Though IMO the main issues with APT/dpkg are not related to their UI. It is their decades-old internals, and very limited support for transactional/atomic upgrades and rollbacks. Upgrading an APT system is the same launch-and-pray operation as on most Linux systems. I see that oma has an `undo` command, which is great, but I wonder how reliable that is in practice.
I think that every modern OS should support safe upgrades and rollbacks. Nix and Guix are obviously built from the ground up with this in mind, but they both leave a lot to be desired as far as UX goes. Nix more so than Guix. It is these package managers that would benefit the most from a good UI/UX polish.
So for a new OS/distro, I would start with a package manager with solid fundamentals, and work on refining their UI/UX, rather than do the same for one with fundamental issues such as APT.
BTW, I was interested in learning more about AOSC, but the main site is in Chinese with no English translation, so I guess it's not meant for global use.
You can visit the [wiki](https://wiki.aosc.io/) in the meantime.
This is why I I've been using conda, appimages and chroot jails lately. Still no solution though.
Compared to e.g. Alpine's apkg, installations take quite some time.
Installing multiple (independent) packages in parallel would seem like a straightforward improvement - or installing while downloading unrelated packets.
I see both English and Chinese languages in their wiki.
The reality is that Ubuntu LTS (and APT by extension) is pretty much the standard OS of Linux. Even if there are better solutions, that's sort of irrelevant. And APT users could use a better UI
No, not really. It's like someone giving you a car that looks like a Ferrari, but has the internals of a Fiat.
To be fair, I'm not discrediting this project. I think it's great that someone is thinking about these things. I'm just saying that I would've started with a project with solid internals, rather than put lipstick on a pig.
For instance, if I "install" LXQT on Ubuntu LTS, it's going to not only install all the dependency libraries (and the dependencies' dependencies) as well as all the relevant executables.. but it's also going to go around and change a bunch of configurations so that when I boot LXQT boots instead of whatever I used before.
Why would it not make sense to have installing libraries/executables and their dependencies be decoupled from all the twiddling config files and setting up the spiderweb of userland processes?
This because you left the alternative in "auto" mode, or the installed package called update-alternatives and changed the config forcibly.
Debian doesn't change alternatives during package installations without consulting to you if there's a TTY attached. Installing vim doesn't change "editor" to vim, or installing most doesn't change "pager" to most (unless the configs are in auto mode and the package you installed has a higher priority on that alternative list).
Also, when working with apt(itude), the changes are visibly done, saying that "update-alternatives: x has changed to new_program (auto)" or something similar.
So nothing is hidden from you, and why apt has a rolling log so you can review things even after it's completed.
There's also an accessibility aspect. Novice users are likely to struggle with setting up the configs, so auto-configuring the packages makes them more accessible to novices. Wanting to install a package without configuring it is a poweruser kind of request; it makes sense to require poweruser knowledge to get a poweruser install, rather than making poweruser-style installs the default.
Fwiw, I believe most package managers can be told to not run their configuration steps if you really want that.
debconf plus update-alternatives plus display manager login menus means configs are sticky.
There are rare exceptions, but unless Ubuntu is very strange, deviating fron Debian significantly (and stupidly), what you're saying doesn't happen.
And it is separate. The package manager is calling update alternatives. It's not some ad hock wild west.
You're either asked, or alternatively no change is made.
aptitude can also handle extended states (autoinstall, manual overrides, holds, etc.) and can be used as a apt replacement (aptitude update).
Also, aptitude can provide alternative solutions to harder package migration scenarios, showing all resolutions on a nice TUI.
Wish the developers compared it with aptitude too, because I see no comparison there.
it of course works with Arch pacman -Ss, Gentoo qsearch, etc.
Out of curiosity, how - by your preference - should this be done so that it's easier for the user?
something like:
curl -fsSL https://repo.aosc.io/pubkeys/repo/oma.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/oma.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/oma.gpg] https://repo.aosc.io/oma $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/oma.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y oma
Microsoft also has a "download deb and install", which I still consider slightly better than curl | bash; it's basically the windows install flow. People who are using a GUI can just double click it, people who want to see what it's going to do can examine it, and your (unsafe) one-liner is `curl XXX.deb && dpkg -i XXX.deb`. Plus it can be shipped to a multiple machines at once easily.
And hey, you already know they have dpkg.
(edited: mangled my command spacing a bit)