Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions

[Sami Dalouche]

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 <lathiat at bur.st>:

> 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
> >
> >
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> >
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>
> --
> Trent Lloyd <lathiat at bur.st>
> Bur.st Networking Inc.
>
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> ubuntu-devel mailing list
> ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
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>
>




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