Comments on: #12: Consistent Packaging

By: Ubuntu + Gentoo = Nirvana? « Inkless Paper

Ubuntu + Gentoo = Nirvana? « Inkless Paper — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:11:45 +0000

[...] I was skimming through some of the older posts on Mark Shuttleworth’s blog when I came across this one that struck a chord. While I do like the whole Debian apt packaging system, for the most part, [...]

By: Mighty Linuxz » Shuttleworth: Linux distros need consistent packaging

Mighty Linuxz » Shuttleworth: Linux distros need consistent packaging — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:09:02 +0000

[...] read more | digg story [...]

By: Ankur Gupta

Ankur Gupta — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:49:26 +0000

I am persuring B.Tech in Amity ,but not happy here i am looking for an online computer language test on c,c++ for money factor only thats national or international level that doesn’t matter to me,so i am waiting for ur reply…….

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 13:09:14 +0000

Thanks to Mark for opening up this discussion, and thanks to Steve for the link to http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/ – I will be installing this on my Ubuntu Edgy system very soon and doing my best to contribute to the project’s success, because it looks to me as if the concepts behind the zero-install project are the Right Way Forward.

It’s even easier to use than the Windows app installation process, because you don’t need separate download-installer, run-installer and run-application steps; having found a zero-install app on the web, you just run it.

Everything else – downloading the code, downloading dependencies, applying updates – happens automagically. You don’t need admin rights just to install an app, you don’t need to mess with a repository list, and distro developers don’t need to maintain repositories. Software developers are in charge of specifying their own dependencies, and any number of these can coexist, even if they provide similar services; if multiple apps share dependencies, what they have in common only gets downloaded once.

As a site admin, all I’d need to do to set up my workstations would be to provide a base OS with a bunch of links to zero-install apps, and a web proxy on my LAN. What’s not to like?

I use Ubuntu because it’s nicely integrated, and gets more so with each release; every six months, more things Just Work. It strikes me that Ubuntu getting behind the zero-install project and making it the standard way for Ubuntu users to acquire apps may well be a good way to make that experience scale.

As far as I can see there’s nothing stopping Synaptic and zero-install from coexisting in the same distro. As releases goes by, though, I can also see no fundamental reason why zero-install couldn’t progressively take over from apt. Comparison here:

http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/compare.html

The Ubuntu way to persuade other distros to get on board seems to me to be by doing something compelling enough that what the other guys are doing becomes obviously deficient by comparison. At first glance, zero-install strikes me as exactly that kind of advance.

By: FelixR

FelixR — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:05:04 +0000

It would be great if the LSB releases every 6 months a new release. Plus defining the FHS more concrete where KDE, Gnome etc. has to be installed. With that combination distributors would be able to release a new distri every 6 months under a new LSB version. So you only need LSB compatible packages for the different LSB versions which run on all distributions which are compatible with the different LSB versions:

app-xy-0.95-lsb-2.0.deb
app-xy-0.95-lsb-2.1.deb
app-xy-0.05-lsb-3.0.deb

That would decrease number of packages needed for the different distributions. If they would use only deb or rpm format there would be only 3 different packages for a period of time of 1,5 years which would run on all LSB compatible Linux distributions.

By: Mike’s Journal » Blog Archive » the ubuntu devconf

Mike’s Journal » Blog Archive » the ubuntu devconf — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 05:35:40 +0000

[...] This sort of conversation makes me very cynical about the relevance of the OSDL and LSB. It is easy to pick on Ubuntu here but in practice I know this kind of thinking is endemic to the distributions … it would have been exactly the same at a Fedora conference. It was a shame that Mark Shuttleworth didn’t show up – his blog entry is the only reason I went along, as I’ve had similar conversations via email before so knew what to expect. Unfortunately it sounded like he had a lot of pushback on those plans and they are now being watered down to simply being “it’d be nice if source compiled the same on every distro”, which is basically where we are today, sort of, except because there are no ISVs there’s no real incentive to keep it that way and sometimes it breaks. [...]

By: fish

fish — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:44:31 +0000

I wonder why we are even discussing this…

In 5 years I’ll try linux again, and it will be like now, 5 years ago, 10 years ago…

Still no consistent packaging and a huge waste of time in the linux community!

Nothing will ever change in this area, distros are way too narrow minded for that, including Ubuntu.

Also, I wonder what the point of this blog is when Mark wouldn’t ever reply to any of the comments anyway.

Maybe one day you guys will realize what big a chance for the linux desktop u are wasting here…

By: alexxx

alexxx — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:48:41 +0000

Hi Mark,
I’m a happy Ubuntu user.
I had an idea: hold package standard (deb) but make it distribuited and updated via RSS.
To make it an actual system we need:
- define a standard package fundation, I propose every packet depending by “ubuntu-desktop.deb” et alii
- certificate software by community, to prevent some sicurity trouble avoiding spyware and other malware
- distribute this software with all exotic library, like a metapackage (libraries usually are very light)
- restrict what dpkg could do, it should execute some standard tasks, like create new file and update other and so on, and not modify iptables if it is not what it is created for.
This will work if developers and their community want to provide package directly. This should improve commercial appeal of Ubuntu, because in this way we can give a standard system for commercial software too.
These ara just ideas, excuse if these are not what you are searching for.

By: Zolookas

Zolookas — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:38:52 +0000

I’m sorry to say that, but it’ll never happen. If ubuntu team will make some changes, other distros will ignore it (distros almost always ignore each other). If you took a part from every distro you will able to make ultimate one. Another thing is dependencies. If program requires library X and distro Y has it, but distro Z don’t. Distro Y will probably try to make package without that depencency and everything starts from beggining…

By: Ahmed (ihavenoname)

Ahmed (ihavenoname) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 22:05:38 +0000

Excellent point Mark. Heres the real question though, what are we going to do about it? Is Ubuntu going to help with autopackage and move in that direction? How do you get hundreds of distros to switch over to one packaging standard? Especially after so much work has gone in to getting their distros fully integrated with their package manager? Take Fedora and yum(pup, pirut, anaconda now using yum). Even Ubuntu and gdebi and synaptic. I think smart is one way to go, if all distros adopt smart then at least we are all resolving dependencies the same way and we are one step closer to the desired goal. At the same time we can also try and get distros to name packages the same way. From there it will just be a matter of merging packaging standards on both rpm and debs. Of course there are flaws to this method, but at this point it is only a suggestion. The important thing is that we do keep pushing towards this goal. I do believe this is one of the main reason many companies stray from releasing Linux versions of their software or drivers or what have you. While this may not be the only reason it is a pretty important factor. Let’s hope this ‘issue’ gets resolved. Mark I wish you the best of luck in this venture. I’ll help if I can.
Good day
AhmedG. (aka Ihavenoname)