Software Installation on Linux

Software is only as good as how its perceived to be. The perception of its usefulness is controlled by the user. These days, the user really does not care if the software installation is "user specific" or not. From a user's point of view, it needs to work. That's it.

As a user who doesn't care about how the system works, if you're prompted to enter a password for software installation, that's one more dialog box you have to deal with. If software could be installed on a per user basis, as a user, you'd still see a dialog box that asks you if you want to install it for you or for everyone. Now, does that sound familiar? Windows does it. How many times have you actually stopped to think about the merits vs the demerits of installing the software for others when you answered that question? That's your answer for you right there - the real problem is the additional step of communication required.

What is needed is an App Store for Linux that is distribution agnostic. From a user's point of view, they need one place to search for "an application that does what they want". They need one way to install it. Finally, they need to know how they can access the application they have installed.

What I'm essentially talking about here is reducing the learning curve for Linux. A byproduct of this effort will be making distributions more compatible. Nintendo and Apple have both proven that if you want real market growth, you need to convert new users. Easing installation of applications on Linux will go a long way towards that. What will also help is integrating the functionality of websites that provide the names to the Linux equivalents of popular Windows and Mac software from within the same application installation search box.

A new user is most likely to look for "photoshop for linux" if they're after a good photo editing suite. If they get results that show them equivalents and how they have been rated by others, that will go a long way into boosting the user's confidence that they might actually be able to get what they want done using Krita or The Gimp.

A Linux App Store?

This is just an idea, but one whose time might have come. Take the packaging systems that Linux supports and add the ability to purchase software from within it. So in a typical use case, you could filter the applications available in your package manager based on whether you need to pay for them or not, you can choose the applications you'd like to install, pay for ones you need to and download and install in one step. Wouldn't that rule?

There are a lot of side effects, one being that the advantage "free" applications have right now would vanish - that of all being available and searchable from one point. Then there's regulating the descriptions and claims of the commercial software packages - what qualifies as a description and what qualifies as an ad? Speaking of ads, do you let them on? God no! But then with companies, that's a hard sell. How would you do it?

I think the answer is similar to the question, "How do you know which websites you can trust?". I think the solution is similar too - let the community (and the customers) regulate it based on ratings, popularity, etc. Guess what? We already have that built in! Well in Ubuntu at least (that's based on Debian - I'm not sure about other packaging systems though I would be surprised if they did not have something similar).

If any of you guys at Ubuntu are reading this...please do try it out. It has the huge potential of funding other open source projects. Take a small percentage from the application sales (Apple and Android take 30%). Make it self sustaining. Put the profits into the open source projects that matter.