On Tuesday 10 June 2003 3:08 pm, Richard Bos wrote:
Op dinsdag 10 juni 2003 21:56, schreef Nick LeRoy:
I guess the real issue is that each application typically comes with their own fancy installer, and doesn't take advantage of these capabilities. How do we get them to use the standard tools. I guess there's still an issue with .deb vs. .rpm, etc. Sigh.
Nick,
apt is available for many distros already, including Debian (of course), RH, SuSE, Lindows, and some more. rpms can be converted with "alien" to .deb pkgs. However, the Linux Standard Base specifies rpm as standard pkg.
I would say there is a universal installer available. The only thing is that the .spec files must be adapted to each distro, as they differ in details (RH has rpm-4 e.g. while SuSE uses rpm-3).
I still have some doubts, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Will it truely install things that are shipped with the "application" package if and only if it's not already installed in a standard location? There are certainly going to be new libraries, etc., that aren't shipped (even with SuSE) with the distro, but are still not application specific. So, in general, I don't know how apt could "find" it. I want it to be able to handle it either way. I guess there are several distinct cases: 1. Already installed. Simple. 2. Incompatible version installed 2a. apt knows how to get compatible version, installs it 2b. apt doesn't know how to get compatible version, installs the version shipped with the application 3. Not installed 3a. apt knows how to get compatible version, installs it 3b. apt doesn't know how to get compatible version, installs the version Can it do all of that? Can Joe Developer take his source code, do a single "make package", and wind up with a single set of things such that _any_ user with apt installed on their system can: 1. Insert the CDROM into their cup holder, click <install>, and sit back 2. Download a single set of files from some web site, and have the apt interface do the right thing? If so, then I stand *gladly* corrected. If not, we're not "there" yet. I'll grant that we're getting close, and that apt certainly sounds like a great tool that I need to explore, but I haven't seen any evidence that it can do all of this _yet_. Please correct me if I'm wrong. -Nick