Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Hi, Sami: El Domingo, 18 Septiembre 2005 23:22, Sami Dalouche escribió: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? There's a current functional solution: it is not giving Joe Average a Deb package, but a new deb line for her /etc/apt/sources.list file. After that, installing Skype is just a matter of the user typing apt-get install skype (or double-clicking using her apt GUI of choice). Only other requirement is for (in this case) Skype developers to know how to deploy a deb repository. -- SALUD, Jesús
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 04:10:00AM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: Hi, Sorry for being concerned with usability issues (hence average joe) while dealing with the way debian works. I guess that only ubuntu-devel was interested by this message then. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that I've seen many, many such scenarios that were all based on how a hypothetical average joe is going to work with his Debian-based computer, without actually checking things with reality first. Unless you know an average joe who'll be interested in installing a .deb by double-clicking on it, I don't think there's much value in coming up with a solution for that 'problem'. The way I see it, people who'll want to install third-party software will either * be competent enough to do it by themselves (and won't need nor use any graphical tools to help them), * have an LSB package they want to install (hence, a framework for automatically adding lines to /etc/apt/sources.list is quite useless to them), * have a tarball they need to unpack over their / filesystem (or in their /usr/local, or whatnot), or * have a computer-savvy neighbour whom they'll ask to do it for them. I don't think it's likely that there'll be many people who'll download a .deb, feed it to the packaging system through some GUI, and expect it to work; so IMO it's not worth the effort to create a framework that will allow this. And even if it was, it's possible to make it possible to install a .deb by using the tools already there, and just modifying the relevant .desktop file. I am not claiming that synaptic is hard to use, (it can even be easier in some use cases), I am just claiming that adding a third party repository can be difficult for a newcomer, and my post was about trying to find an acceptable solution to this problem. You've failed to do that, IMO. Everything is difficult to newcomers. Always has been, always will be. The correct way to help them out is not to hide away features inside obscure binary files, hence adding more complexity for your users to understand the bigger picture, but to make it easier for newcomers to understand things. And yes, maybe third party are not competent enough to provide decent packages. but if we don't even provide a framework they can build upon, they are never going to use it... So, as a summary : - apt-get dpkg solutions don't fulfill all the requirements : 1) Does not subscribe to future updates 2) Does not allow the third party entity to provide several packages - some people spoke about autopackage. I would be pleased to hear about some links detailing how autopackage plans to integrate with apt/dpkg. autopackage is a bad idea: * It overwrites files in your package management-managed system, * It does not interact with the package manager to register and deregister packages Hence, it's a very likely source of hard-to-trace bugs (becuase the package foo you're using is differently compiled from the package dpkg thinks is installed and from the package bar, which uses foo, expects to find). Don't use it. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Le lundi 19 septembre 2005 à 12:02 +0800, Paul Wise a écrit : Once debian-unoffical.org supports Ubuntu, just get users to put debian-unofficial.org in their /etc/apt/sources.list. They claim that they will be importing Christian Marillat's mplayer/etc repository too soon. Why import a broken repository when there are working ones out there? -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
On Monday 19 September 2005 00:35, Wouter Verhelst wrote: (Side note: What's this obsession with Joe User everyone has? If there's something _you_ have a problem with when using Debian, shoot. Otherwise, synaptic is very easy to use -- even to Joe User). On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 11:22:30PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? You consider proprietary software developers to be competent enough to understand how Debian is supposed to work, and then create and maintain policy-compliant packages for their users? Hah. If they provide packages at all, they'll give you one package you're supposed to install. If you're lucky, it may have dependencies via the shlibdeps system. That's about it. As a side effect such broken proprietary packages will possibly feed BTS with irrelevant fuzzy bugs. Useless noise. -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
@ 18/09/2005 17:55 : wrote Josselin Mouette : This is complete overkill. The only thing currently missing in your scenario is support in apt-get and synaptic for grabbing dependencies for a single binary package. E.g. apt-get install foo.deb or synaptic foo.deb. There was some patch to apt that allowed this, but people seemed not to like it for some reason... Personally, I think that apt-get install --from http://someserver.com/debian,main,etch packagename_version_arch.deb or apt-get install --from http://someserver.com/debian,main,etch packagename should do the same as: 1. editing sources.list and putting deb http://...; there; 2. apt-get update ONLY FROM the line inserted in (1) 3. editing apt.conf and giving a BIG priority to the line 4. apt-get -f install packagename[=version] 5. UNDO STEPS 3, 2, 1 with the twist that the default --from would be file:/$PWD,., and that the file: protocol would read the directory in absence of Packages file. -- HTH, Massa -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Hi, I'm crossposting between debian-devel and ubuntu-devel, but maybe some other debian-based distributions may be interested as well. Feel free to forward.. This email is about sharing some thoughts about installing third party packages inside on a debian box.. Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe , but some people may still be interested in downloading it, be they linux experts or not. So what happens on a Debian/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever box ? Average joe downloads the Debian package available on skype's website, and clicks on it (I believe it is possible to install a deb by double-clicking on it, right ?). Then, libqt is not installed, so it complains. End of the game, linux sucks, I can't even install skype on it. OK, joe should be taught to use apt-get, etc, but we are in the real world, so it is not possible. What about the following scenario : - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. - Joe double clicks on it, some progress bar appears - Few seconds after, skype is installed, great ! Behind the scenes : - a .mdeb is just a script/ deb with post-install script, or whatever that allows to add apt-get's skype's sources. - Once the sources are installed, and apt-get update done, skype gets installed, and apt-get takes care of the dependencies - apt-get will take care of upgrading when necessary. It could also be envisionned that a .mdeb could be an archive, containing a apt-get repository, that is extracted to /var/apt/whatever. This repository could contain all the required dependencies (for example, a copy from debian's archive) that may or may not be available on some machines, and be used as an offline installation. So no more hell to install a software with many depends, and no helly static-linking. And if a better version of any depends is already avaialble, then it will be used by apt. OK, so several questions : - What do you think about this system, which would actually be a 1 or 2 hour hack, and be potentially very useful at helping people at installing packages ? - What would be the hidden / additional requirements that I did not think of ? - If such hack was programmed, would Debian/Ubuntu/Others officially endorse this way of distributing packages ? Regards, Sami Dalouche This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Le dimanche 18 septembre 2005 à 22:47 +0200, Sami Dalouche a écrit : Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe , but some people may still be interested in downloading it, be they linux experts or not. So what happens on a Debian/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever box ? Average joe downloads the Debian package available on skype's website, and clicks on it (I believe it is possible to install a deb by double-clicking on it, right ?). Then, libqt is not installed, so it complains. End of the game, linux sucks, I can't even install skype on it. OK, joe should be taught to use apt-get, etc, but we are in the real world, so it is not possible. What about the following scenario : - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. - Joe double clicks on it, some progress bar appears - Few seconds after, skype is installed, great ! This is complete overkill. The only thing currently missing in your scenario is support in apt-get and synaptic for grabbing dependencies for a single binary package. E.g. apt-get install foo.deb or synaptic foo.deb. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Well, this right solution has 2 main problems : - It needs some package to be installed on the box. This is workable, but ubuntu/debian/others have to agree and install the necessary software to handle this by default, otherwise it becomes useless. - It doesn't handle offline installations.. Not sure whether it's a problem, but wouldn't it be handy for some people if we could just have one archive that contains bunch of dependencies, ready to be installed ? Quoting Trent Lloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED]: IMHO, the 'right' solution to do this is to have some file whcih describes a normal apt archive and the package in it to install, and double clicking it adds it to your apt sources, updates, and installs the package using apt, then upgrades will be handled normally with update-notifier et al. IIRC someone was working on this quite a while ago but I don't know what happened, and of course, some people are concerned with the security of this etc (altho I personally think its a good idea) Trent On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 10:47:24PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: Hi, I'm crossposting between debian-devel and ubuntu-devel, but maybe some other debian-based distributions may be interested as well. Feel free to forward.. This email is about sharing some thoughts about installing third party packages inside on a debian box.. Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe , but some people may still be interested in downloading it, be they linux experts or not. So what happens on a Debian/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever box ? Average joe downloads the Debian package available on skype's website, and clicks on it (I believe it is possible to install a deb by double-clicking on it, right ?). Then, libqt is not installed, so it complains. End of the game, linux sucks, I can't even install skype on it. OK, joe should be taught to use apt-get, etc, but we are in the real world, so it is not possible. What about the following scenario : - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. - Joe double clicks on it, some progress bar appears - Few seconds after, skype is installed, great ! Behind the scenes : - a .mdeb is just a script/ deb with post-install script, or whatever that allows to add apt-get's skype's sources. - Once the sources are installed, and apt-get update done, skype gets installed, and apt-get takes care of the dependencies - apt-get will take care of upgrading when necessary. It could also be envisionned that a .mdeb could be an archive, containing a apt-get repository, that is extracted to /var/apt/whatever. This repository could contain all the required dependencies (for example, a copy from debian's archive) that may or may not be available on some machines, and be used as an offline installation. So no more hell to install a software with many depends, and no helly static-linking. And if a better version of any depends is already avaialble, then it will be used by apt. OK, so several questions : - What do you think about this system, which would actually be a 1 or 2 hour hack, and be potentially very useful at helping people at installing packages ? - What would be the hidden / additional requirements that I did not think of ? - If such hack was programmed, would Debian/Ubuntu/Others officially endorse this way of distributing packages ? Regards, Sami Dalouche This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel -- Trent Lloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bur.st Networking Inc. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
IMHO, the 'right' solution to do this is to have some file whcih describes a normal apt archive and the package in it to install, and double clicking it adds it to your apt sources, updates, and installs the package using apt, then upgrades will be handled normally with update-notifier et al. IIRC someone was working on this quite a while ago but I don't know what happened, and of course, some people are concerned with the security of this etc (altho I personally think its a good idea) Trent On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 10:47:24PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: Hi, I'm crossposting between debian-devel and ubuntu-devel, but maybe some other debian-based distributions may be interested as well. Feel free to forward.. This email is about sharing some thoughts about installing third party packages inside on a debian box.. Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe , but some people may still be interested in downloading it, be they linux experts or not. So what happens on a Debian/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever box ? Average joe downloads the Debian package available on skype's website, and clicks on it (I believe it is possible to install a deb by double-clicking on it, right ?). Then, libqt is not installed, so it complains. End of the game, linux sucks, I can't even install skype on it. OK, joe should be taught to use apt-get, etc, but we are in the real world, so it is not possible. What about the following scenario : - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. - Joe double clicks on it, some progress bar appears - Few seconds after, skype is installed, great ! Behind the scenes : - a .mdeb is just a script/ deb with post-install script, or whatever that allows to add apt-get's skype's sources. - Once the sources are installed, and apt-get update done, skype gets installed, and apt-get takes care of the dependencies - apt-get will take care of upgrading when necessary. It could also be envisionned that a .mdeb could be an archive, containing a apt-get repository, that is extracted to /var/apt/whatever. This repository could contain all the required dependencies (for example, a copy from debian's archive) that may or may not be available on some machines, and be used as an offline installation. So no more hell to install a software with many depends, and no helly static-linking. And if a better version of any depends is already avaialble, then it will be used by apt. OK, so several questions : - What do you think about this system, which would actually be a 1 or 2 hour hack, and be potentially very useful at helping people at installing packages ? - What would be the hidden / additional requirements that I did not think of ? - If such hack was programmed, would Debian/Ubuntu/Others officially endorse this way of distributing packages ? Regards, Sami Dalouche This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel -- Trent Lloyd [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bur.st Networking Inc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? Sami Dalouche Quoting Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Le dimanche 18 septembre 2005 à 22:47 +0200, Sami Dalouche a écrit : Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe , but some people may still be interested in downloading it, be they linux experts or not. So what happens on a Debian/Ubuntu/MEPIS/whatever box ? Average joe downloads the Debian package available on skype's website, and clicks on it (I believe it is possible to install a deb by double-clicking on it, right ?). Then, libqt is not installed, so it complains. End of the game, linux sucks, I can't even install skype on it. OK, joe should be taught to use apt-get, etc, but we are in the real world, so it is not possible. What about the following scenario : - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. - Joe double clicks on it, some progress bar appears - Few seconds after, skype is installed, great ! This is complete overkill. The only thing currently missing in your scenario is support in apt-get and synaptic for grabbing dependencies for a single binary package. E.g. apt-get install foo.deb or synaptic foo.deb. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
On Sun, 2005-09-18 at 22:47 +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: - Joe downloads a .mdeb (meta-deb) package on skype's website. It would be easier to download deb, double-click it. App starts, makes a copy of deb/moves deb to /var/lib/my-apt-repo, creates Packages.gz, apt-get update, apt-get install program. In sources.list would allways be deb file://var/lib/my-apt-repo. -- Ante Karamatic [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
(Side note: What's this obsession with Joe User everyone has? If there's something _you_ have a problem with when using Debian, shoot. Otherwise, synaptic is very easy to use -- even to Joe User). On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 11:22:30PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? You consider proprietary software developers to be competent enough to understand how Debian is supposed to work, and then create and maintain policy-compliant packages for their users? Hah. If they provide packages at all, they'll give you one package you're supposed to install. If you're lucky, it may have dependencies via the shlibdeps system. That's about it. One improvement that I can see is that the double-click action you're talking about would also run 'apt-get -f install' after installing the proprietary .deb to automatically install any dependencies. That's about it; all the rest is overkill. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Hi, Sorry for being concerned with usability issues (hence average joe) while dealing with the way debian works. I guess that only ubuntu-devel was interested by this message then. I am not claiming that synaptic is hard to use, (it can even be easier in some use cases), I am just claiming that adding a third party repository can be difficult for a newcomer, and my post was about trying to find an acceptable solution to this problem. And yes, maybe third party are not competent enough to provide decent packages. but if we don't even provide a framework they can build upon, they are never going to use it... So, as a summary : - apt-get dpkg solutions don't fulfill all the requirements : 1) Does not subscribe to future updates 2) Does not allow the third party entity to provide several packages - some people spoke about autopackage. I would be pleased to hear about some links detailing how autopackage plans to integrate with apt/dpkg. Regards, Sami Dalouche Quoting Wouter Verhelst [EMAIL PROTECTED]: (Side note: What's this obsession with Joe User everyone has? If there's something _you_ have a problem with when using Debian, shoot. Otherwise, synaptic is very easy to use -- even to Joe User). On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 11:22:30PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? You consider proprietary software developers to be competent enough to understand how Debian is supposed to work, and then create and maintain policy-compliant packages for their users? Hah. If they provide packages at all, they'll give you one package you're supposed to install. If you're lucky, it may have dependencies via the shlibdeps system. That's about it. One improvement that I can see is that the double-click action you're talking about would also run 'apt-get -f install' after installing the proprietary .deb to automatically install any dependencies. That's about it; all the rest is overkill. -- The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the pavement is precisely one bananosecond This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Sami Dalouche [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? Skype should set up their own Debian repository and tell people to add it to /etc/apt/sources.list. It's not exactly hard. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Sami Dalouche [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK, may be an overkill. But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is not available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs in order to install a single software ? Skype should set up their own Debian repository and tell people to add it to /etc/apt/sources.list. It's not exactly hard. Agreed. And if they HAVE to have some kind of one click installer, make a small script. #!/bin/sh echo http://whatever/path/to/repository; /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get install skype signature.asc Description: PGP signature signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions
Sami Dalouche wrote: Let's take, for example, Skype's example. It is not available in non-free/universe, but some people may still be interested in downloading it, Once debian-unoffical.org supports Ubuntu, just get users to put debian-unofficial.org in their /etc/apt/sources.list. They claim that they will be importing Christian Marillat's mplayer/etc repository too soon. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
