Ubuntu installers?

[M. Fioretti]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 10:40:57 AM +0000, ubuntu at howorth.org.uk wrote:
> mfioretti at nexaima.net wrote:
>  
> > thingamajig install A B C D
> > 
> > where "install" means "find, download and install by yourself all
> > those programs, with any dependence they may need"? Of course, as a
> > user I couldn't care less whether "thingamajig" is snap, apt or
> > anything else, or how many alternatives to thingamajig would continue
> > to exist for Ubuntu, or if there were one different thingamajig for
> > every Linux distro. As long as it's one per distro, it would be OK
> > 
> > Again, whether what I ask is wrong or impossible is another issue. But
> > I hope, after having been basically forced to retype my whole post
> > here, at least now it's clear what I am ACTUALLY asking and talking
> > about..
> > 		     Marco
> 
> I think you don't understand how developers work or how distros
> interact with them, otherwise you would realise that what you're
> looking for is essentially impossible.

I started using Linux when Yggdrasil was still available, and written
hundreds of articles about Linux and FOSS in general (*). While I am
NOT a developer, I do understand "how developers work or how distros
interact with them" well enough to understand what you mean and why you say so. As for this:

> If I am, for example, a perl developer, then I load all the modules
> I need from CPAN using cpanm and I upload the modules I write to
> CPAN. Job done.

I do understand what you wrote, and why that way of working is easier
for a developer, if nothing else because it's cross platform. My point
is that it doesn't scale at the other end, quite the contrary. When
every community of developers does this, the result still is a really
ugly mess for everybody with even the simplest need to use tools in
more than one language, on whatever OS.

I remember the days when, WITHOUT being a developer, I could and did
install from source all sorts of FOSS because, no matter what it was
and yes, with the serious exception of CPAN stuff, it always resolved
to some simple variant of

make config; make; make install

yes, one had to hunt for dependencies sometimes, which was time
consuming and not pretty. But frankly what I have to do these days
every time I have to upgrade doesn't feel any better.

I may have to accept that nothing better is possible. But calling it
progress or freedom of choice still seems a joke.

      Marco

(*) see bottom of (https://mfioretti.com/writings/
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