it was essential at first. What Canonical NEEDS to do is provide better support for LTS versions of it's OS.

Is this because you came from an Apple background? Or had you only used smart phones prior to Linux? Quite honestly, it's hard for me to understand how a (commercial?) "App Store" has become an essential part of (home?) computing. I never had a Microsoft background before coming to Linux in the mid 90s, but I don't remember Windows having an app store and certainly never encountered such a thing at any time prior to Windows8.

Perhaps I don't really care to attract "newbies" to Linux if that means a "walled garden" and proprietary apps become the norm. To me that isn't Linux, and certainly isn't Free Software. That being said, Canonical does need to meet its contractual agreements for people who have used their App Store as a distribution channel for their software, whatever their license of choice, and I can understand that from developers' point of view it can be a great way of increasing exposure.

[jo-erlend]

So let me get this straight - a Phone whose packages are called .click and a Desktop whose packages are called .snap

Wouldn't wanna make the Desktop packages called .click and the Phone packages called .touch would ya - that would make too much logical sense right?

Click packages was originally developed for desktop as well. You might remember the "click to install" web buttons? Snap is built upon click and will replace it on phones as well. Things evolve.

[jo-erlend]

Is this because you came from an Apple background? Or had you only used smart phones prior to Linux? Quite honestly, it's hard for me to understand how a (commercial?) "App Store" has become an essential part of (home?) computing. I never had a Microsoft background before coming to Linux in the mid 90s, but I don't remember Windows having an app store and certainly never encountered such a thing at any time prior to Windows8.

Perhaps I don't really care to attract "newbies" to Linux if that means a "walled garden" and proprietary apps become the norm. To me that isn't Linux, and certainly isn't Free Software. That being said, Canonical does need to meet its contractual agreements for people who have used their App Store as a distribution channel for their software, whatever their license of choice, and I can understand that from developers' point of view it can be a great way of increasing exposure.

It's about dependencies. As you know, Windows doesn't use this concept. So people can just download an installer. You can do that on Ubuntu as well, although it's a lot more work. This is one of the things we'd like to see fixed with snaps. However, I don't really see the problem of allowing people to download software from distro repos using a GUI application. There's nothing particularly walled about it. If you don't want to download from that particular store, then download from some other place. It's only a walled garden if you're not allowed to do so, which has never ever been an idea in Ubuntu.

[SystemCrasher]

I guess its rather Software Center itself what fails, not deb packages, etc. Software Center is really UNUSABLE on many PCs. Its python crap. Its so slow and resource hog that most users I know are afraid to launch it. Because it makes their computers slow. Sure, maybe it would be okay on 4GHz 8-core computer with 16Gb RAM. But most laptop users and many desktop users are really screwed by shitty performance of Software Center. It works so slowly users wish to throw an axe to their screens rather than purchase something. Really wrong user experience! If your PC starts swapping or you have to wait here and there - it's annoying like a hell.

First thing Canonical should do is to rewrite their slow and bloated python shit to something like Qt, using some adequate programming language. When you have such a crappy store app, good luck to sell anything at all.

[andre30correia]

I guess its rather Software Center itself what fails, not deb packages, etc. Software Center is really UNUSABLE on many PCs. Its python crap. Its so slow and resource hog that most users I know are afraid to launch it. Because it makes their computers slow. Sure, maybe it would be okay on 4GHz 8-core computer with 16Gb RAM. But most laptop users and many desktop users are really screwed by shitty performance of Software Center. It works so slowly users wish to throw an axe to their screens rather than purchase something. Really wrong user experience! If your PC starts swapping or you have to wait here and there - it's annoying like a hell.

First thing Canonical should do is to rewrite their slow and bloated python shit to something like Qt, using some adequate programming language. When you have such a crappy store app, good luck to sell anything at all.

slow? maybe is unusable in crappy netbooks or pcc, for that use lubuntu or xubuntu, canonical already have another store who works in phones and ubuntu-desktop-next. i have a i3 ulv and software center works well when i need, ofc if a guy have a old atom nothing works

[Cyber Killer]

The whole "issue" with this store idea is that rpm and deb packages are not meant to be universal. They are targeted/built against specific versions of other packages (dependencies). If you try to install a package meant for a different version, then it will most probably break. Hence with each new release, distros rebuild their whole package base, usually by some automated means.

Now this doesn't work with closed and commercial programs, cause their devs want to just make it once and forget about, just go and write something new. Without the sources, without maintenance such packages quickly become obsolete (even if they bundle their libraries, or do static builds, they won't work forever).

It's the same on windows and macos, but they have a much much slower release cycle. GNU/Linux distros get new versions sometimes even a couple of times a year, while the proprietary platforms stay static for 5 or more years, so it's less visible to the developers, and less hassle to update their software.

Ubuntu's problem here was that they apparently tried to do some of that maintenance for 3rd party devs manually (at least to keep compatibility) with each release, and the amount of work was overwhelming. They should have used something like SUSE's Open Build Service, to have the software build automatically for new releases and have each apps dev work on that new builds are working ok for their software.

Overall, GNU/Linux just moves too fast for the old proprietary closed source model to work. The commercial devs should either adapt, or just target the long term distro releases.

[madjr]

Snappy packages FTW!

[Pecisk]

It sounds perfect case for applications delivered trough Snappy format. I am loving deb format, but it suits for very strict package/repository format. It is hard to deliver commercial applications that way - although if I pay extra I usually get them. RedHat also plays around with similar ideas. As long as spec is clean and jails truly works and application is confined, they should move to this format ASAP.

As for Software Center itself - it is usable, but yes, rewrite of it and making it considerably lighter would benefit everyone.