Ubuntu Developing Its Own Package Format, Installer

An anonymous reader writes "While complementing Debian APT/DPKG, Canonical is now developing their own package format. The new package format has promised highlights of having no dependencies between applications, each package would install to its own directory, root support wouldn't always be required, and overall a more self-contained and easier approach for developers than it stands now for Debian/Ubuntu packages. The primary users of the new packaging system would be those distributing applications built on the Ubuntu Touch/Phone SDK. The initial proof-of-concept package management system is written in Python and uses JSON representation." This quote from the post by Canonical's Colin Watson bears repeating: "We'll continue to use dpkg and apt for building the Ubuntu operating system, syncing with Debian, and so on."

Comments

Re:More Flexibility?

[girlintraining]

Would it allow users to install multiple versions of the same application from packages? One of my gripes with Linux is that it's not easy to test new or beta versions of software since there is no easy way to install from packages alongside the existing (stable) version. Yes, I know that I could build the app from source, but that can be quite a hassle sometimes.

That's because Linux suffers from a similar problem that Windows 95/98, and XP to a lesser extent did: DLL hell. The average linux installation has thousands of libraries. And they're all referenced and indexed using a half dozen different methods from files in /etc to compile-time kernel flags, etc.

Microsoft solved this (partially) using a centralized registry and integrated it into the operating system. They've tried to add integrity-checking and what-not so that critical DLLs can be reverted in place... a primitive version-control system you can access by running "sfc /scannow" at the command prompt.

Linux doesn't even have that much. It's a crap shoot as to which library version your executable will load. That's why adding 'beta' versions to the mix isn't easy: You could blow up your entire installation, so usually, beta releases are 'static' linked. I don't know why the kernel devs haven't addressed this problem.