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Ximian Desktop Installer, Red Carpet, and MonkeyTalk

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the making-things-friendly dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "Long-time Linux users forget what it is like to try to install something for the first time. Ximian has done a nice job writing scripts to hide the inner workings of a Gnome installation. TuxReports has snapshots of the Ximian installer. Do you believe that all Linux distributions should use such a friendly series of dialog boxes in order to attract more users to Linux?" Update: 07/14 21:13 GMT by M : Tuxreports has provided a non-PHP page for us to link to... whoops. Sorry about that.

3 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Making it easier.. by iONiUM · · Score: 1, Troll

    Isn't that just trying to make the interface easier to use? I believe then you're attempting to compete (in the -COMMON- market) with OSX, and Windows.
    In my opinion, that's not what linux is about. It's an incredible server solution, and a desktop solution for those with enough knowledge to know how to use it. Making it install easier won't help them learn make, .confs or anything, and they'll be just as lost when trying to make and install some program that doesn't have a nice install.
    Linux is great, don't get me wrong, but it's not for the common user, it was never meant to be I don't think. It's much more of a "geek" OS... easier installs would be nice though, but I don't think they'll attract a huge amount of new users to it..

  2. pussies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You bunch of fscking pussies ...until you've edited your XF86config file by hand, you don't know what living is!

  3. Ximian are lamers by Chris+Z.+Wintrowski · · Score: 0, Troll
    >Do you believe that all Linux distributions should use such a friendly
    >series of dialog boxes in order to attract more users to Linux?

    No, but I believe that any company willing to
    create such a series of dialog boxes for the
    installation of their product should do so such
    that they work across all Linux distributions,
    instead of making them dependent on software like
    RPM that is not distro-universal.

    The fact that Ximian's installer is still dependent
    on RPM shows how lame Ximian really are. What sort
    of company puts together a product and unnecessarily
    restricts the installer to one particular package
    system thereby immediately cutting off important
    Linux distros like Slackware, all of the *BSDs,
    and any other un*x not running RPM?

    If the people at Ximian would actually pull their
    hands out of their asses and write a proper
    installer, then maybe their product would be
    worth considering.

    --
    - Chris Z. Wintrowski -
    [ Site ]