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KDE Discover gets update to prevent you breaking your Linux system

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I must say, I appreciate the attention to make things not only simpler but less breakable lately. First we had APT being patched to stop users removing essential packages, now the KDE Discover software manager gets a similar upgrade.

Developer Nate Graham has written up another great "This week in KDE" blog post, going over changes and improvements coming to the next release of Plasma and the various applications. One small change really caught my eye though! Discover now has a new way to ensure you keep a working system, with an updated mechanism to detect important packages getting removed and give you a friendly warning on it free of too much technical jargon.

Picture Source - Nate Graham

Graham's comment underneath "Hopefully this is Linus-Sebastian-proof", heh. I hope many more application developers are looking at the way Discover and APT are evolving to ensure things are a bit more idiot-proof.

Another change to make things look a bit friendlier in Discover is that previously, if you had issues upgrading, it would instantly shove a load of technical details in your face. To normal consumers, that's clearly not going to do much to help and could probably scare them away. Now, instead, it will provide a very clear and friendly message, with the option to get more details to report the issue.

Picture Source - Nate Graham

Plenty more upgrades to Plasma are in the works too, like the newer KWin Overview effect gaining the ability to display search results from KRunner, which brings it another step closer to the GNOME Activities Overview feature, which I did always find thoroughly useful.

There's plenty more fixes in the full post.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: KDE, Misc, Open Source
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Glog78 Nov 21, 2021
Oh one more headline and view it without the ltt video -> "APT makes it harder to deinstall packages..."
Beamboom Nov 21, 2021
Quoting: Nocifer
Quoting: BeamboomThose who just want a consumer box to do their gaming on - why on earth should they install Linux to begin with?

For the same reasons they use Windows maybe, but without the added hurdles of e.g. license costs and telemetry spying?

Those added "hurdles" are nothing compared to the hurdles of subpar performances, limited multiplayer support and core titles that just won't run. Or the hurdles of custom configurations, additional launch parameters or manual corrections of config files in the install.

If your focal point is gaming - a machine to game on, that's the primary function - if you want to get the most out of your games then I guess this is another controversial claim but here goes:
If you just want to play Windows games, install Windows.

There are no rational technical reason to install Linux on your PC just to play Windows games, especially not if you're not even familiar with Linux. If you are a normal PC gamer with no tinker interests you should do what the vast majority already does: Use the OS all the games are built for.

Gaming on Linux is for those of us who use Linux for reasons outside of gaming.
Those reasons might well be of ethical/philosophical character, political character (anti-mainstream, anti-corporation, political statement), it doesn't need to be of technical character. But the majority of "regular" users do not share that political focus - they want a machine to game on.

Now, this is the point where of course the Steam Deck is interesting to introduce in this dialogue. How will that affect the game market? Too early to say for sure but it's already interesting things happening.

However, at the current state Windows gaming is best on Windows. And tbh I don't see that changing in quite a long time yet.


Last edited by Beamboom on 21 November 2021 at 1:32 pm UTC
tuubi Nov 21, 2021
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Quoting: Guest
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Samsai
Quoting: NociferWell, this change is actually all about completely preventing the package manager from uninstalling essential packages when told to do so, either explicitly or implicitly. What produced the error Linus faced was trying to install a misconfigured package combined with his/the system's failure to first update the package listings before he tried to install it; it's just that this misconfigured package ended up firing apt's "remove essential package" routine and from thereon there was nothing to prevent apt from doing exactly as ordered, beyond that one silly "fail-safe" (which shouldn't ever have been implemented in the first place).
I am aware of the scenario. Apt still retains the ability to uninstall essential packages and that counts as having the ability to explicitly order such a removal for me. The only difference is that now the fail-safe mechanism is stronger and will better dissuade users who don't actually know what they are doing.

I still disagree that the apt change was useful. The KDE Discover change, absolutely, but for apt people are still just going to follow something they found online to force modifications without fully understanding it. It's a knee-jerk reaction, and doesn't actually fix anything in my view.

So is your only argument against the tiny apt change that it happened too fast? You say it doesn't fix anything, but does it break anything either? Do you actually think the UX is worse now, instead of better?

People making a mountain out of a molehill, as is tradition.

I think it was a change that can potentially impact everyone, made without due consideration, all because a youtuber wanted more page views. If distros are going to start doing such things then it can't be a good road to go down, no matter what change is made.

And yes, the more I think on it, the worse the change is. As I wrote - anyone forcing things through by putting in a configuration override (which is almost certainly going to start to be recommended on random internet comments) now won't be warned of potential breakage.

Note that I'm not saying nothing should have been done, I'm instead saying that (in my view) the change wasn't an improvement and doesn't fix anything.

But no warnings were removed. The wishy-washy "You are about to do something potentially harmful." was changed into "Removing essential system-critical packages is not permitted. This might break the system." and the silly prompt was removed in favour of a flag. You'll still see the list of relevant packages and unmet dependencies.

You can easily check the relevant changes in their Gitlab. You're arguing against a strawman.
Holzkohlen Nov 21, 2021
Wow, some of you actually complain about Linux becoming more user-friendly. How have you not outgrown this edginess? I was like that as a teenager. I cringe hard thinking back on that time. Maybe you should try something more obscure than linux eh? Have you heard about the anti-mainstream super edgy OpenBSD? No apt nor discover you need to worry about. And I guarantee that Linus won't even consider using that ever. How does that sound?
Glog78 Nov 21, 2021
Quoting: HolzkohlenWow, some of you actually complain about Linux becoming more user-friendly. How have you not outgrown this edginess? I was like that as a teenager. I cringe hard thinking back on that time. Maybe you should try something more obscure than linux eh? Have you heard about the anti-mainstream super edgy OpenBSD? No apt nor discover you need to worry about. And I guarantee that Linus won't even consider using that ever. How does that sound?

I don't think it becomes more user-friendly with the idea of this change. Every package manager could throw a big red list on your face and say if you proceed you will remove the following packages... Big red and stopping any other input from taking over ... But instead some programmers decide what the user want or not want. That is not in the dna of linux , that is not why you want to use a linux. If you want this go to some of the wallet garden os'es which try to force their decissions on you now for years. Thanks alot for reading.
tuubi Nov 21, 2021
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Quoting: Guest
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: GuestI think it was a change that can potentially impact everyone, made without due consideration, all because a youtuber wanted more page views. If distros are going to start doing such things then it can't be a good road to go down, no matter what change is made.

And yes, the more I think on it, the worse the change is. As I wrote - anyone forcing things through by putting in a configuration override (which is almost certainly going to start to be recommended on random internet comments) now won't be warned of potential breakage.

Note that I'm not saying nothing should have been done, I'm instead saying that (in my view) the change wasn't an improvement and doesn't fix anything.

But no warnings were removed. The wishy-washy "You are about to do something potentially harmful." was changed into "Removing essential system-critical packages is not permitted. This might break the system." and the silly prompt was removed in favour of a flag. You'll still see the list of relevant packages and unmet dependencies.

You can easily check the relevant changes in their Gitlab. You're arguing against a strawman.

Am I though? Tell me you think internet comments aren't going to start recommending that flag be applied. So how does changing apt help here?

Are you really trying to tell me that I shouldn't be in favour of better changes, things that might actually improve the situation?

You said "anyone forcing things through [...] now won't be warned of potential breakage." which is clearly a misunderstanding on your part. You invented a problem and argued against it. That's a strawman.

And of course I'm not telling you what you should do or think. Personally I think this change does improve the situation, though admittedly not by much. Then again, there's not much of a problem to fix.
Anza Nov 21, 2021
Quoting: tuubiYou said "anyone forcing things through [...] now won't be warned of potential breakage." which is clearly a misunderstanding on your part. You invented a problem and argued against it. That's a strawman.

And of course I'm not telling you what you should do or think. Personally I think this change does improve the situation, though admittedly not by much. Then again, there's not much of a problem to fix.

I think there's two cases. Hopefully these clear things up a bit.

Case 1
User is blocked from doing harmful operation because user hasn't enabled the flag. User won't have any clue how to proceed as wording doesn't help in creating a bug report (this assumes that user is not able to go and fix the package).

Case 2
User has enabled the flag. If user reads the messages, it ends up in same situation than in the first case (If I remember correctly, APT might ask about proceeding before every installation). If user doesn't understand the output, user will proceed and hose the system or in best case give up.

Case 2 might be harder to fix. Though if APT still asks before proceeding, it might be as good enough for now at least. If somebody comes up with better solution, I would assume that it's possible to make bug report or pull request.
Glog78 Nov 21, 2021
Out of the box ->

"with great power comes great responsibility" ... if i am completly under control of my os (from the beginning to end ...) , it's my resposibility to know what i do. If i don't want to have this responsibility i need to give away power.

We should ask ourself do we want to give away power or do we want to handle the responsibility? For Windows / Mac OS / Android / ChromeOS some companies defined how much power you have and therefor how much responsibility. For Linux i guess we should make sure people understand that this is power and not a burden. Some distributions can ease this and take over responsibility , but in the end there is only so much you can do without removing power and freedom.

Some of us might think it's better to give others the responsibility. Many oldschool it people will feel totally uncomfortable , cause we had this vendor lockins. We are currently already going again into vendor lockins. A few of us might still remember IE being shit but the only way to browse the internet. A few of us might remember when all the messenger protocols weren't opensource and you could never use all the "features". A few of us might remember the time, when something as easy as doing a click on windows (multi monitor) was calculating modlines on linux ...

Some of us have gone throu all of this because we believed that the flexibility to make the system exactly how we wanted it to be and being free of vendor lockins was worth all the trouble we had. A few of those guys wrote tools and improved the situation by alot. Being able to plug and play most hardware has been a hell of a ride. (remembering when i needed to compile a fucking kernel during installation to get support for a gfx card -> waves at slackware)

Some of those people say --> be careful .. the most easy way out has been never the best way out and usually makes you do things multiple times.

I personally say -> I can live very well because people have not even a basic understanding how a pc or how tech works today. "Usability" has become an synonym in many cases for "just works". "Just works" has become an synonym for yeah easy to attack. Easy to attack has become a synonym for all the bad experience modern users have on tech. Stolen Data & Datamining , Maleware , identity stealing -> i guess everyone can add something to this list.

If you ever want to break this cycle people need to understand again what is happening on their pc. For me LTT was the worst showcase of why i look happy and unhappy in the future. Happy because damm i can live of that behaivior. Unhappy cause i don't want to know when again a company or a person has so much power over the people like for example microsoft had in the 90's.

I guess noone is against making usage of pc's easier, but i guess alot of people are against letting people use pc's who (added "maybe") should not. There is a reason why we do driving licences (to give just a hint of a comparable powerful device)


Last edited by Glog78 on 21 November 2021 at 2:49 pm UTC
Mblackwell Nov 21, 2021
Windows kind of trains people to just click "next".
Rooster Nov 21, 2021
Quoting: BeamboomIf you just want to play Windows games, install Windows.

No.
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