A Tale of Broken Packages

Now, you are probably going to think this is about mishaps with a shipping company. Boohoo! My UPS package arrived damaged... Sad Face... None of that: UPS is reliable as ever, as are the other shipping companies (FedEx, DHL, USPS, what have you). No, the packages I am talking about are Linux/Ubuntu packages.

One of the major advantages of using a distro like Ubuntu is that someone else figures out what works with what and makes packages available for you to download and install semi-automatically. It's really easy and a lot more fun than the super-crappy way you install software on Windows. Instead of downloading an installer that tells you to shut down all applications before starting and then goes through a hundred screens of questions that you really don't care about (Where do you want the software installed? Do you want the software to report usage statistics?), in Ubuntu you just say, "I want Amarok," and there it is.

Sure, the whole system could use improvements. For instance, it would be more than just nice to add user ratings to the packages, so that you can see which one of the zillion alternatives is rated best. Also, it would be nice to know the size of the download before you get started. Finally, it would be great if there was a meta-server that lists major available repositories, and you'd just check the box next to the ones you'd like.

What I am going to be complaining about here, though, is more basic. I expect the download of a piece of software to give me a package that (a) doesn't break my system, (b) doesn't cause security problems, and (c) does something useful. While (a) and (b) have not been violated yet, I just got a package that clearly violates (c) big time.