removing wslview from Ubuntu-only computers?

[Little Girl]

Hey there,

Oliver Grawert wrote:
>Am Montag, dem 03.04.2023 um 08:54 -0400 schrieb Little Girl:
>
>> Calling something that isn't actually Firefox "firefox" seems
>> misleading to me.
>
>well, this is a shortcoming of apt, you need to handle upgrades for
>users somehow and this is only possible via providing a package with
>the correct name to them ...

I'm still having a really tough time wrapping my head around even the
possibility that the correct name could possibly be the name of a
browser even though the package isn't the browser. In fact, I'm
having trouble with the thought that I even had to write that
sentence. This couldn't possibly be the best or even the only option.
Surely, they can do better.

>> Isn't this something that the Ubuntu team should have known when
>> they made the Firefox Snap a default installation?
>
>apt and snap are two different packaging systems, snaps usually do
>not need/use alternatives, nor do they have something like
>"Provides:" that apt could access/use. the person leading the snapd
>development is the former apt lead developer of debian and ubuntu
>(and also the former lead developer of the (back then very fast and
>convenient ubuntu- software-cnter (before it became the sluggish and
>slow gnome-software replacement))
>
>indeed he knows the shortcomings of both package systems

I'm not so sure about that.

>and the transitional firefox deb is the only way to please both
>worlds on a technical level ...

And isn't installed by default in Kubuntu 22.04 LTS, which is why I'm
not convinced he knew any of this.

>this is why the package exists at all and is normally used by all
>existing installs to cross-grade to the snap...

You might want to double-check this information, because although the
"firefox" package exists in the Ubuntu repositories, it is not, and
has never been, installed in my Kubuntu 22.04 LTS system. The only
package that's actually installed on my system that turns up when I do
a search for "firefox" in my package manager is
"plasma-browser-integration" and that was installed by default. I did
not install it.

>so indeed it is known and has been handled and any normal enduser
>like your mom or mine would never actually notice the switch (mine
>definitely didnt) ...

Interesting. So, how did they get the "firefox" package if it wasn't
installed by default? And if they did, how come they got a different
installation than I did if we both installed 22.04 without
interfering with its browser in any way?

>if you tinker with the system on a package evel and i.e. remove the
>firefox deb "to make your system cleaner" or whatnot, you pull out
>the carpet from underneath apt then ...

That may be so, but what about those of us who haven't done anything
to the system on a package-level as far as Firefox is concerned? Some
of us simply installed the operating system and accepted the horrible
new default Snap installation of Firefox as what we had to use
without interfering with it or tinkering with it in any way. It's
very important for you to realize that we did not remove the
"firefox" package from our systems. In fact, I'd venture to say that
I speak for all of us when I say that we didn't even realize we
should give that package even so much as a thought, let alone
interact with it in any way.

>> Thank you for the information, but why am I hearing this from you
>> and not from the Ubuntu team? 

>not sure what you expect here or why you think the (very internal)
>technical details of an implementation need something like a blog
>post that only 5% of the readers might remotely understand ... 

Because it has a direct impact on performance and causes outright
issues that must be manually dealt with by the end-user, so it
shouldn't at all be kept as (very internal) technical details and
should either be announced as loudly as possible or, better yet, dealt
with so that it can stay as (very internal) technical details. Either
one would be better.

>(i.e. i know you since years from this ML and clearly consider you a
>very advanced technical user, i also think i'm not too shabby at
>explaining things, yet it took both of us several days and posts to
>get to this point of understanding of the topic ...)

Yes, you're familiar to me, too. In this case, though, you're jumping
to an incorrect conclusion about another user and me (and possibly
others who are experiencing this type of issue). Hopefully by now you
realize that neither the other user nor I (and probably the others
who are experiencing this type of issue) have removed anything and
are simply baffled by a strange piece of software that doesn't have
what it needs that was foisted upon us as part of the release we are
using and is, thus, causing us more than one issue that we must
manually intervene with on a regular basis.

>people that do not remove the firefox deb from their installation
>will simply not hit such issues

I'd like to know how they exist at all, since they're clearly part of
an elite group that I wasn't invited into.

>and people that *do* remove it are somewhat expected to have
>inspected what they are removing and that they have the in-depth
>technical knowledge about it ...

Once again, I'd like to know how the folks who have the opportunity
to make such a choice exist at all, since they're clearly part of an
elite group that I wasn't invited into.

>regarding "the Ubuntu team", does 18y working at Canonical and me
>telling you about the setup qualify me as part of: 
>
>"the Ubuntu team telling you about it" ? 
>
>:)

That was a good try, but no. Telling someone about something in a
mailing list a year after she installed the operating system that's
causing it doesn't really count. I appreciate the effort, though.

-- 
Little Girl

There is no spoon.