[ale] Linux for "normal" people?

[esoteric at 3times25.net (Geoffrey)]

Michael Mealling wrote:

> 'normal' people want painless (that doesn't mean 'intelligent') 
> application (not 'package') management. Some things that I think
> packages need on linux to enable this:
> 
> * the concept of package 'suites' (i.e. a suite contains all "office"
> apps such as Open Office, Dia, etc) 

SuSE has this.

> * package aliases so I don't have to know _exactly_ what the package is
> called before I can get it with yum or apt-get. I've had to go find the
> rpm in order to query it for its name before I can tell yum to install
> it and its dependencies.

As I've noted before, Yast has this.  You can search by:

Name, summary, description, (what the package) provides and (what the 
package) requires

> * A _standard_ way for CVS checkouts, source tarballs and binary
> tarballs to co-exist with RPM and APT...

I don't know of any package system that handles this, don't see how it 
could. (easily)

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey