Building A Better Package Manager

SilentBob4 writes "Adam Doxtater of Mad Penguin has published a preliminary layout for his proposed cross-distribution package manager capable of adding/removing software from any locale. He is suggesting the interface will basically allow for installation of several major package formats including RPM, DEB, TGZ, as well as source code with the ability to pass build time options. All of this will come at the price of standards of course, including naming, documentation, and package structuring. If this idea were to catch on, it would signify a major leap in desktop Linux usability. This might be a project that UserLinux might benefit from. Read the full column here (complete with GUI mockups)."

Comments

Package management woes

[OmniVector]

Me and my friend had a long discussion about this last night. My conclusion was that as long as linux has 5 competing packaging formats. FreeBSD is a perfect example of a community united.

however i'm under the firm belief that linux will always be a fragmented mess, and the only reason BSD is so united is because of it's commercial liscensing.

a man can dream though. i'd like to stop having to worry about redhat-rpms, mandrake-rpms, debs, ebuilds, and tar.gzs and boy am i sick of compiling from source.