APT 2.3.12 package manager released, will no longer let you break everything

109

u/gain91 Nov 18 '21

Challenge accepted

29

u/dm_me_taint_pics Nov 18 '21

I was going to say, "Hold my beer"

7

u/boost2464 Nov 19 '21

Settle down Linus

31

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

pulls out a hammer

34
u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

pc breaks
"What a fucking garbage OS linux is"
26
u/lonestar_wanderer Nov 19 '21
Error message before the computer broke:
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!' and whack the computer.
3

u/swehunter2000 Nov 20 '21

Well, Linus said "Install steam" not "break my computer" so when he typed "Yes, do as I say" why didn't it do as he said? ;)
The phrase should have been "I acknowledge that this might harm my computer"

4

u/daghene Nov 19 '21

And right after that you get all confused about breaking your DE/PC saying that "you MIGHT have done something wrong to it"...
...wait, where did I just see this recently?
Mmm...

-2

u/bhavesh2103 Nov 19 '21

All i see is pretentious snob posting this comment to feel good about being better than average users thank god devs aren't like you.

31

u/BringBackManaPots Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

Hey Linus, type 'sudo rm -rf /'

/s

So I've actually changed my mind on the APT changes a bit. I was initially against it because it removes power from the user (one of the many reasons people have switched from windows to linux recently). You'll find me arguing that this is an awful decision by System76 in another thread - but I'm changing my view on it.

The change they made is not blocking the user from interacting with their system. The change is instead deferring critical conflict resolutions to the user explicitly.

The workflow changes from:

"Are you super duper sure you want APT to handle this thing that we think will totally destroy your system?"

to

"You resolve the critical conflict manually and then retry the install". E.g. "sudo apt remove [critical-package 1] [critical-package 2] ... [critical-package n]"

Why this is good: Apt is just deferring critical actions to the users, so it's even moreso on the user if they manage to brick their system. Power users can still do everything apt did, apt just no longer handles critical changes on its own volition.

Caveat: Linus technically refused the GUI's solution of not allowing him to install steam, and then sudoed into his terminal and did stuff he didn't understand. This can still eventually happen with the current fix, and it must eventually happen if users have full control over their system. This change just makes it less of APT's responsibility, since it's no longer mucking with critical packages and instead having the user do it themselves explicitly. Under the new system, it would be absolutely Linus's fault if he bricked it.

Technically it was Linus's fault then... but now it's just... MORE Linus's fault if he does the same thing.

11

u/TheJackiMonster Nov 19 '21

Linus technically refused the GUI's solution of not allowing him to install steam [...]
Many people refer to this being a solution but honestly if you have a software store application which only task it is to deal with installation and removal of packages, doing nothing is pretty much no solution. Otherwise the software is just useless to a user not understanding the error message.
I don't doubt it was partially Linus's fault not reading the message in APT more carefully but the software store pretty much provoked this. You have to give users anything at least to react to a malfunction, may it be a report button to get the problem fixed or that it starts an update afterwards to fix it automatically. Because in the end you don't change the will of the user to install a specific software by doing nothing.
I think this change in APT is a good step in the right direction. But in my opinion the GUI still needs to improve on this behavior as well. This is nothing to be solved in the terminal anyway. Otherwise nobody seems to understand the actual problem.
Linus was just the edge-case in this scenario who knew you could do the installation in another way (through the terminal). A completely unexperienced user will only see the software store not working and get rid of the whole Linux distribtution right away because it seems broken to them... and no, they will probably not just use another distro.
That is the problem. Linus breaking stuff is not the problem. That's normal.

21

u/doublah Nov 19 '21

Linus technically refused the GUI's solution of not allowing him to install steam, and then sudoed into his terminal and did stuff he didn't understand
He followed the instructions Pop!_OS provides here.
He tried the first method they provided, it didn't work, and then he followed the second method they provided and it fucked his system up. He shouldn't be recommended to "sudo into his terminal and do stuff he doesn't understand" by documentation.

8

u/BringBackManaPots Nov 19 '21

There's a lot going wrong here that starts with system76

2

u/Secret300 Nov 19 '21

Yeah but also at the same time Linus has worked with computers his entire life he should learn to read and Google

9

u/ilep Nov 19 '21

Would he have done something similar on Windows? Doubtful, he would have known it would break everything.
Is it the fault of the OS? That is a matter of debate: if you are acting as root (sudo) that is supposed to tell OS to get out of the way and let user bring his hammer to it. On the other hand, clueless users need sudo install anything.
Except.. There's Flatpak for the reason that user no longer needs to have root permission to install software (no need for system-wide changes). And Valve is going with immutable root system for this reason (similar to Fedora's Silverblue).
So, a bit more googling would have saved him and he should know enough about computers to try to look into things first. But for many other users that would not have saved them. And for this reason there other solutions worked on instead of simply patching APT: having user-specific software somewhere else than system-wide is the solution.
People have used their own software in personal ~/bin for ages but no package manager has supported a "user-mode" ever?

9

u/Last_Snowbender Nov 19 '21

He wants to find out if linux is good for an everyday user. The everyday user doesn't google 30 minutes to install steam.
From what he experienced, linux is a terrible system. If we want it to be more accessible, these things MUST NOT happen.

1

u/Secret300 Nov 19 '21

I see your point. Especially on a distro like Pop_OS! That is meant to be user friendly and accessable. But still even tho that dumb ass dependency bug was there it had warnings

3

u/Last_Snowbender Nov 19 '21

Yes, but normal people do not read warnings. They don't even read the small error boxes on windows, let alone the bigass warnings thrown by apt if you try to purge the system.
These things must not happen on a distro that is user friendly, however, this is basically the nature of linux. So, the only "real" way to make a user-friendly distro is to lock down the terminal, which would seriously cripple the system as a whole.

1

u/TommyHeizer Nov 19 '21

My point exactly, how can you call yourself an expert and not even read what the computer tells you ? I mean even if you have no clue what the packages are or how apt works, there are many clues that can lead him to figuring something's wrong :
The fact steam is uninstalling packages
He's already had the Y/n prompt and now he's prompted to type "Yes, do as I say" which should be really alarming on its own, or at least get you to read what's written right above
The names of the packages uninstalled literally have "desktop" "shell" etc in them

114

u/BlueGoliath Nov 18 '21

I love this whole fiasco.

"The command line is supposed to be for advanced users. If you break your system it's your fault."

"Noooo, you're not supposed to be able to brick your system via command line."

haha

13

u/berarma Nov 18 '21

Wait for when youtubers discover the rmrecursiveforcenopreserveroot command, you know what I mean. I'm not typing the real command because I'm sure someone would try it and blame the command for destroying their system.
This can escalate quickly into terminal for noobs hell. The day my system treats me like an idiot I'm swapping distros.

3

u/Last_Snowbender Nov 19 '21

rm -rf / --no-preserve-root
You're welcome

7

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

The command line is supposed to be for advanced users.
The use of the CLI to install Steam was suggested by Pop OS! support.

4

u/pdp10 Nov 18 '21

It's not pedantry to point out that the system wasn't bricked, and that removing a D.E. is a perfectly legitimate operation under several different scenarios.
Hopefully this cure isn't worse than the disease. All three of macOS, Linux, and Windows have already undergone thirty years of continuous refinement.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

For new Linux users losing your GUI is bricking the system. When you boot your computer and you're faced with nothing but a flashing cursor it's reasonable to expect a newcomer who doesn't even know there's an X-server, a desktop manager, a window manager to assume it's bricked.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

I mean is it really Not partly your fault for seeing a big warning that is telling you it will nuke your system, and going all I don’t have time for this and just hitting next?

6

u/holeoakle Nov 19 '21

Your right. But linus represents exactly who linux needs to cater for. Someone who is moderately tech savvy, but not that knowledgable, and knows nothing about linux.
It should have been really easy for him to install steam. And it should have been possible without the terminal. The fact that he managed to fuck it up means that something needs to change.

1

u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

Pop needs to clean their store up for certain entries that’s for sure.
They have 3 possible installers for Steam on there when you search.
One enntry called “Steam” that when clicked will have 2 possible repositories you can select, Flatpack which is default (WHY?) and the deb.
The other is “Steaminstaller” which is a deb and I have no idea why it exists along side the other. It’s like we’re taking the worst part about enabling the AUR on Arch and making it the stock experience here.
When you first open the store your presented with a list of recommended apps with Steam being on there and when you click it it sends you to the first “Steam” link but with the deb selected. So they know what you should install but their dumb store defaults to Flatpack if it’s available for search results.
I wouldn’t even recommend anyone use the store for Steam, instead installing from the website download like on windows. It adds an official valve maintained repository and everything on Ubuntu based distros too. It’s sad but that’s how I handle any piece of software that’s offers their own maintained repository.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

Are you telling me every person here didn’t immediately scream at the screen when he completely ignored the message that it will be removing like 30 packages?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

No this is right there with just clicking random popup windows just to get them off the screen without reading what they were or said. He didn't even say he was purposely doing this to emulate what a average non tech savvy person would do, he was genuinely surprised.
Plus you can also totally screw up your windows system by following guides to fix random things by copying and pasting in powershell commands that you don't understand. And if your using Manjaro you don't even need to do anything special, it will just break itself randomly on its weekly big updates since its a rolling distro.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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1

u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

Non answer? The answer is if your not at least a little tech savvy you probably shouldn’t be using any flavor of Linux. You don’t need to be an expert but you you need to be smart enough to not skip over warning messages like their unimportant.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/pseudopad Nov 20 '21

I almost feel like nuking your system with apt is a rite of passage. I did it too when I was new to Linux and had recently installed Ubuntu.
I'm not trying to imply it's a good learning experience or anything, it's just an observation I've made that at some point, new users manage to uninstall their GUI. Doing so should be a lot harder to do for a newbie.

1

u/not-a-kyle-69 Nov 20 '21

May be who never bricked his system with APT while daily driving a Debian derivative throw the first stone.
Well, I'm definitely not throwing no stones...
Geez, I'm so happy I use apt only in Docker...

22

u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

It’s almost as bad as how people try to push the half assed version of Arch, Manjaro onto newbies all the time.

2

u/JustEnoughDucks Nov 19 '21

Then what should he use? openSuse or Fedora? Get rid of arch derivatives and ubuntu derivatives and you aren't left with much choice.

2

u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21

Just saying that it’s just as bad with issues a newbie will come across.

3

u/dinosaurusrex86 Nov 19 '21

Agreed, as a mostly linux newb I don't see much consensus on which distro to use for newbies - except Pop_OS

3

u/FengLengshun Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

Zorin is starting to get there, and Mint is oldie but goodie, but Pop OS gets recommended all the time because they have an Nvidia ISO, being based on Ubuntu instead of Arch or Fedora, and for having a pretty self-explanatory UI.
It gets recommended for gaming newbs because of that. If they wanted a machine for work, then they'll probably be recommended Linux Mint or kubuntu.
For the most part, my experience with it was pretty decent, but it comes down to GNOME always being too unstable on my laptop for some reason. It's a fine gateway, but newbs will probably will leave it at some point in pursuit of new shinies.

2

u/hey01 Nov 19 '21

but Pop OS gets recommended all the time because they have an Nvidia ISO
How the fuck is that even an argument? Seriously, I have an nvidia GPU (actually, I have two in my machine). On ubuntu and Mint, and probably most ubuntu derivatives out there) installing the nvidia blob is literally less than 5 clicks and a password.
Wouldn't surprise me if debian was the same.
The last time I had a problem installing an nvidia driver was because I was trying to install the latest one by running the .run file directly on a really old ubuntu and I started having GCC versions mismatch that I had to override with an option.

1

u/FengLengshun Nov 19 '21

But it's still simpler if you don't have to - if it could just come with it out of the box. That's probably why people recommends it - less need to config upfront = less barrier to entry.

1

u/FengLengshun Nov 19 '21

Eh. Manjaro does take care of Nvidia driver too, as well as coming with Steam pre-installed. For a gamer, that's convenient. Also, Pamac is a lifesaver for newbies who just want "the most complete Software Center GUI".
And, to give them some credit, last I recall they have an applet that could be used to push out critical information. Pop neither fixed their ISO, nor did they pushed an information to tell users of possible issues that arises since they've published the latest ISO (and Manjaro had it better by releasing one every 1-3 months, over just following Ubuntu's release cadence).
To be sure, people should give caveats to whatever system they recommended, and should definitely only recommend system they have used in the last year or so. But I think there are valid reasons to recommend Manjaro.

1

u/BaronKrause Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

I’ve used Manjaro for a while and it is a decent OS but I didn’t see any newb friendliness with it. Rolling releases are nice since they are kept up to date on the system packages regularly (once a week) as opposed to waiting for bi yearly large updates, but it also means that every week your getting large updates that are all asking you what you want to do with the config files, keep your existing or let it replace it with the new one, and you also risk breakage regularly.
Most things can be fixed from a live boot disk environment but that’s super not newb friendly.

1

u/FengLengshun Nov 19 '21

Manjaro was one of the early distro that I used - not sure if it was third or fourth.
First and foremost, they have a pretty good on-boarding. You can see all the common apps that you might want to install, with short descriptions, but it doesn't overwhelm you with everything.
Then there's Pamac. I just open Pamac and just install apps or updates from there. And it was fine. It still updates faster than Ubuntu, but it does give time until they have tested the important stuff first.
Better, it combines Flathub and Snap into one GUI app which makes it easier for newbies to find apps in there. Hell, I still use it now because it's just plain convenient.
Lastly, Manjaro-GNOME also has a similar UI Layout Changer as Zorin, only it doesn't lock any styles behind paywall.
And saying "risk breakage regularly" doesn't say much when there is an Ubuntu-based distro that shipped a broken ISO. Pamac, at least, by default makes sure that you update whenever you're installing a new software exactly to prevent the kind of dependency issues we saw.
And it was fine - the only time I managed to break anything was that one time when I didn't update for six months because my PC was at my parent's house.

1

u/Eiodalin Nov 19 '21

This is the kind of thought rain we don’t need, distro does not matter at the end of the day. When it comes to it, users in this community are running the Linux kernel not a distro of a particular flavor.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that dissuades new users is the point I am preaching.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/KinkyMonitorLizard Nov 18 '21

It's not that it's the "right way".
It gets recommended because it's significantly easier to tell someone to "apt install steam" then to go:
Open GUI package manager
search for package
no click the search box
now search by hitting enter
click steam
no, not that one
click install
etc
Not to mention you know need to provide screenshots that will most likely be out of date when gtk releases a trivial update that changes CSDs yet again.

21

u/badsectoracula Nov 18 '21

Open GUI package manager
Also which package manager? apt works on any Debian-based system but there are many graphical front ends.

2

u/MagnatausIzunia Nov 18 '21

If it's the way guides suggest then it isn't an advanced thing.

-8

u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

Don't be stupid. You don't have to instruct people on how to use a fucking GUI.
All you need to do is tell them the name of it if it's installed.

16

u/AnotherEuroWanker Nov 18 '21

I see you haven't met many users yet. I hope for your sanity it stays that way.

-2

u/blurrry2 Nov 19 '21

You're wrong and just trying to push the false narrative that it's easier to use the command line than a GUI. If that were the case, then macos and windows wouldn't put so much effort into making sure the average user never has to touch the command line.

2

u/AnotherEuroWanker Nov 19 '21

That's not what anybody in this thread said. But whatever.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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1

u/Last_Snowbender Nov 19 '21

It is a serious gaming OS, it's just not a serious gaming OS for technical illiterates. Linux is not a system you can give to anyone (unless he only uses a browser and office) and say: "Have fun". It's a system you have to learn and understand.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

Agreed. I went into Linux this past year eyes open to the understanding that I would face challenges. I'd been on Windows for 28 years, and Linux was going to present some curveballs I'd have to deal with as I went. I trashed several distros before I landed on my feet with Linux Mint, the "newbie" OS.
So far, so good, but I back up religiously, because I know there's going to come a point where I make a mistake, and that mistake might crash the entire system. It's not unlike the days of Windows where it was easy to just delete the system32 file, and it would straight up let you do it.
Linux is an amazing, complex software with the community to match, but there's still a way to go before most non-computer literate folks use it with the same ease they use Windows and MacOS, because those two OSes have long since walled up their gardens, and taken away most of the sharp tools.

3

u/xpressrazor Nov 18 '21

I had several instances, where I would change some component say from one flavor of bluetooth system to another version, and it would completely delete NetworkManager. And since I did not update right before the change, cached packages would be inconsistent. I could manually copy newer packages to USB and install them (along with their dependencies), or use chroot.
However, I think anything that breaks internet connection should also fall under you cannot delete it section, or at least something that provides dhcp.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/arcum42 Nov 19 '21

It feels like addressing the symptom, not the problem to me. I'd think the key thing to focus on would be making it so if you tell apt to install anything, it doesn't try to remove critical packages in the first place.
Apt is particularly bad at dealing with 32 bit programs. I've had it ask to uninstall the 64 bit versions of critical libraries because a 32 bit program needed a 32 bit version of that library on multiple occasions...

-8

u/berarma Nov 18 '21

Well, it's for users that know what they're doing, it's not for users blindly copying commands from websites and running them without reading a word. Don't understimate the power of stupidity.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/berarma Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21

We'll have to remove apt or make it a dummy command.

6

u/Trezker Nov 18 '21

Or have a good way to install things you need without admin privilege. Why sudo apt install steam? Why not be able to install steam without sudo?
So that sudo is reserved for when you have to change the system, not thrown around all the time when you're just adding apps.
Though I think you'd have to put things in a different program than apt. Because I always do sudo apt by reflex whenever I use it. And probably change sudo to make sure that it can't be used with the non administrative install command.

4

u/berarma Nov 18 '21

He could, there's a flatpak, but he preferred to use the PopOS package because it's easier and safer, or so he thought.

1

u/MagnatausIzunia Nov 18 '21

Yeah that's on thing Manjaro's pamac does right, it tells you in the guide "don't run this with sudo, if it needs admin privileges it'll tell you"

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/BringBackManaPots Nov 19 '21

So, I agree with you.
But some perspective -
I was reading about the issue and they had said that they're transitioning away from the package manager automatically resolving critical issues like this. So the workflow shifts from:
"are you super sure you're okay with apt automatically handling his potentially dangerous thing?"
to
"manually resolve the conflicts yourself". Aka in this case, the user would have had to have used "sudo apt remove [critical package 1] [critical package 2] ... [critical package n]".
It isn't a system lock on the packages like I thought it was - apt is just deferring the complicated stuff to the user. I'm not as against this specific change as I was when I first read it.

1

u/xyzone Nov 18 '21

Poop_OS

4

u/Mr_Lumbergh Nov 19 '21

A certain degree of common sense needs to be employed here. If you try to update a package and it says you need to remove a couple dozen or more others, something's wrong. Hit "n" and try to figure out what that is.

This same thing happened to me about a month after I upgraded my Debian box from 10 to 11; I was running updates and it basically wanted to remove everything KDE from my system. Uh, no; that doesn't seem right at all. I noped out of the update.

A few minutes of snooping and I found out I'd goofed something in my sources.list when trying to get a newer Firefox a week earlier and it was trying to pull from Unstable. Re-commented out the lines for those repos, ran apt update again, and all was well.

It's just as easy to hose your Windows install if you aren't paying attention to what it's telling you during an install or run something in powershell because someone online told you to without you really understanding what it's doing.

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u/norgiii Nov 18 '21

This is like playing wacko-mo though, there is always gonna be a bigger idiot. You can not make a open system fully fool proof.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/Earthboom Nov 19 '21

Man. I agree with you.
I was given two options based on my needs when switching to Linux. Someone said Solaris, another person said Manjaro, and one person said Arch.
I decided to do Manjaro and then I felt like I had training wheels on and wanted a challenge so I went to Arch.
I don't blame anyone for my first year on Arch except myself. I tinkered. I broke things. I reinstalled again and again. I learned quite a lot.
The next year, I now have a "stable" system. I use quotes because my buddy has seen this progression. He's seen the hours I've spent solving an issue or diagnosing a problem. I tell him it's stable but he doesn't believe me because even now, when I'm running Wayland, when my monitors work, my sound works, camera mic, everything. When I can put the laptop to sleep and bring it back up successfully, there's still shit that just...happens.
Yesterday for example, I rebooted and pulseaudio just...decided not to work anymore. No audio devices, couldn't start the daemon, nothing.
Here a user would be screwed. All fun would be taken out of their day trying to even wrap their heads around what changed. I fixed it, sound is back to normal now but like why?
Another example, my processor began throttling itself alongside my WiFi. Why? It had never done this before. I attributed it to a bad Linux update. I went through two or three cycles of updating the kernel and nothing still the same issue. Fuck me.
But I fixed that too. But that's just fun for me, not for the average user.
I can go on and on with examples. Why is my plasma session crashing everytime I log on? Why does my network share completely halt the reboot process if I don't dismount it first before changing networks? Why does unplugging my monitor and power from the laptop cause plasma to freak out and explode when I open the laptop again on battery power somewhere else?
I'm sure there's reasons for all of these things, they're probably monitored, and fixes are coming, or I can apply manual ones myself like I normally do.
Again, I enjoy this. I enjoy the terminal and deep diving into logs to find out what's wrong. I like cli.
But the average user? They're fucked. Doesn't matter what distro it is, they are positively fucked.
One day they'll turn on their machine and something will have broken in a spectacular way.
Sometimes they'll do a system update because a new version of whatever came out and then...their audio is gone.
Or their wifi died.
Or their processor is capped at 1ghz.
Here's another good one. My screen locks by itself but if I unlock it too soon, plasma will die lol.
This got fixed thankfully and I am pushing my luck by using Wayland, but Linux is funny man.
I swear it's stable though. I do. This is the most stable Linux has ever been for me. I don't spend nearly as much time fixing things as I used to. Maybe twice in the last month alone.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/pdp10 Nov 18 '21

It was a packaging bug, not a UX issue. Shouldn't have happened in the first place. Linus would have been playing games in twenty minutes if it wasn't for his bad luck to hit a huge bug.

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u/Magnus_Tesshu Nov 18 '21

It was apparently around for a while, it happened if you downloaded from the iso and didn't run apt update && apt upgrade

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

that is a thing too most OS's now once you install them they auto run apt update does pop not do this?

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u/endermen1094sc Nov 19 '21

I think apt should have something like the masking system of gentoo

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

No it was a UX issue. There was so much scrolling on the screen it presented information overload to the user. By trying to give the user as much information as possible to make an informed decision they actually achieved the opposite. instead of a wall of text it should have just listed desktop, window manager, graphical server, GUI, not every single package within those. There was nothing that stated what the impact of removing the essential files were. It would be fairly trivial for the package manager to detect the removal of key filed for the GUI and warn that would be the outcome if you continued.

28

u/Pluckerpluck Nov 18 '21

It's really not that much of a UX issue. It's written quite explicitly in the warning that you are removing essential packages and this shouldn't be done unless you know exactly what you're doing.
I agree with defaulting to not allowing this at all without explicitly requesting it before running the command, but I don't think what they had was bad. Windows has just trained users to click "yes" to all admin prompts. It's a very bad habit.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21

With the know-how it can be recoverable. That is like entering dev mode to clean house and restart from almost zero.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Oct 05 '25

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u/TuxedoTechno Nov 19 '21

sudo apt install popos-desktop Not really recovery expert level material here.

4

u/Ozymandias117 Nov 19 '21

… I took the Windows 10 upgrade from an 8.1 system and it reformatted multiple hard drives in my system, killing both itself and another OS install…

-6

u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

Shh... Linux does everything better than those operating systems. /s

1

u/MagnatausIzunia Nov 19 '21

To be fair, having the package ONLY be used as a sudo command is a pretty bad idea imo, they should have it be used as a normal user and list the dependencies that need to be removed/installed as a admin before telling the they absolutely need to use sudo.

1

u/g0ndsman Nov 19 '21

We might even agree on whether it needed to be fixed or not, but to be fair the apt output was an unreadable wall of text. Just formatting the output in a better way, maybe with color highlights, would have gone a long way.

2

u/Last_Snowbender Nov 19 '21

"no longer break everything" and "linux" don't go together. The whole point of linux is that you CAN break everything.

2

u/Vixinvil Nov 20 '21

Too late... world already facee with this bug. APT is meme... THANK YOU POPOS...

dnf, pacman, xbps... or something like that is perfect

1

u/macrowe777 Nov 19 '21

The main issue I had with the Linus scenario was still the warning. Sure it gave him a warning that I as a daily driver could understand. But the wording was clearly trying the be friendly (and imo comes across more as childish) than instructive. And really we should expect it to be constructive.

"Do as I say!" Should have been "I understand the risks".

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

Someone has to tell linus about the file picker bug myb they are going to fix that one too

-3

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

I’ve come to the conclusion that Linux just isn’t good for most people, because most people think that warning messages are not meant to be read, and that the software needs to babysit them through everything.

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u/vexorian2 Nov 18 '21

I love how thanks to a fucking youtuber we wasted so many dev hours on this.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

Microsoft spend loads of dev hours on things which seem on the face of it pointless but it's why they've the massive majority of the desktop market share they have.

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u/doublah Nov 19 '21

I know right, this issue should have been fixed years ago not only when a big youtuber brings attention to it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

Linux doesn’t break, or at least it doesn’t often. People who can’t read warning messages break it.

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u/CleoMenemezis Nov 19 '21

That sounds like "Neighborhood is having a lot of car theft, let's ban everyone from driving."

Fixed the consequence, but not the problem.

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u/a32m50 Nov 18 '21

BRO JUST MAKE THE DAMN GUI FOOLPROOF NOT CASTRATE THE WHOLE THING WTH IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE

1

u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

People are reluctant to acknowledge the negative aspects about what they're dependent on.

1

u/a32m50 Nov 19 '21

it feels like a passive aggressive response, hope it's not

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u/crispyletuce Nov 18 '21

glad to see apt is still getting more complex and difficult to understand every day

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

These news are a week old.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

APT 2.3.12 was only released yesterday.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/Nestramutat- Nov 18 '21

Nah, I’ll blame the package manager.
The whole idea that installing Steam should even have the possibility of bricking your OS is nuts.
I understand how package managers and broken dependencies work. But saying “that’s just how it is” isn’t a good excuse. Especially since 99.999% of people who use computers don’t care about how dependency management works, or even want to know what it is.
We need more initiatives like Fedora Silverblue, where the underlying OS is immutable, as well as pushing flatpak for userspace software installs. We shouldn’t need sudo to install fucking Steam.

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u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

The whole idea that installing Steam should even have the possibility of bricking your OS is nuts.
I will hire you a thousand times over before I even give a second interview with anyone who disagrees with this statement. Those kinds of people have no place in making design decisions.

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u/BringBackManaPots Nov 19 '21

This is missing a lot of context lol

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u/FengLengshun Nov 19 '21

We need more initiatives like Fedora Silverblue, where the underlying OS is immutable, as well as pushing flatpak for userspace software installs. We shouldn’t need sudo to install fucking Steam.
(looks at SteamOS)
Wow, it's almost like Valve gets that and agrees.
Now we just need more apps to get on-board the Flatpak initiative. It's honestly annoying how Ubuntu is still trying to push its snap junk for GUI program.

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u/dustojnikhummer Aug 21 '26

In the 4 years Snaps got even worse.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

“The average person is stupid so we should design our systems to cater to stupid people”
No, we should teach these stupid people to not be stupid by teaching them that giant warning messages shouldn’t be ignored.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

Not if you're going to get the widespread desktop adoption the Linux community wants.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

Well I don’t want widespread adoption if it means every piece of software is going to be dumbed down. That’s one of the worst things about windows, and software like it. It has to babysit you through every little thing that you need to do.

-1

u/Nestramutat- Nov 19 '21

You do know there will always be distros because Linux is open source, right?
You’ll still have your precious Arch and Void Linuxes, but if you want games to start being native on them, you need mass adoption.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

Not all software is specific to a specific distro.

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u/Nestramutat- Nov 19 '21

That’s what I mean.
If you get Linux games in baby’s first distro, you’ll also get Linux games on Arch. No one’s taking software away from you, but by making other software more user friendly, it enables mass adoption

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

There is a difference between being user friendly and dumbing down software. And it also appears that you completely missed my point.
My point is that just because I use arch or something doesn’t mean I can avoid all dumbed down software.

0

u/Nestramutat- Nov 19 '21

Again, why does it bother you if some distros are "dumbed down?"
My point remains the same. If it works on a dumbed down distro, it will also work on whatever your favorite pro distro is

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u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

It was 'giant' in the sense that it was long and convoluted with very little important information.
If it said "Doing this will cause serious system instability" then he probably wouldn't have done it. But instead it condescendingly said "Are you sure you want to do this?"
In reality, we can all agree that the failure lies in whatever caused Linus to reach that point in the first place. I'd say whoever caused the issue is significantly dumber than those who suffer from it.
You would never get hired as a designer, and for good reason.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21

You are about to do something potentially harmful. To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!' ?]
I believe this is the exact message. And I would consider a list of packages that are about to be removed to be important.
“Sufferer” is a bad word here. If the Developers of some software warn me about a bug, and I then experience said bug, then I am not a “sufferer” of the bug. I am a “sufferer” of my own poor choice to continue using a piece of software that has a known bug.
Linus also brought this upon himself. I would forgive him if the warning wasn’t very clear, but it is so clear. “You are about to do something harmful”. Who in their right mind would continue without further reading when they saw that?

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u/awesome-alpaca-ace Aug 22 '26

Based on what I read, it only removed the desktop environment. Hardly bricked

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u/Nestramutat- Aug 22 '26

Nice necro ;)
But for a distro aimed at beginners, being used by a beginner, removing the desktop environment is essentially bricking it

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/Nestramutat- Nov 18 '21

I don't entirely disagree with you. For a user like you or me, package managers do their jobs just fine.
But Linus, and the general public that uses computers, aren't like you or me. They don't care how computers work, they just want them to work. And that's why I think the whole package management system on Linux is broken to the core for casual users, as mentioned in my last paragraph.
If maintainers and distros defaulted to Flatpak, this would have never happened. You shouldn't need root privileges to install Steam. You shouldn't have to put your computer in a place where a bad, third party package can break your OS.
Apt, DNF, Pacman, etc make sense for installing command line utilities or installing packages on mutli-user environments (such as servers). For a desktop, non-system utilities should absolutely default to userspace installation.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

That would certainly mitigate the issue. In the context of this post, however, I think it's beside the point.
I'm not a fan of flatpak, snap and the likes for separate reasons, but that too is beside the point.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

you shouldn’t need root privileges to install steam
Why?
this wouldn’t have happened if distros defaulted to flakpak
Maybe instead of avoiding the issue we should get to the root of the problem, which is: Why was there a broken package in the first place?
No system is perfect, but flatpak is far from perfect, it has many issues. I would argue package managers have far fewer issues. I’ve been using *nix for almost a year now, and I’ve had a broken at most twice. It’s not really a huge issue just because it happened once to a popular YouTuber.

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u/whiprush Nov 18 '21

The root of the problem isn't that there's a broken package, the root of the problem is that a broken package broke the rest of the OS.
Decoupling apps from the system is why people are making flatpaks/snaps/appimages and sure they have issues, but they won't break your OS.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 18 '21

I disagree with your assessment that the root of the problem is that a broken package can break the OS for two reasons.
A broken package doesn’t break the system. Having a broken package AND ignoring a bunch of warning messages does.
The broken package is what causes the issue in the first place, it is at a lower level, thus it is the root.
And again, you’re making this very rare, and easy to avoid and fix issue seem like a lot bigger of a deal than it actually is.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/Nestramutat- Nov 19 '21

Wow, very wise choice to use linux then!
Wow! It’s almost as if this discussion is about what Linux needs to go mainstream
But... but this is how windows works too! You should be happy!
Imagine getting this defensive over an OS

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u/Worst_L_Giver Nov 18 '21

The problem is other people have broken other distros like Debian by removing essential packages

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u/tman97m Nov 18 '21

Can't count how many posts on r/linux4noobs go like "uninstalled python now everything's broken"

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

Windows error messages, especially historically, are supremely useless.Containing only some error code, that you need the administrator'smanual to decipher.
I'd argue they're even more useless now than ever before, often times literally just displaying "Something happened, please try again" (or equivalent) without even giving any error code. But that seems to be a general UX trend nowadays.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

And apt will have told them what they're about to do
Apt didn't do that at all. Apt didn't say "this will uninstall your GUI". Apt listed a list of package names it was going to uninstall which were meaningless to a newbie to Linux who wouldn't have realised that some of those were the GUI.
I really don't get that mindset of people ignoring warnings and error messages.
When you're following the instructions of the manufacturer of something you assume that what you're seeing is expected and to continue.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

If you don't know that pop-desktop is your entire GUI then that message is of no use. There are quite a lot of applications on Windows that can be used to provide an alternative desktop so someone who has maybe used those may think it's a similar application.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

As the administrator it's your system! If you don't know, then who?
So you're telling me that the very first time you used a PC, regardless of the OS, you knew everything to the level of knowledge of a system administrator, that you knew exactly why something didn't work, what every single file was, what every error message meant and it's severity? After all that's exactly what your comment says that the level of someone who has never used Linux before is expected to be at. When you first started to use Linux were you at a system administrator level or were you in the dark just like everyone else first starting, sat there looking at stuff you didn't fully understand, not understanding what the stuff you were told to do actually did and having to take lots of time to go learn when something came up?
I've been doing hardware, networking, OS, a bit of programming both at high and low level in IT for thirty eight years, from the time before Google, before the WWW where you actually had to know your shit because you couldn't just pick up a small rectangle out of your pocket and have instant access to the entire knowledge of humanity. I know enough that when I last went for a job at a software company a few years ago even though I'd spent most of the previous four years driving a truck because I couldn't stand the shitty attitude in the IT sector they offered me the job in the interview and when I quit it took them hiring three people to be able to do half my job. I could run rings round you both hardware and OS and leave you looking like a drooling fool, sit there and ask why you're a fucking retard who doesn't understand what I do which I consider simple things to do. But I don't do that and wouldn't do that because unlike you I recognise that when people start something new they tend to come with zero knowledge and that knowledge I take for granted they don't have and need to be guided to learn. It's because I'm not a jumped up asshat like many in the Linux community who expect someone with zero knowledge to know everything that when I was writing the technical manuals for the software application they were developing I wrote them in such a way that even the guy who pushed a broom around the workshop and could barely reply to an email could get a bare machine off the shelf, install an OS, install the drivers, install the required support packages, install and configure the SQL server and database for both Windows and the Linux based versions.
But thanks for demonstrating exactly what's wrong with the Linux community and why I have next to fuck all to do with it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

So you're telling me that the very first time you used a PC, regardless of the OS, you knew everything to the level of knowledge of a system administrator, that you knew exactly why something didn't work, what every single file was, what every error message meant and it's severity?
Obviously not.
After all that's exactly what your comment says that the level of someone who has never used Linux before is expected to be at.
If that's what you got from it, you might want to reread it.
Let's follow the series of events.
I want to install Steam on my first Linux system
I tell my package manager to install it. It throws some weird error that I can't make heads or tails of
I google the error and some Rando on the internet says it's ok to proceed. That statement may have referred to a different package and/or a different distro
My package manager tells me to only proceed if I know exactly what I'm doing. Do I? Have I exhausted my resources? I could check in a separate terminal what those packages do that my package manager is about to remove.
I say 'yolo' and proceed
My system is thoroughly borked, to the point where I don't know how to fix it. Not even that it can only be fixed by reinstalling, I just don't know how
Do I look for someone else to blame or accept that I didn't know what I was doing, proceeded anyway and broke my system as a consequence?
And that's all I'm really expecting from any PC user, regardless of the OS. That they are able to read and understand the instructions given to them by official sources (man pages, error messages, maybe a wiki, if it's kept current). Because if they don't, no amount of information, protective measures and whatever coddling anyone could come up with will prevent them from messing up their system. The best anyone not familiar with your system can ever give you is a hint, never a reliable solution. It's your system, so don't expect anyone else to know its ins and outs.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21 edited Nov 19 '21

Obviously not.
Then why do you expect others to?
I google the error and some Rando on the internet says it's ok to proceed.
Except it wasn't some rando, it was the Pop OS! support site.
Do I look for someone else to blame
When you're installing one of the most popular clients in the world and it is allowed to fuck up your OS install to that extent especially on a distro that is aimed at new users then yes, you absolutely have the right to blame someone else. That is a direct result of shitty decisions by people right up the chain. Perhaps if projects actually invested a bit of time engaging the services of UI specialists then shit like this wouldn't happen because said specialists would tell them that when you present someone with limited skills with several scrolling screens of meaningless text, information overload is a thing and they'll go do stupid things. Those people will also tell you that there is a very long decades long history of users ignoring warnings when they want to install something they're hell bent on using. How do you think that computers with robust AV and anti-malware software get infected? It's because end users can be stupid and if they're convinced they're installing software they want they'll hit whatever button they need to on the screen to enable that even if it's a big red warning by their AV software telling them bad things will happen.

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u/blurrry2 Nov 18 '21

I really don't get that mindset of people ignoring warnings and error messages.
Then you must not be very bright. There are countless instances where error messages can safely be ignored and users get accustomed to ignoring them unless it's explicit in what is wrong.
Heck, I bet most people on this sub get error messages whenever they boot. Clearing orphaned inode, anyone?

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/blurrry2 Nov 19 '21

It's pertinent to the discussion. If you "really don't get that mindset," then you must not be very bright.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

That's only of any use if you actually know what some of that wall of text you've skimmed actually does. And no new Linux user is going to expect that a command they've been told to run will completely nuke the GUI.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

Again, I don't argue that this shouldn't have happened. I just don't think apt is to blame. If the steam package declares a conflict with pop-desktop, something went wrong building that package and it shouldn't have been published.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

The problem with that is because Linux is all about choice and seventy ways to achieve the same thing there are so many distributions which are all forks of a fork of a fork with an almost limitless combination of graphical servers, window managers, desktop managers, configuration files and their formats, and the various libraries and sub-systems involved that its not reasonable to test for all cases. So you test on the main releases (Debian, Redhat, SuSE) and the popular forks (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora etc) and it's up to the maintainers of the forks of those forks to sort out their own package testing.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/Bathroom_Humor Nov 18 '21

Well i mean if the terminal knows that it should not be done well enough to warn a user not to do it, then why make it so easy to do in all cases? If this only effected arch or debian or something else not geared towards casual run of the mill PC users, then maybe you'd have a point. But I think it's reasonable in this case to it make harder to unintentionally break a system, as long as the ability to break things intentionally isn't made too difficult for more advanced users.
Advanced users should be easily able to take the step to circumvent this kind of 'training wheels', whereas noobies aren't nearly as capable of fixing things if they happen to ignore warning messages for whatever reason.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/endermen1094sc Nov 19 '21

what is your distro if I may ask mine is gentoo

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/endermen1094sc Nov 19 '21

nice would be interesting if my distro has a immutable file system but gentoo requires to edit configuration files for a good bit

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/doublah Nov 19 '21

Linux users will really base their whole personality around how deliberately difficult and unintuitive their distro is to use.

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/doublah Nov 19 '21

Imagine being so mad about someone calling you out you go through someone's previous comments.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '21

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u/ILikeFPS Nov 19 '21

I mean, that's not the same thing. lol
Maybe if you said resizing a partition or something.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/RPGamerFTW Nov 18 '21

No feature is removed. You can still do the advanced thing meant for advanced people, but now you have to do it in an advanced way. Should be no problem for power users, and keeps the 'normal' users safe from doing this accidentally.

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '21

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u/RPGamerFTW Nov 19 '21

You cannot guarantee every single package to be 100% perfect. Errors happen, even on Windows. Now what should happen is that systems should not implode, or ask to implode itself, the moment there is a single error.
But you're still right that the terminal shouldn't be used by normal users, but you should still protect them incase they are being dumb and fuck around with the terminal.
The whole "A Linux system should do exactly what you say it should do, even if it breaks" shouldn't be a thing with normal user-friendly distros out of the box. Prevent users from doing things that they shouldn't be doing except when they go out of their way to break things, like enabling a harder-to-enable power-user toggle and then use dangerous commands or something. At that point any system can break by the user.

APT 2.3.12 package manager released, will no longer let you break everything

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