A new package software-o-o-launcher (just a desktop shortcut for software-o-o)
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. 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. We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME. ps. Scope of this change is to create a launcher and build awareness of the service for new users. If you have particular request/bug against sofware-o-o as a service, please open reuqest in https://github.com/openSUSE/software-o-o/issues Cheers! Best regards Lubos Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 07:22:23PM +0000, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME.
How about: "More software ...." "Extra software ..." "Super software ..." "Fresh software ..." "Libre software ..."[1] "Free software ...."[1] "Fun software ....." "Fab software ....." "Additional soft..." Or maybe just use Plasma? ;-) Daniel [1] might not be Libre/Free, and the user might not be sure about those terms
On Thu, 2023-10-26 at 20:56 +0100, Daniel Morris via openSUSE Factory wrote:
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 07:22:23PM +0000, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME.
How about:
"More software ...." "Extra software ..." "Super software ..." "Fresh software ..." "Libre software ..."[1] "Free software ...."[1] "Fun software ....." "Fab software ....." "Additional soft..."
Or maybe just use Plasma? ;-)
I'm bit confused? Plasma is part of Leap 15.X Anything that suggest it is sw outside of standard distro and fits in 12 characters :-D
Daniel
[1] might not be Libre/Free, and the user might not be sure about those terms
Dne čtvrtek 26. října 2023 21:56:27 CEST, Daniel Morris via openSUSE Factory napsal(a):
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 07:22:23PM +0000, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME.
How about: "More software ...." "Extra software ..."
^^^ Yes.
"Super software ..." "Fresh software ..." "Libre software ..."[1] "Free software ...."[1] "Fun software ....." "Fab software ....." "Additional soft..."
These no. User wants to install the package. These names are for geeks. -- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/ Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/
Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory composed on 2023-10-26 19:22 (UTC):
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. ... We can work out better icon or title later.
Are mobile phone users among these new users? They're all familiar with app stores in which apps are free and easy to install. Thus, simply "App Store" or "Leap App Store" or maybe preceded by mascot icon instead of spelling out openSUSE or Tumbleweed. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata
On Thu, 2023-10-26 at 16:40 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory composed on 2023-10-26 19:22 (UTC):
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. ... We can work out better icon or title later.
Are mobile phone users among these new users? They're all familiar with app stores in which apps are free and easy to install. Thus, simply "App Store" or "Leap App Store" or maybe preceded by mascot icon instead of spelling out openSUSE or Tumbleweed. Not Tumbleweed specifically, I mean don't try to guess what user is about to install. Could be leap 15.5 package from some home project on top of Leap 15.6, then the description is not really valid.
Extra/Additional whatever flots the boat faster / better / harder is welcome!
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
-- Simon Lees (Simotek) http://simotek.net Emergency Update Team keybase.io/simotek SUSE Linux Adelaide Australia, UTC+10:30 GPG Fingerprint: 5B87 DB9D 88DC F606 E489 CEC5 0922 C246 02F0 014B
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 12:11 +1030, Simon Lees wrote:
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.
I agree with everything you say about software.o.o being confusing and hard to use correctly. I also agree that the current issues with s.o.o should be fixed before basing a new launcher on it. Yet it's the most obvious way to search for packages that aren't directly available from standard repos. E.g. leap users can see whether a certain package they are missing is available for tumbleweed. Or they can search in devel and home repos for missing packages and/or newer versions. This is much easier than trying to search OBS, and more obvious for novice users than using an inofficial tool like opi. Regards Martin
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 11:54 AM Martin Wilck via openSUSE Factory <factory@lists.opensuse.org> wrote:
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 12:11 +1030, Simon Lees wrote:
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.
I agree with everything you say about software.o.o being confusing and hard to use correctly. I also agree that the current issues with s.o.o should be fixed before basing a new launcher on it.
Yet it's the most obvious way to search for packages that aren't directly available from standard repos. E.g. leap users can see whether a certain package they are missing is available for tumbleweed. Or they can search in devel and home repos for missing packages and/or newer versions. This is much easier than trying to search OBS, and more obvious for novice users than using an inofficial tool like opi.
What exactly makes s.o.o more "official" than opi? Both come from the same github project - openSUSE. At least, opi seems to actually work and supports more than just OBS (e.g. Packman). On forums established opinion is - do not use s.o.o, use YaST/zypper or opi.
On 2023-10-27 11:07, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
On forums established opinion is - do not use s.o.o, use YaST/zypper or opi.
That's a good opinion. But it's also worth considering that opi is still effectively no better than downloading random .exe files on a Windows machine The only repositories that have sufficient reviews, checks, testing, etc for people to be able to expect to use them reliably are the official ones. -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 12:07 +0300, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
What exactly makes s.o.o more "official" than opi? Both come from the same github project - openSUSE. At least, opi seems to actually work and supports more than just OBS (e.g. Packman).
That's fine if you know about opi. If you don't, you would probably search the web and sooner or later find software.opensuse.org, which has an official look and is hosted on the same domain as the opensuse.org home page and the wiki. Also, users coming e.g. from Ubuntu would rightfully expect something like packages.unbuntu.com to exist for openSUSE, and s.o.o comes closest to that. opi, OTOH, is a rather hidden gem, no matter how popular it is on the forum and on the mailing list. AFAICS, no existing pattern pulls it in. Users must explicitly select it for installation, and it's unlikely that users who aren't already familiar with the openSUSE project will find it by its name :-)
On forums established opinion is - do not use s.o.o, use YaST/zypper or opi.
Yes, and that's because of the known issues that s.o.o has. In the past, s.o.o was very useful. IIUC, the problems started with "closing the leap gap" and the resulting complex repo setup that s.o.o can't handle. My personal opion is that it's more important to fix these issues than pushing forward new tools. And yes, I believe that at this time in the 21st century, a serious Linux distro needs a good Web-based tool for searching software packages. Thanks Martin
On 2023-10-27 10:54, Martin Wilck via openSUSE Factory wrote:
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 12:11 +1030, Simon Lees wrote:
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.
I agree with everything you say about software.o.o being confusing and hard to use correctly. I also agree that the current issues with s.o.o should be fixed before basing a new launcher on it.
Yet it's the most obvious way to search for packages that aren't directly available from standard repos. E.g. leap users can see whether a certain package they are missing is available for tumbleweed. Or they can search in devel and home repos for missing packages and/or newer versions. This is much easier than trying to search OBS, and more obvious for novice users than using an inofficial tool like opi.
I also agree with Simon and Martin. I think it's a mistake to push software that is known to have issues using a delivery mechanism that is known to have issues. I'd much rather see a lot more software that currently only lingers in unofficial OBS projects make their way into our official distributions (especially Tumbleweed) -- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich
Hey, On 27.10.23 03:41, Simon Lees wrote:
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.
Before we do that, have we fixed the significant usability issues that have been present in the past?
Not yet but Hack Week is around the corner and I might be able to kill that cat finally... https://hackweek.opensuse.org/23/projects/extend-repomd-parser-with-appstrea... and https://github.com/openSUSE/software-o-o/pull/1229# Stay tuned :-) Henne -- Henne Vogelsang http://www.opensuse.org Everybody has a plan, until they get hit. - Mike Tyson
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 17:13 +0200, Henne Vogelsang wrote:
Before we do that, have we fixed the significant usability issues that have been present in the past?
Not yet but Hack Week is around the corner and I might be able to kill that cat finally...
https://hackweek.opensuse.org/23/projects/extend-repomd-parser-with-appstrea...
and
https://github.com/openSUSE/software-o-o/pull/1229#
Stay tuned :-)
Great news, thanks! Martin
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 10:23 PM Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory <factory@lists.opensuse.org> 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.
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.
Really? The s.o.o is broken, it does not find software for Leap starting with 15.3 and when installing it adds non-existing repositories that cause errors every time a user is using zypper/YaST. This has been known for years and nothing was done to fix it. Not long ago there was intention to decommission s.o.o completely. I fail to see how endorsing s.o.o without fixing it is going to contribute to the better user experience.
We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the
Oh, sure. This is the only problem left.
length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME.
ps. Scope of this change is to create a launcher and build awareness of the service for new users. If you have particular request/bug against sofware-o-o as a service, please open reuqest in https://github.com/openSUSE/software-o-o/issues
Cheers!
Best regards
Lubos Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 09:42 +0300, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 10:23 PM Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory <factory@lists.opensuse.org> 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.
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.
Really? The s.o.o is broken, it does not find software for Leap starting with 15.3 and when installing it adds non-existing repositories that cause errors every time a user is using zypper/YaST. This has been known for years and nothing was done to fix it. Not long ago there was intention to decommission s.o.o completely. I fail to see how endorsing s.o.o without fixing it is going to contribute to the better user experience.
Keep in mind that the problem is that people can't find packages from outside of distro. Nobody is going to lookup e.g. "zsh" on software-o-o
We can work out better icon or title later. I'm super unhappy about the
Oh, sure. This is the only problem left.
length of the title restriction displayed in GNOME. The best "meaningful" text to be displayed was "Additional soft..." rest was shortened by GNOME.
ps. Scope of this change is to create a launcher and build awareness of the service for new users. If you have particular request/bug against sofware-o-o as a service, please open reuqest in https://github.com/openSUSE/software-o-o/issues
Cheers!
Best regards
Lubos Kocman openSUSE Leap Release Manager
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 2:33 PM Lubos Kocman <lubos.kocman@suse.com> wrote:
Keep in mind that the problem is that people can't find packages from outside of distro. Nobody is going to lookup e.g. "zsh" on software-o-o
You are mistaken. The s.o.o is the very first thing where many users look for a package. Just search forums for "there was no package for Leap so I ...". Besides, to use zypper to search for packages one has to install openSUSE first. But people quite often look at whether distribution provides what they need before making a decision. If they cannot find packages, they will not install this distribution, it is as simple as that.
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 15:05 +0300, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 2:33 PM Lubos Kocman <lubos.kocman@suse.com> wrote:
Keep in mind that the problem is that people can't find packages from outside of distro. Nobody is going to lookup e.g. "zsh" on software-o-o
You are mistaken. The s.o.o is the very first thing where many users look for a package. Just search forums for "there was no package for Leap so I ...".
That is quite interesting information. I would not expect that. We do not really advertise that service anywhere. Yes I am aware of issues with Leap post CtLG.
Besides, to use zypper to search for packages one has to install openSUSE first. But people quite often look at whether distribution provides what they need before making a decision. If they cannot find packages, they will not install this distribution, it is as simple as that.
You can also use yast-packager as an alternative (but again works only for packages in enabled repos). Which was my guess for new openSUSE user looking for package which is availble in distro.
Hello, On 2023-10-27 14:51, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 15:05 +0300, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
On Fri, Oct 27, 2023 at 2:33 PM Lubos Kocman <lubos.kocman@suse.com> ... You are mistaken. The s.o.o is the very first thing where many users look for a package. Just search forums for "there was no package for Leap so I ...". ... Besides, to use zypper to search for packages one has to install openSUSE first. But people quite often look at whether distribution provides what they need before making a decision. If they cannot find packages, they will not install this distribution, it is as simple as that.
You can also use yast-packager as an alternative (but again works only for packages in enabled repos). Which was my guess for new openSUSE user looking for package which is availble in distro.
Doesn't "use yast-packager" contradict what Andrei Borzenkov wrote that may use 's.o.o' to decide if they may ever install openSUSE? Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Frankenstr. 146 - 90461 Nuernberg - Germany GF: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich (HRB 36809, AG Nuernberg)
On Fri, 2023-10-27 at 12:51 +0000, Lubos Kocman via openSUSE Factory wrote:
You are mistaken. The s.o.o is the very first thing where many users look for a package. Just search forums for "there was no package for Leap so I ...".
That is quite interesting information. I would not expect that. We do not really advertise that service anywhere.
IIUC that's because we know it's broken, right? If it was fixed, we could start advertising it again ;-) As I wrote elsewhere, I think we need a functional web-based package search tool. This is what people rightfully expect. No command line or GUI tool that comes with the distro itself can fill this gap. And that tool should be accessible via software.opensuse.org, because that's the URL that's well known all over the web. Thanks Martin
participants (10)
-
Andrei Borzenkov -
Daniel Morris -
Felix Miata -
Henne Vogelsang -
Johannes Meixner -
Lubos Kocman -
Martin Wilck -
Richard Brown -
Simon Lees -
Vojtěch Zeisek