Hello everyone,
Since Garuda is based on Arch, I understand that it’s important to keep it updated rather regularly. I don’t have a problem with running a “garuda-update” command every once in a while, but I do want to see more users move from Windows towards Linux. I am not sure if this is the best forum to post this in, but this is just my two cents on the topic…
There should be a way for a user that’s uncomfortable with the terminal in a speaks-only-when-spoken-to way (will interact with a request from terminal, but will not (reluctant to) open the terminal) to invoke the update routine in an obvious way in GUI. I use the KDE variant of Garuda and, when I type “update” in the search, I get two results:
“Software update - add/remove software” from pamac-manager
“Garuda assistant (subtitle: change system settings)”.
AFAIK, the “correct” way to update garuda is to run the garuda-update script, and it looks like the garuda assistant shortcut actually takes you to the screen that has the “system update” in it which runs the script, but the shortcut doesn’t say anything about an update. I also understand that the use of any of the package managers’ update function is likely to break everything (it already did for me, once or twice), so this update button/script should be brought forward in some way that makes it abundantly obvious that it is the Correct™ way to update the system.
Of course, I do not expect there to be zero terminal interaction whatsoever (nor should anyone moving to Linux, and an Arch-based distro, no less), but I do expect there to be some guard rails against getting locked into the dreaded “unsolvable environment”, especially when “insiders”/developers know likely causes for it.
M$ users should not switch to an Arch Linux based OS.
If they do, they should adapt to the circumstances.
It requires a learning curve.
Afterward, you will have updated your system, including all installed programs, within a few minutes. With M$, it takes longer than 30 minutes for the OS alone, if you’re lucky.
The Welcome App, garuda-update and the Garuda Assistant actually offer everything you need to get started.
Isn’t garuda supposed to be a gaming-oriented distro? So far, one of the main reasons M$ is dominating is due to gaming, so I would expect that most people checking this distro out would be M$ users, a lot of which would be “normies”…
The problem with this is that, unless the user is highly motivated to stay on linux (this distro), whenever they encounter a “work” problem, rather than spending 5 minutes to figure out a solution, they will instead spend an hour getting back to a “known” working state. I had to do this myself a few times…
This is technically not your problem, and a solution might have to be implemented in some location that is out of scope for the distro, but, as I said - this is my two cents, regarding user experience (open source software is often quite lacking from UX perspective…).
Whether this problem is relevant here is entirely up to the mission statement/philosophy of the garuda project.
KDE application launcher widget. Replicating the experience of windows’s start menu.
I don’t think a Windows user is going to think about whether or not there is a graphical update notifier for their chosen distribution. And if they go back to Windows because of the lack of a graphical update notifier, there is nothing to be done.
I update every day after the first boot in Terminal. That does it for me and is more than enough. I don’t need an extra notifier. Nevertheless, I use the command checkupdates | wc -l
in my conky to display the number of available updates. But for me this is more of a cosmetic thing and a fun fact.
The standard Windows user finds Linux labour-intensive and cumbersome. But this is only because they are used to Windows. What would be the learning curve for a Linux user using Windows for the first time?
It’s the wrong approach to expect everything to work the way it does in Windows. Yes, the differences are striking, but that’s what makes Linux so special. Nothing is artificially hidden away. Anyone who is reasonably familiar with it knows what and why their system does this or that.
THAT is comfort for me, not the hiding of many relevant functions behind a few meaningless mouse clicks.
You can even argue that MS doesn’t do this for the sake of convenience, as is often claimed, but to deliberately hide things so that the user doesn’t realise what’s going on in his system.
Done in seconds with the restoration of a snapshot.
The mission/philosophy is in no way to attract M$ users.
The developers of Garuda have made it easier for all users to use Linux.
It should be clear why game developers are rushing to a, wrongly, widely used OS as an operating system base.
My point was more about there being multiple avenues to “update” available via GUI, some of which can break the system. The action I suggested was to somehow make it obvious which is the Correct™ way to update (no garuda-update on arch…). You shouldn’t have to break your system to learn that, IMO… though, I guess arch has to maintain the rep of being “the one that breaks all the time” somehow
I think that the “standard” to update the system for Arch is to run pacman -Syu?.. but on garuda, this can apparently break stuff, which I suspect would cause confusion even for people that actually do use linux…
It may well be the case that I am misunderstanding something and this goes beyond the scope of what garuda is supposed to be.
However, if the other option has been removed since I installed garuda, then perhaps this is no longer relevant to begin with…
No, using pacman -Syu does not break anything. I just see garuda-update as a tool to avoid various pitfalls that can occur when using pacman -Syu, and that can cause problems for the inexperienced user, which then appear in the forum.
Whereas graphical tools such as pamac or even octopi, on the other hand, often cause errors that are difficult or impossible to fix.
EDIT:
OMG… come to think of it, garuda-update is a bit like windows
Alright, that’s fair, though, you need to have a snapshot from before you got stuck in the “unsolvable environment”
Also fair.
True, though EndeavorOS comes to mind…
This is a vicious cycle - windows gets more users because of UX, devs get more motivated to prioritize windows, windows gets more development (which includes UX), loop.
Right now, I am seeing some pretty big steps with UX improvements in Linux in general, which also opens opportunities to get people to stay on Linux, and now that M$ is systematically making their OS worse, there is a flow of people towards Linux. I think that UX is a significant factor to keep them around, so I just want to point out something I noticed that could be improved. Garuda is the distro I use, and I don’t know of any “Linux roundtable” or some other non-“not my problem” place to put it, so I posted it here.
Even if a gaming version is offered, Garuda Linux is not a gaming distribution for me. I use Garuda for everything else, but not for games. Exceptions: gnubg, knights and 0 A.D.
Nonetheless, I have then probably misunderstood that the pamac-manager was supposed to be a GUI wrapper for pacman, which I thought implies that the update function of it is equivalent to pacman -Syu… Guess I learned something today
Since when does windows have a monopoly on convenience?
@SGS
I am of course familiar with garuda-system-maintenance and the functions it contains. But it’s like I wrote above, I update daily after the first boot and I only have checkupdates in my conky because I like to have all necessary and unnecessary things displayed there. A small excerpt…
@DZHEX @SGS has already described this above me. But maybe have a look at the file main-update and help in /usr/lib/garuda/garuda-update/. This should give you a better idea of what garuda-update does.
Maybe adding “We update using garuda-update via the terminal” or something like that to the Garuda Welcome screen. Could even add that gui update tools are not supported.
I feel people should check the wiki but I also realize most don’t.
Or maybe pining like the FAQ. A “How to get stared with garuda” on the form. that maybe is updated if there are any big changes.
Or under the Setup assistant button there is a “Update assistant” button that just runs the same script as in “Garuda Assistant” tab the only thing different is the welcome window can open on boot if the user wants
Especially when it comes to pamac and octopi. These are often used by Linux newbies. But these are the people who will have massive problems if something goes wrong. You could, for example, display a warning at the start of the program that there is a certain risk in using these tools, and at the same time refer to pacman. Possibly including an update command and a direct link that opens the terminal.
Just for a note - most “gamers” on PC, especially looking to get away from Microsoft. . . are not “normies”
I think of a normal computer user - The millions upon millions of folks who literally use it for storing thousands of junk in their gmail. playing solitaire at work and shopping on ebay and amazon.
Gamers are at least remotely computer savvy and want to be as they care about PC game performance. They will almost all inevitabily google ways to increase FPS, know about GPUs (most normal users don’t even know what a GPU is) and therefore folks already looking here are more advanced than that.
That being said, if you’re a know nothing user, looking to continue knowing nothing, this is probably going to be a bad experience for them. As it should be.
It’d be like saying I just need a little car to get me to and from work and then putting them in a big massive truck designed to pull a huge camper down the highway. . .
Knowing your market is important. Nothing produces a bad experience faster than mis-matched expectations.
Trust when I say this - not being the everything distro for everyone is more of a blessing than a curse. Let Mint be Mint, or Ubuntu be Ubuntu.
EOS is very openly not a new user distro - they are a terminal based distro targeting the intermediate user. This is easier to use out of the box than Endeavour is. Endeavour has a lot of setup post install. It’s what I love about it. Very minimal, nothing to remove post install, and you need to know what you want to end up with a full functioning system still. It’s NOT for new users for sure.
The problem is, no one reads anyways. They don’t read pinned posts. They don’t read pop ups and even if tehy do, they forget immediately. It could literally bea pop up, with a required checkbox before you even get into your first user space that you literally cannot go past without reading. They won’t read it.
People don’t even read loan documents or apartment leases, and those have legal implications. They don’t read privacy things in the 100 pages of Meta crap.
I’m 100% confident that and almost statistical no one will read it no matter how you deliver the message.
One thing I’ve learned in all of my years in management, and we spoke about at length even in university . . . Less than 20% of people will cause at least 80% of all of your problems - let them go. Fire them. Don’t bother selling/doing business with them. You’re better off without the hassle. Not everyone is worth saving or helping or even want help; as is true in all aspects of life on earth. It’s just not a touchy feely thing for people to think about. Most people inherently want to help EVERYONE. Look around, and you can see the ramifications of it all over the place.
