One of the topics of the last community meeting about Extras QA was if command line applications (CLI) should be available for regular users through the application manager or not. We can't reach a consensus, and it seems to generate very contradictory opinions inside our community.

We're talking about apps that doesn't have a UI nor place a icon in the desktop, nor are simple enables that display a message during/after installation.

Please note that this is not about ban some applications, is about the way of get some specific applications.

Here is the initial discussion: http://n2.nabble.com/Command-line-ap....html#a4068091

Moderator edit: http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...ns_and_extras/ (Brainstorm item)

I'm for it being available.

I would most certainly also vote for inclusion.

This is not about the inclusion or not of these apps, these apps will be available for sure, this is about the user experience, if you're a complete noob in the Linux world and install one of these apps you will have a very bad experience in my opinion, since the app doesn't provide any feedback and there's no application icon to start the app.

Quoting myself:
"Please note that this is not about ban some applications, is about the way of get some specific applications."

Perhaps this is what red/blue pill should be used for?

im a noob myself and cant be doing with command line. much rather have a ui. i say leave them out

Just make an Extras - Command Line repository and be done with it. Those that are scared of / hate CLI won't go there. And those that love/need CLI will have all the goodness of app-Manager.

Can you please propose this as a solution at Brainstorm ?

Thanks.

I'm a command line junkie, and I don't think command line apps as a general rule should be listed in the visual application manager.

Now that said there might be some exceptions, for example things like VIM, nethack, or other CLI apps that stay open and provide a constant interface. You can create a shortcut to these in the ui, and that can be helpful, and not necessarily confusing to end users. But they should be clearly labeled as the hardcore/niche/geek tools that they are.

But any app that you invoke on the command line with parameters, and no additional input, should likely be left out of the Visual App Manager.

I don't see how I could complain that I had to go to a terminal and use the apt-get command to install something like latex commands, or flac encoders etc... that they are certain to invoke from a terminal/script anyway.

It's not possible to show critical update notifications graphically even for non-graphical packages?

It seems like this sort of problem would also exhibit itself in critical updates for library packages?

I'm completely with goldfish and vdvsx on this one. If you like the command line you won't have a problem learning a few extra commands to install thngs. If you don't, and don't want to learn, all it's going to do is provide confusion.
"I installed mplayer but can't find it in the menu."
I think having an extras-cli repository would be a mistake because it would get enabled in order to install things like mplayer as a canola/kmplayer dependancy, and then we'd have exactly the same problem again.