My Linux adventure continues on my modest Dell workstation. I’m pleased to say that so far things are going very well and Ubuntu continues to bring new life to my otherwise underpowered workstation. After getting over a few hurdles, what’s really impressive about my experience working on Ubuntu daily is how uneventful it is. Still, there’s always some room for improvement and the most glaring pain point is the lack of decent apps available for the operating system. Ubuntu just doesn’t have a good app ecosystem compared to MacOS and the Software Center is little more than an embarrassment.
Developer Interest: The simple and most basic cause of this is that there just aren’t many apps available, since developers don’t see Ubuntu as a platform worth developing for. Unfortunately, that’s probably true to a point. A simple Google search for developers considering moving their app project over from MacOS or Windows to Ubuntu, doesn’t yielding very heartening results. There also is something of (what I believe to be a misconception) among some developers where they believe that Ubuntu users are unlikely to purchase software.
App Distribution: Canonical, the developer of Ubuntu, released the Software Center several years ago with the hopes that it would become the equivalent of the App Store on MacOS. Unfortunately, the Software Center was poorly implemented and little to no effort was made to draw developers to the platform. Failing the Software Center, developers are left to their own devices for delivering their apps and there’s little standardization on Ubuntu or Linux as a whole for that matter when it comes to the easy distribution and installation of GUI apps.
The advantage of Ubuntu and Linux operating systems in general is that there are steps that the community can take to resolve issues on the platform. For instance, the community could develop an open-source alternative to the Software Center and encourage its adoption. Of course, Canonical could accelerate the process by throwing their development and financial weight behind such an effort and making a clearer statement about where the platform is headed.
Let me know what you think? Do you see Ubuntu as a viable development platform? Reach out to me in the comments below or on Twitter.
UPDATE: I have been made aware that the Software Center launched before the Mac App Store. I appreciate the correction. This only makes Canonical’s failure deeper, since they’ve had more time to work this out. Maybe the GNOME store will be better but I don’t think being first is in any way valuable in terms of being a developer and considering developing commercial software on the platform.
