thelinuxlink.net

SVN just wrote a recent article about the gate's retirement impact on the linux community. Away from the obvious rant opportunity, he mention some interesting things like finally buck up and get in line with the LSB and other linux distro issues out there.

Is it really good for Linux distro to standarize?

You've got .RPM, .DEB, and .TAR. Of all of the major Linux distros that are available today, they all support one (if not all) of these three file formats.

Linux is free and open. Who has the right to tell Arch to drop the PacMan format for .RPM or .DEB? Or to say, "well you can use PacMan but you must also support .DEB"?

That what makes Linux Linux. This whole topic of "starndarizing" really ticks me off.

You want everything borning, mundane, and controlled with an iron fist? Use a Mac for cryin' out loud.

P.S. That's not directed at you, Jza.... it's more for Vaughan-Nichols, who wrote the article.

Judland wrote:You've got .RPM, .DEB, and .TAR. Of all of the major Linux distros that are available today, they all support one (if not all) of these three file formats.

Linux is free and open. Who has the right to tell Arch to drop the PacMan format for .RPM or .DEB? Or to say, "well you can use PacMan but you must also support .DEB"?

That what makes Linux Linux. This whole topic of "starndarizing" really ticks me off.

You want everything borning, mundane, and controlled with an iron fist? Use a Mac for cryin' out loud.

P.S. That's not directed at you, Jza.... it's more for Vaughan-Nichols, who wrote the article.

For desktop use he has a point. If the new version of monodevelop. or insert other application here ,comes out one needs to be able to install it. They also need to be able to uninstall it. I'd have to agree with him that whatever "standardizing" needs to be done to allow that is much needed.

There are many applications for Linux these days that can be downloaded (if not already part of an official or un-official repository for your favorite package manager) in the "standard" RPM, DEB, and TAR format. I see this many places.

I just recently downloaded three games demos from Tuxgames.com. Each of them were provided in a self contained executable install package. I simply downloaded and ran the .bin. So, again, I don't see how a modern day Linux desktop (and modern day applications packages) is more difficult than a MS-Windows or Mac environment. I really don't.

The only thing I see people having difficulty with is the novelty of having the freedom of choice. But this is just my opinion on things.

Judland wrote:There are many applications for Linux these days that can be downloaded (if not already part of an official or un-official repository for your favorite package manager) in the "standard" RPM, DEB, and TAR format. I see this many places.

I just recently downloaded three games demos from Tuxgames.com. Each of them were provided in a self contained executable install package. I simply downloaded and ran the .bin. So, again, I don't see how a modern day Linux desktop (and modern day applications packages) is more difficult than a MS-Windows or Mac environment. I really don't.

The only thing I see people having difficulty with is the novelty of having the freedom of choice. But this is just my opinion on things.

Well if everything could just be a self contained install package that would be great. Assuming it comes with a nice uninstall as well.

debian deb, hoary deb, dapper deb, suse rpm, rh rpm, mandriva rpm.

I'm not saying using the package manager for any of these distros is difficult. But the reality is that a desktop user will often want a version of the software that hasn't been packaged in their format yet...let alone been packaged and put into the stable repos.

Windows users get prompted as soon as a new version of firefox comes out while it may take a month or more for that version to make into the stable repos of their distro.

I just don't think it would be a bad thing to standarize on whatever is needed to allow for universal package installment and uninstallment.

Waiting for Firefox to get an official released for Mandriva is probably why it works so much better on my Linux box when compared to my Microsoft PC at the office. Same goes for OpenOffice and a dozen other cross-platform applications I use.

However, putting performance issues aside for now, what standard do you choose? I say, it should be Mandriva's RPM system. So, all developers should stop wasting time improving on Smart or Apt-get and focus on making all distros. work with URPMI.

There. The standard has been set. Now, who's going to enforce it? Who's going to tell my why their preferred system is better?

Standardising Linux is just going to result in the exclusion of others.... just the way Mac and Microsoft exclude people who don't use their operating systems, ie: their standards.

I just don't see how freedom and restriction can mix in this regard.

Judland wrote:Waiting for Firefox to get an official released for Mandriva is probably why it works so much better on my Linux box when compared to my Microsoft PC at the office. Same goes for OpenOffice and a dozen other cross-platform applications I use.

However, putting performance issues aside for now, what standard do you choose? I say, it should be Mandriva's RPM system. So, all developers should stop wasting time improving on Smart or Apt-get and focus on making all distros. work with URPMI.

There. The standard has been set. Now, who's going to enforce it? Who's going to tell my why their preferred system is better?

Standardising Linux is just going to result in the exclusion of others.... just the way Mac and Microsoft exclude people who don't use their operating systems, ie: their standards.

I just don't see how freedom and restriction can mix in this regard.

Its not about just picking URPMI or not. It's about creating a standardized install environment and runtime environment.

Its not about enforcement. It's about community cooperation for the greater good.

Creating environments where a developer can just target linux as opposed to a specific distro is a good thing in my opinion.

Hmm.. Interesting. As long as it's a system that actually works just as well (or preferably better) than existing systems and still keeps the system stable, the idea would probably work.

But to give up my system's stability just so I can have a Microsoft-esque .exe file.... I'm not for it.

I've been doing some packaging lately, and I think the lack of standardization is more at the code level, than package level.

If the source is developed using the GNU autotools, and a spec files is distributed with the tarball, packaging an RPM is trivial. All you have to do is put the tarball in /usr/src/SOURCES, the spec file in /usr/src/SPECS, and do 'rpmbuild -ba <spec file name>'. Presto, you'll get a set of RPMs that will install and run just fine (usually).

I'm sure making .DEBs is similarly easy.

The problems I've had come from trying to package things not built using standard tools. RPM vs DEB vs TAR is not the issue, because they all come from the same place, and that's the source code.