Just my two kopecks here: It's not just the catalogue of specific PPAs that is a problem. Granted, that's one of the problems too, in my eyes; having it in the Ubuntu archive makes us look like we support that kind of unofficial bleeding-edge updates *and* the PPAs featured. Ubuntu does provide a way to install PPAs: through the Software Sources tool. But it does not treat some PPAs as "more equal than others".
The entire package management part just bugs me. It's basically a duplication of standard Ubuntu tools, and I doubt it has received such extensive testing as Software Sources/Update Manager/Software Center/Synaptic. The ability to manually edit sources.list files should not be exposed to the end user in the UI at all, that's for advanced users. Keep in mind that package management is a sensitive part of the system and reckless meddling can leave it in an inconsistent state. If only package management was limited to its own section. But it also creeps into other sections; the Compiz settings, for example, include a checkbox (?!) for installing simple-ccsm, and even the application itself prompts to install its own PPA for updates. The other sections basically expose "hidden" settings in gconf, but they do so in an inconsistent way. Some settings are innocent, others expose experimental and unreliable features (Metacity compositing, for instance), or are potentially dangerous and can render the desktop unusable. Again, this makes Ubuntu look like it promotes this. Ultimately, the #1 bug in Ubuntu Tweak (which is really a bug in Ubuntu) is that some users feel it has the need to exist. I myself believe that many of the "hidden" gconf settings should be configurable, but that Ubuntu Tweak is the Wrong Way to Do It. If they're useful, they should either be added to the configuration dialogs of the respective applications, or have separate configuration dialogs (for example, ccsm and simple-ccsm do everything Ubuntu Tweak does for Compiz, and then some). That would remove the need for the safe subset of Ubuntu Tweak in the first place, just as the PPA culture and restricted extras packages proved to be the Right Way to Do It that removed the raison d'etre for its spiritual predecessor, Automatix. -- Ubuntu-motu mailing list [email protected] Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu
