On 10/27/23 05:52, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
Hello openSUSE!
I had an action item to come up with a quick desktop launcher for software.opensuse.org. I did go minimal with simple-xdg open and a custom icon as per advice of DimStar.
The launcher is called software-o-o-launcher. I'd like to propose to have it pre-installed on every new desktop installation.
Before we do that, have we fixed the significant usability issues that have been present in the past? It seems not, for example taking enlightenment as a dumb example (because it is already in the repos), Currently it lists nothing for openSUSE Leap 15.5 because the repo uses the name 15.5, similarly for tumbleweed it struggles to understand that sometimes we still use openSUSE_Factory, sometimes we use openSUSE_Tumbleweed and occasionally we even use standard. The second major issue is users being able to update there packages without accidentally pulling in other packages from that repo. zypper defaulting to --no-vendor-change has helped but sometimes it still happens via dependencies which causes a whole world of issues that i've seen in support channels.
It was initially submitted to X11:Utilities (next to opensuse-welcome, which server similar purpose). https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/1120637
software-o-o launcher (see the screenshot link above) shows up after typing "software" in your desktop of choice. Which is what I hope will raise awareness of software-o-o.
Screenshot: https://ibb.co/b1c2qZs
Let me tell you the story behind the "effort".
A user wants to install a software which is not available in distribution. User is not aware of our lovely software.opensuse.org portal nor OBS.
The first natural reaction is to start asking on a local forum "How do I install x.y.z in openSUSE". This happened to me recently, package was in a devel project in OBS. I pointed user to the portal, done.
We don't really have any pointers to the service from within the distribution. I hope that this will "improve" the situation and will contribute to the better first-time user experience.
This has always been because the quality of software.opensuse.org has never really met the standards we have aimed to set as a distro. Newer users that do find it regularly end up in our support channels with a range of weird issues that sometimes lead to them needing to do complete re installs. Really there should be nothing installable from software.o.o that can't be included in the distro directly which provides a far better user experience and if we don't have stuff in the distro maybe the better answer for new users is to Install a flatpak or a simple sorry we don't have that available currently rather then pointing them toward a service with a high potential to break there system if they don't have a really good understanding of what they are doing. But if this package makes life easier for people already using software.o.o having it available for them makes sense but i'd be hesitant to add it as a distro default until the other issues are resolved.
Cheers!
Best regards
Lubos Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager
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