Why do 'developers' always insist on 'fixing' that which was

[fireExit]

Change for the sake of change? Probably.

Here's one perfect example:

In Debian 7 Synaptic has a quick search box on the toolbar. Quick and easy.


But, in Debian 8, the quick search box is gone, replaced by a button, doubling the effort to get to search.


Why?

Code: Select all

#apt install apt-xapian-index

open synaptic now.

[NFT5]

Thanks fireExit. Can't whinge about that one any more.

My point remains, though. Why change it?

[dasein]

Thanks fireExit. Can't whinge about that one any more.

Oh yes you can. And you should.

My point remains, though. Why change it?

Exactly.

A(ny) UI change has to be able to justify its own existence, in terms of reducing either time-on-task or error rate. A(ny) change that can't do that does not qualify as an improvement. At best, it's gratuitous, and therefore a waste of developer resources.

[Roel63]

My point remains, though. Why change it?

Maybe because the search through the button has better results than the quick search box?

I used to have this experience in my Ubuntu era (so pre-2008) where I found that the quick search box worked quite crappy whereas the button search actually found things. Not sure if Synaptic in Debian had the same issues, because in that case I understand the change.

[thanatos_incarnate]

I think there are several things here that, while vaguely related, should be treated separately:

1. A genuine and (relatively) objectively justified need for a new code base that will make progress/maintenance easier.

2. A change that favours new paradigms that will be liked by a "newer generation" and disliked by others who have
a working paradigm they don't want to give up.

3. A change for change's sake which no one asked for, usually just of an aesthetic or trendy nature.

I think that in FOSS we mostly discuss the really large projects and they will have individual components which will
adhere to all of these categories. Hence I don't like the example of a massive conversion such as KDE4 to 5 as a
justification for a futile change. While that may be true in some cases, it's also great to see
-the better support for Wayland and more recent Xorg hacks which make the DE depend less on deprecated and unmaintained
technology
-the split and reduction of KDE backend functionality to individual pieces, so that we don't have to pull in
a myriad of dependencies just to run a programme on another DE
(and thinking of how I don't like what GTK3 is becoming, I'm looking forward to a time when running LxQt
with individual KDE programmes will be the lean option )

Same goes for the KDE3 to 4 conversion. Most people criticise the whole endeavour, but actually just mean the
UX/UI changes, the borked file search or Kmail, but this massive conversion surely had a lot of good benefits, like
a more modern desktop with better theming capabilities and font display.

I guess it boils down to what target group one belongs to, but in our pain over the loss/lack of support of something
we find to be a great computing experience, we tend to project the frustration onto the entire very complex phenomenon.

[thanatos_incarnate]

BTW, siggen doesn't work with my setup either, but I have PulseAudio.
Maybe that's the problem? PulseAudio snuck in with some desktop as dependency
during upgrade?

[tomazzi]

BTW, siggen doesn't work with my setup either, but I have PulseAudio.
Maybe that's the problem? PulseAudio snuck in with some desktop as dependency
during upgrade?

I must admit that pulseaudio project indeed have solved some problems with audio on linux, but - it have created many problems not existing before as well, f.e. it causes problems with older applications, which are using alsa mixer.

Moreover, *ALL* the software which was created to monitor/customize pulseaudio is a complete crap. Even such a trivial problem like displaying active audio device/stream name have not been solved for years, i.e: It's completely normal to have a window with a 1000-chars-width name of a pulseaudio device.

This is both an effect of a stupid naming convention settled by the pulseaudio *and* low level of skills represented by programmers who are writing the equalizers, volume meters, etc.

Usually *somehow* it works - but it's rather a matter of luck, not a matter of a rock solid solutions...

Anyway, all I want to say is:
Linux based systems are really great, but unfortunately, the linux world has been polluted by semi-working solutions created by companies which are trying to dominate the market. Linux is no longer a philosophy - it's a market. Linux have replaced winblows in most of use cases, but at the same time it has becomed a target for greedy, but stupid companies - and in turn, excluding that 2% of people who can built it from the source, it is starting to become a winblows. It's already visible: Android: a linux based system with a completely locked down interface...

Regards.

PS:
Dasein have already expressed what I think about developing a *new*, but completely impractical interfaces...

[Starborn]

Oooo! (furious hand-waving)... I know this one!!

Because they imagine that they are just so much smarter than everyone who came before them (*cough*systemd*cough*).

Or because they have too much time on their hands :rolleyes: (And I am not thinking of Linux Devs in particular here.)

[golinux]

@Starborn . . .Maybe they only want to justify a paycheck. Shiny new s*** is the bedrock of the economic machine and consumers fall for it every time.

[s2pido]

synaptic package manager will suppress display of toolbar searchbox if apt-xapian-index is not installed.
This is not a new feature, and the synaptic developer(s) shouldn't be blamed for "fixing that which was".

stretch...wheezy, from memory the debian package maintainer(s) for synaptic have consistently marked apt-xapian-index as a "recommend".
To do otherwise (mark it as a hard dependency) would defeat the flexibility intended by synaptic author(s).

In saying (or whining) "something has changed"... are you certain you're comparing apples to apples?
By that I mean, some debian-derived distros ship apt-xapian-index pre-installed, others do not.
Further, with an eye toward striving to produce a liveboot iso which will "fit on CD", distroX may omit apt-xapian-index from releaseY...
and may include it in a future release if its inclusion fits within the targeted CD-sized iso.
Even if you are certain (e.g. puredebian7xfce vs puredebian8xfce), "yeah, exact same flavor"...

are you describing behavior (due to apt-xapian-index omission) noticed during liveboot?
I haven't checked the stock debian8 liveboot, but have noticed that many derivatives (cleverly) choose to omit apt-xapian-index from live-build, but followup, within installer, adding apt-xapian-index. The size of the xapian database searchindex file is multiple megabytes -- arguably adding unwelcome bloat to the iso and/or to users' live-persistence savefile.

Another consideration: the release manager(s) of a given "flavor" might now/recently choose to omit apt-xapian-index due to gtk2/gtk3 theming problems.
I've encountered several themes which render poor-contrast (or "invisible", e.g. beige on beige) text within the synaptic toolbar searchbox.

Back in "debian squeeze" days, I considered filing a synaptic bug ticket to request:
an additional synaptic first-run dialog box, conditionally displayed in the absence of apt-xapian-index, would be helpful toward coaching users.
Nowadays, in the midst of what feels like roll-of-the-dice theming compatibility, another potential ticket:
modify the synaptic searchbox gui element to ignore theming colors, or to at least hint the theming engine to render a high-contrast text/background

[RoyFokker]

Also, Debian loves to brag about how it has 20,000 packages, but how many of those 20,000 packages stopped working years ago?

FOSS cultists are held hostage by what FOSS cultists decided on years and decades ago that is why and if they think independently they will be shunned by FOSS cultists and flamed. The issue is that Debian and most other linux distributions refuse to distinguish between the profiles of the common users: home desktop users and corporations who want servers and enterprise workstations. For example whoever is running a headless server without X windows, maybe it is a good idea to run a few years out-date software, but probably not a half-decade old or older though like Debian stable prefers. But why include in debian-stable stuff like youtube-downloader, smtube(search and view youtube in a program without a web browser and view videos in programs like mplayer/mpv/vlc), subliminal(subtitle downloader)? It is just retarded or to use a better terminology the stupid way of the linux cultists. Old versions of such software will simply not work well or at all -- period, youtube constantly changes their api, so do subtitle sites. Server and enterprise users don't care about such programs being included, while home users who do are punished by having Youtube-dl constantly tell them it cannot download a file because the API changed years and years ago several times over.

So in the perverted linux eco-system you either have to deal with constant updates of all software, including system and kernel level stuff, which is bad for home users, or be hostage to desktop only, obsolete software trapped in a half-decade or more time warp, because herr-derr that is stability. Not to mention how many tens of thousands of man hours must be wasted in the linux circus to backport security updates and patches from obsolete userland software that has nothing to do with running a server and of course every major distro has their own teams of people wasting unimagineable time doing such patching.

I found this article via an excellent article about why the linux desktop sucks: https://itvision.altervista.org/why.lin ... -2017.html

Ignoring what Debian zealots say about stable software, this what they really push for:

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41085.html

Debian ships an operating system that prides itself on stability. The Debian definition of stability is a very specific one - rather than referring to how often the software crashes or misbehaves, it refers to how often the software changes behaviour. Debian is very reluctant to upgrade software that is part of a stable release, to the extent that developers will attempt to backport individual security fixes to the version they shipped rather than upgrading to a release that contains all those security fixes but also adds a new feature. The argument here is that the new release may also introduce new bugs, and Debian's users desire stability (in the "things don't change" sense) more than new features. ...

[Head_on_a_Stick]

why the linux desktop sucks

Hey, come on, be fair...

All operating systems suck!

It's just a case of choosing the one that sucks least for your particular use case

[Funkygoby]

be hostage to desktop only, obsolete software trapped in a half-decade or more time warp, because herr-derr that is stability.

Yes please. This is exactly what I desire.
And while you are at it make it 20 years of herr-derr would you.