Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions

[MadMan2k]

Sander van Loon wrote:

>As was said, we already have autopackage. Autopackage can be used for
>every distro, so there is no need for third party dev's to create rpm's,
>deb's or whatever system the distro uses, just one autopackage. It also
>automatically resolves dependencies. Instead of creating another
>standard (mdeb?) and further fragmenting the Linux market, use
>autopackage. There has been discussion about this before -
>http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=22706 - but the Ubuntu dev's
>are conservative.
>  
>
no, you are wrong - autopackage does not add value to the deb system
- it overlaps with deb, since dependancy resolving is a task of apt-get.

Therefore there are problems with ABI/Versioning and thats what Ubuntu 
devs are complaining about.
Since I dont think there will be a good solution for this in the near 
future I think a .mdeb is a good Idea.

Generally I agree with Trent Lloyd about its tasks:
- it should only contain Metadata like an apt source
- there has to be a preinstalled GUI, which can read this files

after that the user can easily update third party-software with 
synaptic/whatever
and the deployer can ensure that all dependancies are avaible and 
compatible with
the users version of ubuntu.

This would be also a great way to manage additional apt-sources like 
ubuntu-backports
and you would only add some functionality to the pacakge management - 
you neither create a new standard
nor overlap with some of its functionality.

And if this will be standardized some time and find a way into the 
.desktop files, you will get the PAL described
here: http://live.gnome.org/PackagingAbstractionLayer

M2k