Feature changed by: Jan Engelhardt (jengelh) Feature #308339, revision 3 Title: Universal installer openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Gerrit Mackor (itbgjm) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Hello I would like to see a universal installer for Linux that works on all distros. Something that can do all the install work from a installer file and data files if necessary. They way I see it is that this will make developing applications for Linux more interesting as users will no longer need to use the MAKE utility or scripts pretty much meaning that the user is super user. This is on bit of software that will take Linux from the hobby environment to a more usable alternative. Using openSUSE I see that often I am asked for librarys.  As an end user I do not really care what libraby is used, the application needs to work and all other apps need to work.  Hope this will be possible. UPDATE: It seems that the installer part is being worked on. Se an extract on an interview below: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AJ: There are certain things that make a lot of sense, especially in RPM. When you release software as source code you want people to make binaries - it helps a lot if you make a .spec file. But if one .spec file only works on one distribution, and you have to write another . spec file for another distribution, it's not easy. That's what we're trying to solve - we're working on guidelines of how to write .spec files. We're working on RPMs having the same sets of patches, so that they get upstream as much as possible. TR: I'd like to see package names becoming uniform across distros... AJ: That will be the discussion as well, moving forward... a naming scheme, like Debian has with shared libraries. That's one aspect of distributions working together. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taking the above a little further would be to remove the libraries from end users' view. As an end user I do not care what library I need. I would like to install an application and it must simply work. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: Make Linux easier to use for an end user. + Discussion: + #1: Jan Engelhardt (jengelh) (2009-12-30 20:22:00) + >I would like to see a universal installer for Linux that works on all + distros. +   + Autopackage. + Self-installing tarballs (e.g. Unreal Tournament, NVIDIA, VMware). +   + None of these approaches have gained widespread usage. It's futile. +   + >Using openSUSE I see that often I am asked for librarys.  As an end + user I do not really care what libraby is used, the application needs + to work and all other apps need to work. +   + If vendors would use the distro's package mechanism (and hey, there are + NVIDIA and ATI rpms) you do not need to care; zypper will do it. +   + >There are certain things that make a lot of sense, especially in RPM. + When you release software as source code you want people to make + binaries - it helps a lot if you make a .spec file +   + Well, I often see that OBS packages sort of reinvent .spec files + instead of relying (perhaps tweaking them a little) on preshipped .spec + files. Or in other words: the Levensthein distance between .spec files + and preshipped .spec files is larger than I would have expected. +   + And you know why that is? Because whoever writes the preshipped .spec + file usually does it for one or only a handful of distros. Usually you + will see %mdk_idiom or %fedora_specific_thing and no mention of SUSE. + But that's just a detail... +   + >I'd like to see package names becoming uniform across distros... +   + Heh, another utopia. Remember UnitedLinux? *Poof* In all unification + talks there are with Fedora (e.g. the RPM summit on the Opensuse + Conference), opensuse seems to have more package names in common with + Debian than Fedora, /* heh, heh */ [the Shared Library Policy does it] +   -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/308339