Quoting: berarma

Quoting: Purple Library GuyOh, come on. We know about this particular happening because it was a famous youtuber doing a live test session. Who knows how many trees fell in the forest but nobody was making a video of them?

But it was also a somewhat freak occurrence--the package failed in such a way that doing a perfectly normal command was going to cause this (if you were somewhat overconfident in your approach). That is not normal, but non-normal things happen and this one did. The package really was that way, this was acknowledged. What do you figure, Linus bribed the packagers or the Pop!OS people to screw up the package so it would cause that error?

If you're right, this would be a testament to people's double standards. If this happens to someone unknown then the answer is "next time you should read the warnings". When it happens to someone famous: "Oh, PopOS has a bug". Add to this that System76 seems to be building a reputation of blaming others for their faults, and then you have "Oops, APT has a bug". In this case they couldn't blame a famous youtuber that could make them look like shit in front of many potential users if he wanted.

Yeah, this was specifically a bug in PopOS' Steam package. Apt didn't have a bug. It acted exactly how it should have given the circumstances of a conflicting package and the user telling it to go ahead and do 'potentially harmful' things to their system.
The 'wall of text' was all of the packages being added and removed. That many changes and the warning should have prompted the user to READ what was about to happen. But as Linus likes to drop things, he dropped the ball and typed in the magic words to do harm to his system.

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Quoting: ObsidianBlk

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: AussieEevee

Quoting: slaapliedje2) Linus not being patient enough to read the warning.

Most newbie users aren't that patient, especially when it comes to walls of text.

The point is that apt should not have allowed him to break his system in the first place. That should not have happened, and the fault is 10% on that Steam package... and 90% on apt.

Apt is not a babysitter. It didn't even break his system. It was still working, it was just working in 'I have no Xorg anymore' mode. Which is a perfectly legitimate method of using Linux. :) It just was broken for what he was intending to do. It gave him ample warning that it was removing a bunch of crap. It's on the user to decide whether or not they want to remove all of that. He didn't even spend a second looking at it and just typed the 'yes, do as I say'. Also, has he seriously no clue that he shouldn't just copy / paste commands from random sites? That should be a known thing even for Windows users...

Would it have even been broken for what he was intending to do? It's been a loooong while since I even had to look, but wouldn't he have had XOrg back with a simple...
 
apt install xorg
That said... at the time, there still would have been Pop_OS!'s bug with the Steam package, so Linus still wouldn't have been able to get Steam (easily).

In all likelyhood his mistake was following instructions that skipped 'apt update' (he was even using apt-get which I have not used in years). But to bring his system back
 
sudo apt install pop-session
Likely would have been all he needed.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyA sidelight I found amusing: I gave a basic description of the whole Linus situation to my mother, and she observed that she would find it very tempting to be able to tell the computer "Do what I say!" :grin:

(My mother is an odd hybrid computers-wise; on one hand, she often has trouble dealing with modern computers and their interfaces, ordering stuff online and so on. On the other hand, back in the day she did programs with punch cards in fucking Fortran)

They should have just quoted Aliens in apt.
"You are about to nuke your GUI from orbit. Type, 'Hicks, please nuke from orbit.'"

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI really don't understand what all this argument is about. Like, there are people actively upset about it being more difficult for the attempt to install a package using apt to result in the system getting hosed. Like they're actively mad because in order to do that they will now have to check the apt man page or something and add a "let it hose my system" option when they do the command, instead of just typing "Do what I say" when apt tells them they're about to hose their system.
These are the same people who say nobody should be using the command line unless they have some idea what they're doing . . . which I would normally figure at a minimum would involve having given the man page a once-over before starting to use a command, which would mean those approved-of people would be in a position to know they needed to add "--let-it-hose-my-system" or whatever to the command if they want to let it hose their system, so the change isn't really a barrier.
These are also the same people who say Linus was an idiot to type "Do what I say" in the first place. So they're saying that the new fix isn't going to stop anyone, who isn't the kind of idiot they don't want using Linux, from doing anything, ever. And yet it's terrible.

Really, WTF?! This is incredibly silly, even if you're going to be a "Linux should only be for techies who want to learn by breakage" gatekeeper. There is no use case where a Linux techie learning how to use the system should have as their objective to make their system become headless by trying to install a wrongly packaged package. If you want to delete the GUI or some other important part of the system, there are various ways to do it and that isn't one of them. This isn't a case where you've got a command some people will want to use to do a certain kind of thing and it is now harder for them, this is literally a thing nobody should ever do and it is now harder for them, and this is a problem because . . . a good operating system should have a nice supply of gotchas, so the users get hair on their chests? What?!

Here is the way I look at it.
'Yes, do as I say' requires you copying that exact wording to proceed.
With them changing apt to except a --nuke-me option, some asshat will now put that in a wiki of 'how to do things on the command line' and someone will just copy and paste the command and nuke their system and say Linux sucks. Which is more or less already what Linus did, he copy / pasted a command, didn't read what the repercussions were, and just told it to 'do as I say'. The fact that apt has worked this way for at least a decade, and then someone comes along and ignores the warning then is shocked it nuked the GUI... I think points more to Linus being dangerous to himself and others, than it does Apt being broken.

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Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: Rooster

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: AussieEevee

Quoting: ObsidianBlkThose neon warning signs are there,

I think part of the problem was that there was no neon warning signs. The only warnings Linus got was an error from popshop that wasn't clear on what was happening... and a giant wall of text from apt.

That 'wall of text' ends with "you are about to remove essential packages, type exactly, 'Yes, I know what I'm doing' to continue."

Which is more than enough to say 'stop, you're about to do something horrendous to your system.' I have made many jokes before about not being able to do flashing red text in Confluence because of people not following the wiki... But really there are two things to blame here. 1) Linus being smart enough to be dangerous. 2) Linus not being patient enough to read the warning.

Since Linux distros wait for more users coming over from the Windows realm, package managers should expect users coming that have been trained to ignore most of the text that is beeing thrown at them during installation of software. For them it is almost unthinkable that the installation of a gaming software could uninstall parts of their OS.
So I think it's an improvement that such users now actively have to search for the command that can do harm, instead of being able to use it by just ignoring something.
I would love the error message being clickable (depending on the kind of error of course), linking the user to a site where he/she can read about and report problems and solutions with the package that led to the error.

I say there are 2 issues here:
The first one 100% apt/Pop OS fault and that is that this should NEVER have happened during simple package installation, even if done from terminal.

But.. as anyone who worked with computers for a long time knows.. One of those things that should NEVER happen will eventually happen. Doesn't matter if you are on Linux, Mac or Windows. Which brings me to the second issue.

The second issue is 50% user fault and 50% Windows fault for training its users to be dumb and not read Warnings (yes even if it's a simple installation of package, user should be expected to read Warnings and Errors).

So instead of package managers having to expect that their users will not read Warnings (which imo is ridiculous), I would say that the distros aimed at new users like Mint and Pop should include a message when running the Terminal (with the option to disable the message for future) that the Terminal is a high level tool and the user is expected to read and understand potential Warnings.

In my opinion the ridiculous part here is that you need to have superuser rights to install a simple application.
There are people out there, who are something in between new users and geeks. They are people that want to use computers in a secure, private way. They don't want to mess with their OS more than nessessary. Most of them are now on Windows or Mac and not on Linux, for a reason..
I think distros like Mint and Pop are not primarily aimed at new users, but at those people, new users or not. And since Mint and Pop (and ...) don't stand in the way of more advanced users, they're good for those too.
So the question is: Do they find a way to welcome the users they're aimed at, without giving up certain principles?

You absolutely still have to have superuser rights to install Windows / Mac software too. Flatpak / Appimage / Snaps are different in this regard. While there are methods in Windows and Mac that software distributors can use to not require admin access, most of them don't bother. You still have a prompt that requires admin access to get past.

I don't know why it's ridiculous to expect people to know how to read... If you start up the terminal with 'OMG don't touch this unless you know what you're doing!!' do you think anyone would ever attempt to try playing with the terminal and learning something?

Oh right... That way around: On Windows most people do everything with an Admin account. Well that's stupid..
And no I never said "it's ridiculous to expect people to know how to read". I said they're trained to ignore. And maybe because they're not nuking the system all the time...
Thats why I think it's a good idea to make it impossible to destroy your system without having to read (or know).

People have been trained to hit next or allow or scroll down to do the same. On the other hand, no one has been trained to type 'Yes, do as I say' Linus should have paused for a moment to look at 'Why is this asking me a full sentence?'

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Philadelphus(And personally, I've yet to break my system in 7 years of using Linux and that's one "learning experience" I'm happy to continue avoiding.)

There is a saying: The fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

But I mean... to truly remember something, you need to bleed a little. Like I certainly won't try to force my blinds on my back sliding glass door again after I cut myself on the sharp metal...

Then again, I also believe you don't truly own your computer until you've bled inside it :P

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: TheSHEEEPDid Valve develop or market that game? No. They host its data and provide some (good) service around it

They provide quite a lot of marketing, actually. But it's simple: if you don't feel that Steam provides sufficient value, don't put your game on Steam. If all you want is packaging and distribution, use Itch; they are amazing at that.

I really want to agree there....except that it's not so simple for smaller developers. The marketshare is skewed to Steam, and those developers will need to put their games on Steam to stay afloat. That's the problem with lack of a good competitor to Steam (itch serves a different demographic).

Valve don't really provide marketing (at least, I don't think they mention anywhere that they do, making discussions on taking a cut for it immaterial) - if you can get in with their algorithms you have a shot, but from what I hear that's pretty hard to do. More sales come through marketing/news/info on external sites, just to have a chance of sticking out from the crowd.

Funny thing is, I would use itch.io if they would package it.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: AussieEevee

Quoting: ObsidianBlkThose neon warning signs are there,

I think part of the problem was that there was no neon warning signs. The only warnings Linus got was an error from popshop that wasn't clear on what was happening... and a giant wall of text from apt.

That 'wall of text' ends with "you are about to remove essential packages, type exactly, 'Yes, I know what I'm doing' to continue."

I'm not sure what side I end up on in this, but I'd like to note that is not how it goes. The wall of text ends with "you are about to do something potentially harmful. To continue, type in the phrase". The mention of essential packages is eleven lines up from that part.

"Potentially harmful" doesn't really sound that bad. It also sounds vague, like the kind of message you get when the computer doesn't really know just what you're doing or whether it's actually going to do anything important, but is just putting in the boilerplate because the command generally has the potential to do serious things. Especially if you come from the Windows world, where I think the OS bitches every time you do anything other than browse the web with Microsoft Edge . . .

Ha, yeah I misquoted it as I was typing on my phone.

It's accurate to say potentially harmful, as the system is still perfectly fine without Xorg.. just not for his requirements of having a desktop / playing games. :P

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Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: LinasIt's easy to judge the 30% cut as "too much", but maintaining all the infrastructure is not free.

I actually work in this field and no, it isn't free. But you don't need 30% for that. Not even remotely.
15% would be much closer to cover maintenance and still have a small profit.

Quoting: LinasAlso Valve is financing a lot of development work in the Linux world: Mesa, Proton, kernel drivers, etc., which benefits people who don't even use Steam.

This is not an argument about if they are making good use of their income, I'd say they do.
It's an argument about if developers should be the ones to pay for all of Valve's extracurricular efforts.

As a developer, if I sell something on a storefront, I'm fine paying the maintenance cost of what I actually use and a bit extra for the storefront's profit - but anything beyond that I'd not be okay with.

Quoting: rustybroomhandleIt's perfectly fine to like or dislike the 30%, but imo there's no legal grounds to sue over it.

That's probably true.
As long as most are willing to pay the cut, it won't change.

Imagine if they charged like AWS does, based on bandwidth used. Popular games would skyrocket in price. But at least maybe we'd stop having games that were 100GB in size...

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Quoting: AussieEevee

Quoting: Glog78The command line and everything outside of officially provided packages (including protontricks / proton-ge and many more tools) are not newbie friendly and shouldn't be adviced to newbies if we want to be really newbie friendly.

This has actually been one of my biggest arguing points when talking to other Linux people. Stop recommending the command line to new users. If someone is inexperienced, can we PLEASE find a way to do it in the gui for them?

Quoting: GuestI think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. Which is fine.

On which part? That it was easy to bypass the pop shop? Or that he's familiar with tech?

If the latter, he has managed to drop virtually every hardware component in existence, if that counts...

The problem with GUI is that it changes much quicker over time. Windows 10 is a perfect example of this. Look up some solution on how to change a setting in Windows 10... good luck as if it's older than 6 months, than it's a good possibility that setting has been moved to some other area, so you have to keep looking.

Command line on the other hand takes a LONG time to change, and usually it's additions of more options, the options themselves don't change.

What Linus experienced was the 'perfect storm' of installing Pop, not running apt update (which whatever post he was looking at SHOULD have told him to do) and then just ignoring the warning. If he'd upgraded pop first after an install, it likely would not have happened the way it did.

That's ONE advantage yum/dnf has over apt. It just has 'update' and it updates the cache and packages. Though there is a down side to that as it takes much longer to upgrade too. I kind of prefer the separate command, as you don't always need to update the package list (once per day is usually enough).

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