The GnuCash installation instructions warn non-programmers against even trying to install it. The word "nightmare" is used. Yet, the process should be quite simple: if the project was distributed using Zero Install then users could safely fetch and run it, with all its required dependencies, using a single command.

Zero Install is a fundamentally different way to access software. Instead of copying software from the web onto our computers, we cache it. It's a faster, easier to understand, and safer way to get software, suitable for both broadband and dial-up users.

Oddly, though, most people seem to ignore it. Why? Please add comments... I'd like to know how to present it better! A typical conversation goes like this:

• Them: How do I install <foo>?
• Me: Are you using Zero Install?
• Them: No. What's that?
• Me: It removes the need to install software. It uses a cache to allow running software directly from the author's machines.
• Them: Sounds like a bad idea...
• Me: Why?
• Them: Err... insecure?
• Me: Nothing runs as root, or as any privileged user. So you're running the same code as normal, but without the additional worries of an installation script.
• Them: Err...slow?
• Me: Since data is only downloaded when it's needed, there's less to download in total so it's actually faster. Once cached, it's at least as fast as normally-installed software; sometimes faster since there are no search paths.
• Them: Oh. Still sounds like a bad idea.
• Me: Why?
• Them: Don't know...

After trying it for a few minutes, they're usually converted though. But what gives the bad initial impression?

Web site: Zero Install

This is something that's been bugging me a long time, and hey, I've got a journal, I might as well use the journal, right?

Right.

I've been running FreeBSD as my desktop since the 5.0 release. Up until then, I really only installed it to play around, ("Hey, it's a server OS, remember? Just set up some services, see how everything looks, then leave it be.") but it's now my sole OS on two of my three computers. I had been running Gentoo since the time when they were ready to release 1.4 but not yet but soon but not now but it'll happen any day maybe soon kinda.

So, I ran Gentoo for a year and a half.

But recently I deleted my Gentoo install because I realized something: I hate Gentoo.

I hate Portage, I hate broken programs, I hate it not checking dependancies before unemerging, I hate it causing GCC to segfault. I hate having it compile things and only after trying them finding out it assumed I wanted GTK instead of GTK2 because I had GTK and GTK2 in my USE flags. And I hate the idea that it's just assumed that I should have just put a 'USE="-GTK"' on the command line with the emerge, because it's not in line with what should be expected when you have GTK2 in the USE flags.

I hate it constantly changing config files and moving/spliting them. I hate it tossing everything in /etc. I hate not having sane defaults. I hate it installing a new copy of Portage every week that will, without a shadow of a doubt, cause the world to end should I even consider possibly maybe installing anything else without immediately installing the updated Portage.

I hate users who assume that because they have a similar mechanism to Ports, it means everyone must jump to GNU/Linux, and more specifically, Gentoo. I hate how they take every, and any, opertunity to bash the RedHat and Debian distros. Basically, I hate Gentoo.

And you know, I don't think I'm the only one.