“Its also not needed on modern desktops which use either RPM or APT.. In Fedora for example if you download an RPM a box pops up that says ‘would you like to install’ you click yes, it ask for the admin password, and the installs..”
Assuming you have RPM and Fedora. I don’t. I have Ubuntu. The stock installation of Ubuntu doesn’t have RPM or Alien (and who the hell knows what Alien is anyway). Today, when I was trying to install drivers for my Dell 1020C printer (I think that’s the number), I had to download RPM and alien and then had to manually install the drivers. Normal humans give up long before I get frustrated.
I may have APT, but I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is or when I might need it. When was the last time Windows came without an unzip program? That’s about where the user friendliness of Linux is stuck right now.
By the way... I had to download a Xerox/Fuji driver for my Dell printer and I still can’t get the driver to recognize the paper tray. I can now feed single sheets. That, of course, is a vast improvement over saving files on a thumb drive and printing with my Mac or my PC’s, but it isn’t yet right.
And another thing while I’m griping... Why do all Linux instructions assume I know where to install drivers? I can often figure it out, but normal humans don’t know what a directory is. The whole idea of cd usr/root/fu/bar/model is not included in most brains.
I may have APT, but I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is or when I might need it.
You use Ubuntu and don't know whether you have apt, or what it is? That is actually a bit amazing. Apt is the front-end to dpkg, which is the standard Debian package management system. These are what are used to install deb files, which are the binary packages used on Debian and Debian based systems like Ubuntu. Most commonly people would use synaptic, a gui app, or aptitude, a console app, to maintain the various applications that they have installed on their system.
Are you an abnormal human being?