There"s really nothing that hard about installing programs on Linux. Anyone who still uses shell commands like say, "apt-get install some-program-or-the-other," is doing so because they want to do it that way, not because they have to. Programs like Debian and Ubuntu"s Synaptic, Fedora"s yum or openSUSE"s YaST makes installing programs little more than a matter of point and click. Still, some people have trouble, so Ubuntu is reviving a dusty, old project, AppCenter so that anyone can install Linux programs.

I was pointed to the newly refurbished site by some Ubuntu insiders in response to some questions I had about an earlier rumor about their being plans for an Ubuntu App Store afoot. I guess Apple"s App Store"s roaring success has everyone App Store happy these days. That site, apperi, which describes itself as a Linux app store, wasn"t the one though that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, was working on...