Something I think would be really cool would be a program that download and installs programs. Something like Apt-get. And maby some GUI for that like synaptics. Maby it could be linked to the files on BeBits?
It probably won’t be officially accepted, but there will definitely be something like that available. I am working on something like that and it is almost at an alpha state (at least the command line version of it is). Now if I could just manage to find the time to work on it more.
shadow wrote:
It probably won't be officially accepted, but there will definitely be something like that available. I am working on something like that and it is almost at an alpha state (at least the command line version of it is). Now if I could just manage to find the time to work on it more.
Could you say more abot it? How will look packages? Will it resolve any dependencies? Will it be able to work with multiple respositories?
Wasn’t this what Software Valet was meant to be all about?
I’m not a huge fan of this repository idea, too centralised, but I can see why some like it. I’d rather, that a clever packaging/install system be developed, along the lines of how OSX does things. I’m pretty sure I’ve read DarkWyrm mooting this approach elsewhere, probably on the GE lists.
However, I’m sure some have opinions about that approach as well. Can’t please everyone I guess.
DW had been working on a “package”-like system … but I don’t think it was the same target functionality…
expensivelesbian wrote:
They are centralised, but there are programs (eg. conary), which try to decentralise it as much as possible.
I'm not a huge fan of this repository idea, too centralised, but I can see why some like it.
It was just a packaging system with no particular distribution method in mind. I’ve always liked having a central repository, but I also find value in the P2P method, as well. Things like Debian’s apt-get are part package manager, part distribution method. The work I’ve done on packages probably won’t matter much anyway - mphipps has a better method yet. 
A Software Valvet Replacement would be cool.
The closest analogue to my system would be Gentoo’s portage system. It handles multiple repositories that are prioritized (checks the repositories in order and grabs the package from the first repository that includes the package). The packages are XML based files that describe the necessary info for installing the package (what files are needed, what are the dependencies, what are the instructions necessary for installing it). My main focus has been on using it for source based linux distro I am working on, but the install instructions are just shell scripts, so it can make use of helper programs to handle the corresponding binary packages. Under linux, I’ve used it to make packages that will download an rpm, and use the rpm tool to install the package, but I tell it to ignore the dependencies from rpm and only pay attention to the dependencies from my XML package files. A package system like Darkwyrm had been planning would serve as a helper application for binary package installation, but my system would handle all of the downloading and dependency checking.
I would vote against portage. I do still use gentoo, mostly because i used to it, but portage is written in python and cannot handle large scale good enough so the user has to endure large search times and the scripts are very laggy. Well i can understand that since phython has to check throught 460mb! of ebuilds which contain nothing but text(actuall packages are downloaded elswhere) and which each gentoo user has on it’s harddrive . Also in 3 years i use it i saw many usefull features removed and the speed of it diminished noticeably. I still use it but i think that the way mac os handles software is better. Just copy and run. I also think that it should be more like this:
http://zero-install.sourceforge.net/