System76 patches APT for Pop!_OS to prevent users breaking their systems

Quote"For some reason, an i386 version of a package was never published on Launchpad. Steam being an i386 package, when trying to install it, it had to downgrade that package to the Ubuntu version to resolve dependencies, which removed Pop!_OS packages.".

One thing System76 has now done to prevent such almighty breakage in future, is to patch APT (the package manager), in Pop to prevent users being able to see the "Yes, do as I say!" prompt by default.

I wonder how this is a solution to the problem though, the installer script for steam should automatically enable 32-bit support, and perform a system update before attempting to install steam.
Now you'll have users getting more confused even after they managed to find their way into the terminal.
Apt has had the problem of being of little to no support in case something goes wrong, for years now.

"Package x depends on package Y, but it is not going to be installed..."
"You have held broken packages..."

I'm sure many of us have encountered these before and sometimes gave up on entire distro's because of things like this.

Quoting: AsciiWolfSadly, many of the Ubuntu packages are bad because they are outdated a broken

Examples?? Cos I've been using Ubuntu and its derivatives for decades and I have no idea what you're referring to here.

Quoting: scaineI use multi-monitor Windows at my work and while you're probably not exaggerating your frustration at the Linux situation, I think you're painting a far rosier picture of Windows multi-monitor support than I experience. Windows frequently open on the wrong monitor. My biggest annoyance is having my windows on the big monitor, unplugging for a meeting, and discovering that one or two of the windows are simply gone. I can see them on the taskbar, but they're obviously still on some invisible second monitor that doesn't exist now. Only option is to kill them and re-open.

When you plug that second monitor back in too - nothing moves back to where it should be. This is a pain on Linux too, even if you fix all the other multi-monitor woes there... but apparently KDE has some functionality coming down the line that will address this. I hate having to drag four windows back to the big screen every time I sit back down at my desk.

Scaling is quirky too, given that my external monitor at work is 4K, but the laptop screen is 1080p. And don't get me started on the screen tear on the 4K monitor.

I guess multi-monitor is hard, because I've never had a very positive experience of it, on any O/S. I avoid it whenever I can.

Being a mechanical designer on a multi-monitor CAD workstation, I have a similar experience. I even had weird issues where the second monitor wouldn't be detected. Had to do the hard reset trick (reboot twice during startup, with the power switch) to return Windows' display settings to factory default and reconfigure from scratch. It seems that it's better than Linux, but Windows is not a multi-monitor paradise either, in my experience.

Edit: On Windows, once you get the setup right, don't blow too hard on it, it's going to crumble.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 11 November 2021 at 1:42 pm UTC

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: AsciiWolfSadly, many of the Ubuntu packages are bad because they are outdated a broken

Examples?? Cos I've been using Ubuntu and its derivatives for decades and I have no idea what you're referring to here.

Steam, for example. There were many problems with that package, I helped solve some of them (in collaboration with other Ubuntu community volunteers), but it was really pain in the arse and the package is still regularly broken and outdated. And there are many more examples, just search for random packages in Ubuntu 20.04 universe repo and look when they were last updated.

Also, take a look at how many of these packages have an actual maintainer in Ubuntu instead of just being synced from Debian, without any testing, fixes and updates.


Last edited by AsciiWolf on 11 November 2021 at 1:56 pm UTC

Quoting: berarmaI didn't mean a distraction move from your part but from System76. That's the news they're spreading and want everybody to talk about. They're trying to divert our attention from the real issue. I'm not blaming you, although we should try to look through the smoke curtain.

As I said on Reddit in reply to you:

No, they're not. Do you really need to keep spreading this ridiculous FUD negativity around? It does absolutely nothing but make you look sour.

They're not trying to divert attention, their engineers talked a fair bit about it across social media and other chat channels and they knew they had messed up, it just happened to be around the same time Linus did his install.

What they're trying to do is ensure people keep a working system. It's only getting attention like it is, as I happened to see it on Twitter and decided to comment on it in an article (this one hi).

Do people really truly believe this is a diversion? Completely ridiculous. They already admitted right away it was a packaging fault their end and they fixed it. This is an additional measure. Jeezus.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPStuff like that should be there for people who are interested in digging deeper, but should by no means be a requirement for the average user (unless you aim at techies as your average user).

I actually think that Linux is quite good with real noobs but "bad" for above average computer users. I mean those users who download all sorts of software on Windows but at the same time don't know really how it all works. Linux distros should improve for those types of users.

Quoting: TheRiddickIt's pretty embarrassing for System76 and they should reach out to Linus and work with him to get him to give it another try. Thought I think Linus has committed to Manjaro, lol. Now Manjaro devs are probably pretty nervous!

Good idea but too late unfortunately, the challenge ended a while back.

Quoting: kaktuspalme

Quoting: TheSHEEEPStuff like that should be there for people who are interested in digging deeper, but should by no means be a requirement for the average user (unless you aim at techies as your average user).

I actually think that Linux is quite good with real noobs but "bad" for above average computer users. I mean those users who download all sorts of software on Windows but at the same time don't know really how it all works. Linux distros should improve for those types of users.

Question is if that is even possible to do. The problem with those guys is that they do just like Linus and "warning blablalba, who cares" and even a "I force you you type out do as I say!" don't stop then what on earth would?

Or rather, not being able to uninstall the desktop would of course work but then we no longer can uninstall the desktop which removes the power that Linux gives you.

In reality we can never be "Windows but nice", we are simply a completely different system. That said I do think that all the talk about the terminal is exaggerated, for 99% or perhaps even 100% of the cases where people think that they have to use the terminal they can use the GUI, it's just that it's far easier to write a guide that does "nano /etc/whatever.config" than "open the file manager, click back, click on etc, right klick on whatever.config and select "open with another application" then select text editor from the list and so on and on.

I mean there's a reason why Linux have text guides while Windows users have to look at YouTube videos for the same content.

Quoting: F.UltraOr rather, not being able to uninstall the desktop would of course work but then we no longer can uninstall the desktop which removes the power that Linux gives you.

I agree, but in Linux we have the freedom to choose whichever distribution we like. But distributions focused on average users should be "non-breakable" and thus maybe even limit your freedom. Personally I wouldn't like to use such a distribution but I would recommend such a distribution for the average user.

Or... Wait for Valve to release SteamOS3.0 - Desktop edition and try the challenge anew.