this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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No, your Desktop Environment doesn't have a huge list of package names to app names. It has a list for all your installed packages, but the list entries are part of the packages.
If your system doesn't have
gnome-system-monitorinstalled, you won't have the corresponding.desktopfile, because it's part of the package. It would be incredibly wasteful and unnecessarily complex for your system to get shipped out with.desktopfiles for all possible applications.Sure. But we don't just exist in the context of the machine currently in front of us. Beginners might, Wade might, but consider this:
I use Linux Mint right now. An "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of distro, GTK3 based, ships with a combination of Gnome's utility apps and several of Mint's Xapps. In the App menu, there's an icon that says "Text Editor." It launches a program that resembles Notepad but a little better. If I switched to KDE but didn't like KATE and wanted Mint's Text Editor, what would I type after
sudo apt installto get it? How do you learn that it's Xed? It doesn't call itself Xed anywhere in the GUI.What do you think Seahorse does? Either you already know this, or you have to look it up, you'll never guess what it does from the title. I'll give you no hint whatsoever: It's Gnome's equivalent of Kleopatra.
spoiler
Those are both credential managers for things like PGP or SSH keys, things like that. Why KDE didn't call theirs "Keyring" I'll never understand.There's so many bad ways to name software, and the Linux ecosystem has tried them all. WINE Is Not Emulation or LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder. I still believe GNU would have a kernel if Stallman had put the effort coming up with HURD/HIRD into writing the actual software. If you had to guess, what does Caja do? We live in a world where Nautilus and Nemo are two versions of the same thing.
The various text editors, ranked from best name to worst name: Gedit, Xed, Leafpad, Mousepad, Pluma, KATE. Gedit, it's from Gnome because of the G, and it's an editor. Xed contains the same information but you have to have more in-depth prior knowledge, you have to know Mint and their Xapp initiative. Leafpad is better than Mousepad because the latter might be a mouse/cursor configuration utility. Pluma...plume > feather > quill pen > writing > text editor. Wow what a journey. Why would I independently come to the conclusion that KATE stands for KDE Advanced Text Editor? Call it Ktext.
I would rather them call it Gedit than gnome-text-editor because they're willing to put "Gedit" on the title bar of the window, they won't put "Gnome Text Editor" up there.
Your Mint/Xed example doesn't show what you think it does. Mint doesn't just ship with
.desktopentries for a bunch of applications, they are still managed by the respective developers and part of the packages themselves. Mint is also the developer of Xed, so the repository is in their organization, but the.desktopfile is still part of the package. If you install Xed on any other distribution, you'll still get the same.desktopentry, because it's part of the package.That is all I've been talking about. I'm not sure how your reply relates to that, but it would help me if you tell me what you're arguing against.
Mostly that we do this at all in the first place.
Forget the technical details for a minute. Fuck how .desktop files work. The program's binary is named "xed." If you want to install it, you have to type "sudo apt install xed" or "sudo dnf install xed" or whatever because that's the package's name. But in the user-facing parts of the GUI like the App menu or in the window's title bar, it calls itself "Text Editor."
Let's pretend you're a new user to Linux, you use Linux Mint Cinnamon for a little while, you like the text editor that comes with it, you decide to switch to Fedora KDE, you try it out but you find you don't like KATE as much. You want to install the one from Linux Mint. How do you find out what to type into dnf to get it to do that? You haven't been taught that the program's name is Xed, everything you saw as a Mint user called it "Text Editor." Why did they do that to you?
Okay, but why do you tell me that I'm wrong and keep going on about unrelated points? I don't care if the user-facing name is different from the binary name. I have no position on the topic.
I corrected a wrong statement (who is responsible for the
.desktopfile of an application). You tried to counter-correct me, but did so on an unrelated point (who displays the application name? I'm still not sure). Positions on whether.desktopfiles defining separate names is good aren't relevant.you win forget I said anything Im blocking you please block me.