Just curious: has there been any discussion of a “Haiku Update” web-aware utility that is similar in execution to the Linux updating programs and/or the Vista/Win7 Microsoft Update utility?
I would think that such a utility would be vital come the public Beta, especially in pushing major bug fixes on to bleeding-edge users. Granted, major OS updates would still be download-burn-and-install, but having a built-in program that would check for major bug fixes would be a seriously awesome way to keep Haiku updated. Especially so in its Alpha stage.
I am assuming that any such update would be a built-in program rather than a web browser, in order to keep development needs simple (and to avoid browser compatibility issues).
Thanks for pointing to the package manager I’m working on. It is 3rd party application & Haiku devs will create their own I believe. For now I want to stick with applications (packages) & libraries not in Haiku.
Haiku does not currently have an update utility but this likely will come with R1 or sooner. You’ll have to wait a little longer and just read the news to see what the developers decide to create and implement.
They are aware of package management & system updating but since this is the 1st Alpha, it is too early to do anything like this right now.
tonestone57 covered it pretty well, but as I’ve said on the Haiku mailing list I’m planning on experimenting with an update system eventually for my Haiku web browser project. Based on the results from this, it might turn into a Haiku updating system. But there is a lot to do before we reach that point, and like anything else someone might beat me to the punch and just add something to Haiku in the meantime.
Sorry if I’m writing slightly offtopic here, but…
I think as BeOS was all about “think different” ideology, also package manager should be innovative:
use MUSCLE for communicating
P2P repositoy
use attributes for tracking installed packages
Maybe even like this: software repositoy is just regular Haiku filesystem somewhere. Every file has certain attributes containing it’s version number. Now when user wants to upgrade it connects to repository and checks the file versions via MUSCLE client. If newer file is availabe, it will be copied to user’s computer.
So, any new info on this topic?
It is more important that it seems at first, IMHO… I have now configured and running Haiku and I see all the small hacks, fixes and updates coming out but no way to test them since there’s no sensible way to get and install them. If we really want people to get involved then Haiku urgently needs an update system (like debian? apt).
I’d boot Haiku up, fire up the updater as a first thing to see what’s new, test it and give feedback or maybe even find a fix. So no bug or shortcoming would go unnoticed, everybody would be on the same page and if something breaks all would know about it and work on the same issue. Necessity is the best driver I think. And it would IMHO unify and uniform the actions of the community…
Considering what Ingo pulled in a few weeks (Haiku Package Format and Package Filesystem) I’m not sure it’ll take a year until we see a first version of a package manager. If Haiku’s development can be summed up in few words, it’s “leaps & bounds”.
Sure, it’ll take time to mature, but that doesn’t mean there’ll be nothing to see or test.
Every 3 months would be good. I would not want someone to ask about it too often, like every week.
Package Manager or System Update Utility will not happen right away. I believe it will be a year or longer before something shows up but this is my guesstimate and may be wrong. Hard to accurately predict. It depends on how many developers get involved, how much time they devote, what priority it is given, etc. Right now I see little happening - unless development is going on behind the scenes?
Ingo worked on one or two Package Manager parts but he does lots of programming in other areas of Haiku. His time and focus is divided among Haiku itself.
One thing to note. Someone above mentioned using a P2P update scheme. I would suggest not to use this because many colleges block every form of P2P that they find as soon as they find it. Even FTP can be difficult, it’s blocked on the wireless where I work (which is what I use my laptop on) so I would say try to stay with an HTTP type of connection. I understand why a P2P is useful, but it only takes one idiot to seed a set of bad files and find a way to push them to the top of the most available list to mess things up. And there are a lot of idiots out there, and a good portion of them have nice fast connections.
