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Peter da Silva skribis 2005-04-23 8:16 (-0500): > And on Mac OS, installing applications has always been easy. But the > people writing cross-platform applications have spent a lot of time and > effort coming up with packaging schemes and installers, and so have > transferred both of them over to Mac OS X. Yes, installing a program is easy. Upgrading it is too. Even removing it is easy. But none of it can easily be done in bulk, which means that if you want to do more than one program, the easy bit is gone. > Try http://macupdate.com/ instead. You can update the rest of the apps you use > at the same time. That helps. But it feels like one of those GUIs for Debian's apt, a big difference being that this GUI can only search and install, while apt GUIs can also upgrade and remove from a central application. > > 5. double click an icon (dmg) > Click on the name in the download window. Good idea. > > 6. drag another icon to the Applications folder > And you get to say WHERE you want it, it doesn't just vanish into the > dark forest of /usr. So when you want to sync up your Mac at work with > the software on your Mac at home you just > rsync --rsh=ssh home.example.com::/Local /Local The synching thing is nice - still, this functionality could be integrated into package management for OS X. I agree that the /usr woods are convoluted and basically just suck. Application directories work much better. I don't understand why when something's easy, people stop trying to make it even easier. Why can't I just in a simple window (no website, no ads, no having to pay) type the name of the thing I want, and have the computer do all the repetitive tasks? That's what a computer is good at, and I prefer wasting my time doing things I like. > > 7. confirm that I want to replace the old one > > 8. close the Finder window again > Click on the "eject" button next to the volume name. Handy. Thanks. > > 9. select two icons (dmg and mounted volume) > > 10. drag them to Trash > Drag the DMG to "/Local/Installed" so you have a clean copy, and when > you clicked eject you unmounted the DMG and closed the window. And maintain updates in two places? That's even more work. If I need it again, I'll apt-ge^H^H^H^H^H^Hmanually download it again... > > And after all that hard labour, all that's upgraded is just one program! > http://macupdate.com/ or http://versiontracker.com/ > I prefer macupdate, Versiontracker is a bit tarpit-ish. If there's some magic software upgrading program hiding in there, it is indeed very good at hiding. > The 8-step procedure is easier for newbies than "apt-get install firefox". Yes. But this way, they will forever stay newbies. There is no more advanced level (well, some shortcuts like the two you indicated) of understanding, so there isn't more efficiency to be gained. In that respect, it is like PHP: made for newbies in a way that prevents them from ever reaching a higher level and power users from doing things efficiently. Juerd -- http://convolution.nl/maak_juerd_blij.html http://convolution.nl/make_juerd_happy.html http://convolution.nl/gajigu_juerd_n.htmlThere's stuff above here
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