Vision: Uninstall needs to remove yab apps?

Software
1

Hello all,

i have some crazy stuff today. I read of a new version of vison and want to install it. so i do a backup of the old version and then i select vision in haikudepot and do uninstall and then…

…crazy…

then i want uninstall vision i need to uninstall “beslysystemanalysistools”, “hpkgcreator” and “webconceptcreator” too (all these three apps are yab apps and does not have any dependencies to vision). Do you have the same problems?

Greetings lelldorin

2

Package management has turned out to be a real peach. Almost daily there are complaints about it. It’s only as good as the maintainers making sure that the software offered is compatible with other software. So in a sense, package management didn’t really solve anything. To make matters worse, it slowed down Haiku, made it more complicated, split the community, delayed development and scared off users and donations. Gone are the days when the donation meter’s goal was $35,000, now a ambitious annual goal is $10,000.

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/no-mplayer-install/5571
https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/proposed-development-application-bundles/5566

3

@oltimer A bit off-topic maybe?

4

@oltimer : you can blame me for the broken recipes, missing requiments and for your troubles, but you should try to understand the following:

  • there are plenty software
  • there isn’t enough manpower to port all of them
  • not all the available manpower have software development experience (i’m a mech. eng.)
  • the PM stuff is relatively new in Haiku, many workhours was required to iron out the big problems, but it is just the PM system, the porters (like me) need to learn to use the system correctly (i’m on my way, but i still make plenty mistakes)
  • sometimes to make a correct, proper recipe is a really challenging task for big monster stuffs
  • Haiku just provides the PM functionality, but the ports comes from “haikuports”. It is an independent project
  • you are proposes changes in Haiku for a mistakes in “haikuports”

So if you find any problem, be kind enough to create an issue on the haikuports github site and somebody will look into it.

Other hands:

  • however some people finds the “application bundles” as a nice solution, it doesn’t solves the problem, just hides them in big bundles
  • there are some programs with numerous dependencies, and thoose dependencies arent 100% self-contained, so the application boundles needs to contains the software, the dependencies and the dependencies of the dependencies, and so forth
  • who will do the “bundles”?
  • where should the “bundles” hosted? They can be huge! Server-costs, bandwith?

If you don’t like the current HaikuPorts way, you can start to work on an alternative solution as it can live parallel the HaikuPorts project. Feel free to use the HaikuPorts patches to create your bundles!

Have fun and take care!

–miqlas

5

Thank you for your comments. I don’t anything is off topic that I discussed.

The problem is, that there’s not enough man power to maintain Haiku’s package management system. Sure, in big Linux distros, package managers are great. That’s probably because there’s enough people to sit down, and take a look what works and doesn’t work together/break the system. Does it work for Haiku? From what I have seen personally and in the comments; somewhat - not really. It is a nice idea though.

The sad thing is, with the resources available to Haiku, I bet you’ll start seeing application bundles in the package manager’s repositories just to get software working properly. Kind of defeats the purpose? Although the argument ‘however some people finds the “application bundles” as a nice solution, it doesn’t solves the problem, just hides them in big bundles’ is convenient, I would rather have a hidden problem with working software than not. Besides, disk space is cheap these days :slight_smile:

Single developers for such a small OS as Haiku would probably find it much easier, getting their software to work by providing application bundles with the correct libraries and dependencies; or else they’ll run into problems like Lelldorin. As a developer, I would even find it difficult figuring out how I get my software into Haiku’s ‘official repository’, or even a third party one. Who says, yes oltimer, we accept your package. If it’s denied, why? How long will it take to have my package published; why can’t I just submit it automatically and have it published in two seconds like on a website? Who are the package overlords?

It just seems not worth the bother IMHO. All the best,

6

Well you can surely open a new thread “bashing package management” to state your opinions, it would be easier to dismiss. Instead you chose to hijack a thread opened by a user trying to solve his problem. Thanks…

7

@oltimer: Thanks for the explanation, i got your point, but let me try to explain the situation:

  • we aren’t sure, why the PM system trying to remove the yab packages for lelldorin, but it seems a dependency is mistakenly defined somewhere. Maybe we can find it out later if we can get enough information.
  • the fix for mplayer was simply writing “libpng16” instead of “libpng” into the recipe and rebuild the software. (Ok, i did some housekeeping there, but the real fix was that, see the line 77.

As you can see, the situation aren’t soo bad as it seems like. Ofc, sometimes a bit annoying, but the fix aren’t soo hard to do, that’s why i can’t see the point of your propoal to solve things entirely different way. We got the infrastructure for PM, we should use it.

However you can solve the problems without bundles too: you just need to link everything statically, so there will be no external dependencies. You can read a bit about it to see, why it not used anymore by desktop OS’s.

To get your stuff in Depo you need to create a proper recipe and if the buildbots becomes available, they will build your stuff and upload it to the depot. (Till that you can talk to a haikuports admin on the IRC to get your recipe built and uploaded by hand, not impossible.) Nobody will say no, belive me, i’m the living example.

Or you can talk to a private depot owner… Or start an own depot…

But do not expect any webpage, where you can upload your built package, because the packages needs to be built against a specific Haiku version, as there is no guarantee, that a software built on current nightly will run on a yesterday version.
You can say: but there is no guarantee, that a software built on earlier Haiku will run on current, and it is right, but then it is a bug in Haiku and it should be fixed.

But korli have right, just open an own thread to discuss about your oppinions.

Best regards,
miqlas

8

lelldorin, i’ve checked the vision recipes in the last 2 years, but all of them have one and only one REQUIRED defined: haiku.

So vision shouldn’t remove your yab packages.

Can you please upload the “beslysystemanalysistools”, “hpkgcreator” and “webconceptcreator” packages somewhere to let them examinated?

Thank you!
–miqlas

9

These are available from his repo:
pkgman add-repo Software

On hrev51002 in HaikuDepot I just downloaded these 3 packages and then uninstalled Vision 0.9.8-1 without any prompts to uninstall any other packages.

10

Do you have a proof that it is Package Manager fault? We have been several years without a release, a lot of people think the project is dead. Also, at the moment there is nothing to spend the money on: no one is willing to work on a full-time contract. So a donation goal of $35000 is simply not needed: what would Haiku, inc spend the money on?

In the short term, yes, the Package Manager was a lot more work than anticipated and it takes some time to get it to be production ready. But we’re getting there. In the medium and long term, we are already starting to see the results: a software depot with a lot of software packaged and ready to install. There are still some rough edges, but we are solving those one at a time. You may have some nostalgia of the Good Old Days, but I must say that my experience installing stuff from Haikuware or Bebits was often rather unpleasant: dead links, software not working at all, or occasionally making the whole system unbootable. So in my use cases, the package manager does a great work and solved many issues.

As for your other concern (how to get my package in the repo?), so far this has been a process with too much manual steps, but we do plan to change that. The main thing that has been delaying it is the retirement of Oliver Tappe as our sysadmin, he had been doing a lot of work to keep our infrastructure running, but setting up the package hosting system, complete with buildbots and all, was more than he could manage. There is a replacement team and they are (very slowly) getting up to speed with the admin tasks again, which will allow the work on setting up the depots in a more automated way to resume.

1 Like
11

Hello;
I wanted to add that package manager is an integral part of keeping any OS easy to use, clean, updated and in order. It would place packges’ files and libraries in directories according to haiku hierarchy tree , avoiding clutter.
The problem here, if there is any would be “how to maintain it”. like other projects (linux, BSD, homebrew…) is the division of labor. There should be a group of developers solely working on the ports and packages. they are called port maintainers.
I would stress again that It is my idea and surely there are more than one right way to approach any problem.
cheers;

12

@jstln : then i would say : ask yourself: what is the program(s), what you like and if there is any, try to update it to the latest version, change it to get it more integrated in Haiku eco-sphere, send patches to the authors, keep the recipe clean and in buildable state, test it on x86_gcc2, x86 and x86_64, ask for help, do what you can, and stuff and most important: have fun!

1 Like
13

Thanks for the answers.

Pity the discussions always by non-subject-related responses be enforced.