Since the Slackware packages are just binaries in a tarball with an installation script, we can make a graphical installer as follows....
If you go to www.linuxpackages.net the packagers there generally list the dependencies (for example, they say...make sure you install so and so...). So, Linstaller will give them a very easy interface in which they will simply dump the tarball for the actual package and the tarball of the dependencies. As a result, Linstaller will be able to calculate the total number of files and will simply use unpack the tarball files to their respective locations and also display a progressbar at the same time (current file # / total files * 100) :-)
After that, to finish-up, it will run the install script.
This way, well, you don't have to worry about dependencies. Now I know some people will say ... "apt does the same thing". Hey, guess what? This thing will have the dependencies already embedded in it! and if it is already installed, it will skip those file. For example, you can look at gaim's (gaim.sf.net) installer for Windows.
Please help make installing packages for Linux as painless as possible- if we help, then someday we can look back and say "wow! we've finally done it!"
Btw....this is not another package format- it will have the Slackware tgz files embedded into it- you can think of it as an installer for the packages, except for it contains the files inside it
- Patrick & Abhijit.
P.S. If you want to help or need more information, please e-mail us at tux0010@linuxcult.com
starsurvivor@linuxcult.com
Also, the screenshots are mockups ;-)
Ratings & Comments
10 Comments
i can't believe you have a how-to as a homepage
Slackware packages don't handle dependancies by design, this was a choice that Patrick Volkerding made. Also, KPackage already provides a good GUI interface to installing Slack packages. What will this project add to that?
If you download packages from linuxpackages.net, sometimes the author tells you..."make sure you update so ans so..." Using this package manager, the author will be able to bundle the extra things into one package itself- and when this is executed, it will check whether the extra package is already installed and if it is, it will skip it. Just try the gaim installer for Windows and you'll know ;-)
Thanks for the heads-up! However, this is not just another package format...all it will do is put a tar ball inside a tarball :-) What I mean is, it will take a prebuilt Slackware package and if necessary, the dependency package(s) and put them into another tar-ball which has a list of the files stored as a header so that the installer can display a progress bar. So, basically, it won't be just another package format. The Packagers will be provided with a version which has 3 upload kind of things...all they have to do is point the Slackware packages and put a check on a box which will say "Dependencies?" and then point the dependecy packages (which are rare because for a particalar version of Slack, you don't have multiple libraries and stuff). Thats all there is to it! So once again, this is just a package manager if you will....so its not a package format ;)
actually, i have known about linstaller wizard for awhile, but i would've never thought the issue would actually come up on "kde-look", but so it has, but there is quite too many variations of pkgs already, and if one can handle them all, that will really be a conclusive closer to the ongoing struggle of pkg selection for your distro. you can find linstall over @ http://www.newrepublicsoftware.com/ i didnt think anyone was interested, but no need keeping this to myself.
If you download packages from linuxpackages.net, for each package, you rarely see any extra packages to be upgraded and if there are, they are minimal (2-3 at most). Therefore, I guess we can embed those deps also. Compared to RPMs, RPMs often complain that "a particular version of the library is needed", but this one will just check the pkgconfig path and we can also add a "thorough" option, which can dig-into directories and look for that file where it is supposed to be.
Youre right :-) But honestly, we don't need to provide files which are already installed by default with Slackware (for example GTK runtime libraries)...if by chance they don't have it, they can always grab the linstaller package for GTK. So what we can do it provide the not so obvious binaries. Thanks for your input. Since the project has not yet officially started and we are looking for volunteers, we are open to ideas and algorithms....besides, this project belongs to the community so we all get to contribute ideas :-)
... don't you think that the app+its deb. in one file=big file size?
Youre right :-) But honestly, we don't need to provide files which are already installed by default with Slackware (for example GTK runtime libraries)...if by chance they don't have it, they can always grab the linstaller package for GTK. So what we can do it provide the not so obvious binaries. Thanks for your input. Since the project has not yet officially started and we are looking for volunteers, we are open to ideas and algorithms....besides, this project belongs to the community so we all get to contribute ideas :-)
I think it's infinitely worth it for automation's sake; but we must be careful not to run into the same dependancy gridlock that rpm can run into.