Package manager first impressions are amazing
I recently got an iPhone and in true geek fashion I have been excitedly showing some of its fun features to anyone that will listen. The one feature that seems to get a lot of reaction from people is the AppStore. People love how you can simply select something and next thing you know it is installed and ready to go. No download and unzip, no double click the icon, no restarting, no fuss.
None of them realize that there is an entire operating system that generally functions the same way albeit a lot less flashy. The package managers in most modern Linux distributions work on the exact same principals. Simply select an application you wish to install and it will take care of the rest. Some distributions go even farther and have a bit friendlier interface to their repository such as Ubuntu’s Add/Remove programs.
Perhaps Ubuntu should take a few ques from Apple on this and improve the experience a bit more. First of all the naming convention is boring and could easily be confused with the traditional Windows area which no one used. Second they should provide screen shots of the applications. Generally before I install an application I want to know what the interface looks like. Finally they should try and integrate some social capabilities. This would allow users to read reviews from other users who may be like them.
These few changes could greatly improve the experience of adding applications. It could also become a major “selling” point of the OS.