I apologize for this probably stupid question, but I’m extremly new to Linux, and I’m still trying to understand the best way to do things, so…
I’m using Neon as my first real Linux experience, The application Discover is great and I love it, I have found lots of interesting stuff so far that I will explore when I will get a chance. But I get the idea it doesn’t share with me much of what’s going on behind the curtain, and keeps me away from troubles…
So I did a bit of search and found some info about package manager and GUI for it… More precisely about Synaptic and Muon… Which both sounds great for my case scenario… But I kinda understand that they aren’t updated anymore…
So, my question is:
Is it ok to use them?
Can they easily break stuff just because they wasn’t been updated in a while?
Is there something newer should I use instead?
Well, that’s more than a question, but I hope someone can put me in the right direction!
Thanks in advance!
Discover is a graphical package manager. Though like most graphical package managers - such as GNOME’s “GNOME Software”(*) - it tries very hard to be “newb friendly” by only showing packages that are “applications”. You can’t use it to install any arbitrary package that is available in the software repository, such as (just as an example) the kf6-completion-dev package.
The consensus with developers of graphical package manager seems to be that this is what a graphical package manager needs to be - it doesn’t make sense to show unskilled users everything they can do to break their system as it isn’t useful to them and it is unlikely that they will find the UI useful. A skilled user that understands that packages aren’t application and what it means to install a package - can also figure out a terminal. Or at least that is my understanding of the thinking.
That being said - while Muon is indeed archived and isn’t developed anymore, Synaptic is still maintained and sees 1 or 2 releases a year - it is a pretty stable software and doesn’t need more than that.
I also recommend looking at aptitude, which is a termina UI (“TUI” for short) that while you need a terminal to run, it is menu oriented and simple to operate.
*) GNOME are the Microsoft of Linux application naming. Their web browser is called “GNOME Web”, their text editor is called “GNOME Text Editor”, their terminal application “GNOME Terminal” and so on.
I will surely give a look to aptitude, sounds pretty interesting already!
By the way, I totally approve the developers idea to keep stuff the most “newb” friendly as possible. I just wish there was a semi-hidden setting to enable any kind of advanced mode. That’s because meanwhile it is true an “unskilled” user gets everything he needs from Discover, and the advanced one can just do stuff trough Terminal, I would also love the in between ground where you can do some advanced stuff with a comfortable GUI that can potentially give a detailed view of the system current situation. Or at least I think would feel great for users that fall in between of newbie and skilled.
Anyway your reply gave me confidence of what I need.
Just a little small step in the long road to became a skilled user!
Thanks again for the time you took to help me!
Much appreciated!
I feel the same, though unfortunately it cannot be said about Synaptic (or it’s Fedora equivalent “Yum Extender”) that they offer a “comfortable” GUI .
Maybe there’s a missing implementation and an opportunity here, or maybe the reason it is missing is because it’s impossible🤷.
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