On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 09:26:48AM -0500, Brian Chabot wrote: > How about a nice, universal package manager? Not Alien, but something > more userfriendly. Something that will automatically figure out > recursive layers of dependencies, search all kinds of archives for them, > and do it all automagically (with just user confirmation...)
I meant to also make the point that this is not really a problem with Linux desktop apps per se... It's more a cross-platform compatability issue. Red Hat, Debian, and other distributions have great tools for managing software installs -- on their own platforms. Sometimes, we must remember that, even though we use the term "Linux" to refer generally to any Linux distribution, Red Hat != Debian != Mandrake != Gentoo etc. That is, even though these operating environments all use a lot of the same software, they are all seperate and distinct operating environments. Just as you would not expect software packaged for Itanium HP-UX to work on Itanium Solaris, you must not and should not expect software packaged for Red Hat 7.1 to work without problems on PLD Linux 1.0. They are both "Linux" in broad terms, but they are very, very different operating environments. As it should be. Does this point in any way help solve the problem of making Linux software easy to install? Well, no. But when people ask for a universal package manager, I think they're trying to solve the wrong problem. -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02 -=-=-=-=- This message is posted from an invalid address. Replying to it will result in undeliverable mail. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank the spammers.
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