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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)."
So this is a similar effort to Autopackage except that it plans on using the native package formats? Intriguing...
True story.
http://www.openpkg.org/
What about 0-Install? It is simple, elegant, doesn't require root to do an installation, seamlessly downloads libraries and other dependancies as they are needed, and integrates nicely into the filesystem. I really think 0Install could be the future of installers, if only they can get someone to build a distro around it.
A package is basically the same thing as a Windows MSI file.
The problem is that different distros have different directory layouts, configuration file layouts, different places to put binary files, different ways of updating the internal library database etc. etc. etc.
The problem is basically a manifestation of there being more than 1 distro of linux and having distro maintainers who have not agreed on a common standard for this stuff. It's Linux's major achilles heal IMHO.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
Ebuild's aren't written in python, they're simple bash scripts. Portage, the system that manages the ebuilds, is written in python, as are eclasses.
:-)
I don't really see a point to including ebuild's in this package manager though, as the package manager should already be doing the work of the ebuilds maintain source packages.
Besides, portage will kick this package managers ass anyday.
Packages *are* the installers (like MSIs)... only each distribution of linux supports a different one (well, some of them support the same formats).
.tgz files .tar.gz or .tar.bz2
... (you get the idea, it's a pain).
In windows, "Add/Remove Programs" is the "Package Manager". Think back to Windows 3.11 where if you installed a program and you wanted to remove it, you had to delete the directory, find any files it dropped in c:\windows, delete them, edit your autoexec.bat, config.sys files... etc.
Since there is no uniform package manager for linux, and a lot of stuff is just distributed as source (ie: NO package manager support, you're back to the plane old file drop method in win3.11), it can be kind of frustrating.
For example: Redhat, Mandrake, Suse (and others) all use RPM.
Debian uses DEB files
Slackware uses
And anything can usually be found in source format, typically with the extension
It's rather sad when you're on Redhat, and you find a package and its either only in DEB format, or it's in SuSE RPM (which has different dependancies than redhat, so you might not be able to use it) or
So the point is, we need something equivalent to "Add/Remove Programs" that just *works* on all linux distros.
no comment
"emerge -u gaim" will upgrade its immediate dependencies.
"emerge gaim" will just upgrade to the needed packages, or only gaim.
A package is a file that contains information needed to install and uninstall a program. They are similar to MSI files, but have a number of advantages, mostly stemming from the fact that free software is, well, free, and so you can get it without buying it. Proprietary software comes on CDs, whereas free comes over the Internet. Upgrading free software is very "light weight" whereas upgrading proprietary software is usually very "heavy weight." This gives a different distribution model.
.dll files you don't need, weird interdependencies, and the system gets slower, more bloated, etc. This doesn't happen on Debian -- I installed my box maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and it's identical in functionality to if I installed it yesterday. Package management, well implemented, buys you that. You never reinstall the overall system, and upgrades are well-managed and don't break things.
.rpm even longer).
This has several effects. If I distribute a nonfree 10MB program UberTool, that requires the nonfree 20MB MegaLib, I'd better distribute MegaLib with UberTool. If both are free, I can distribute them seperately -- if the user already has MegaLib, he'll just install UberTool.deb. If he doesn't, the package management system will know where to grab MegaLib from, will download MegaLib.deb, and install it.
Furthermore, if I'm going from Office 97 to Office 2000, it's because I bought money on a CD, and I'm running an installer. In the free software world, upgrades are no-brainers, since they cost no money, and most free software programs are a smooth evolution, rather than major versions every several years. As a result, I'll generally be running the latest version of my office suite (as well as every other little utility on my system), and it is convenient to be able to do the upgrades all in one step (apt-get upgrade; apt-get update will grab all packages with newer versions, and install them, cleanly removing the previous ones). Most people never reinstall Debian -- I know installs from '96 that are still running today, at the latest versions, and there are almost certainly ones from before. I don't know of anyone who went from DOS/Windows 3.1 through Windows XP with just upgrades, and without a reinstall.
The next thing is Windows has a problem of bit rot. If you leave a Windows system without reinstalling the whole thing, adding and removing programs, etc. crap builds up. You get all sorts of registry keys you don't need,
The other place package management helps is in centrally-maintained networks. You can install the same package, with the same configuration settings, very easily from a centralized location.
So package management is, in effect, a fancy way to install and uninstall files. However, the fanciness buys you a lot. The new Windows installer is a form of package management, and gives some of the same advantages, although it's not yet as mature as the GNU/Linux ones (.deb has been around since at least '95, and