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Re: Fresh packaging ideas

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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In message <4cc92e5452.martin@blueyonder.co.uk>
 on 19 Jan 2012 Martin Bazley  wrote:

> > 2. How do you handle dependencies in this scheme?  (Accurate version
> > information is needed for dependency checking)
> 
> You don't.  This is a 'bare bones' solution, to be encouraged only as a
> transitional measure until packages become the norm, not the exception.

But how then do you encourage uptake of a better system later which can cope
with dependencies?  Or have I misunderstood you?  Once packages of your
design have become the norm, what is the next step, if any?

We need something to manage dependencies, as shared libraries are likely to
become more prevalent.  The present aid for finding and installing these is a
proper packaging solution which handles dependencies.

> > 4. How do you do sensible unmanned installation, without having to
> > provide explicit information where every app goes?
> 
> I thought not being able to provide explicit information was one of
> people's main beefs with RiscPkg?
> 
> I didn't propose the 'minimum baseline' bodge as a complete packaging
> solution, only as something to sweeten the medicine and smooth the
> transition.  My preference for a fully-fledged solution would be rather
> more sophisticated (fleshed out slightly in my other post).

Could you explain what the fully-fledged solution would look like, then? 
There's no point adopting the minimum baseline if it's not ultimately a step
in the right direction.

Unmanned installation is important, and the main motivator behind this work. 
We are wanting an elegant solution which makes it easy for new RISC OS users,
or RISC OS users with new machines, to find and install lots of software.

I know what a hassle it is finding all these bits of software one by one to
install on a new Beagleboard, even with Google.  You have to trawl through
your other RISC OS machine finding the apps you haven't installed yet, copy
them across to the Beagleboard, run them, find they don't work because of
something missing from !System.  Find the thing in !System.  Find it doesn't
function on ARMv7.  Search for the thing on the web and download a patch or a
new version.  Repeat from step 1 for next piece of software.  Plus go and
update the ROOL Wiki if you feel like it and have a suitable browser.

How much easier to just select those packages and let PackMan do the hard
work.  Quite a few folk have bought new hardware recently, so there's a much
better appreciation of the benefits of packaging.  (I realise you have a new
machine too, but perhaps your experience is different.)

We can capitalise on this awareness, both with developers and users.  But we
have to have a solution which can make discovery and automatic installation
easy.

If we go with your proposal, can the metadata file (whether stored inside the
zip file or alongside it at foo.txt) not list the riskpkg:// URLs for the
dependencies?  That would at least go a bit further towards the ideal.  In
fact, I thought that that was part of your proposals, but must have misread
what you wrote elsewhere.  If your scheme doesn't aid discovery, and doesn't
handle dependencies then all it is is a nice way of clicking to install and
of checking for updates at the same location.

And a way of distributing riskpkg:// URLs in bulk to feed into the installer
would be useful: why not allow references to further sources inside the
metadata files?

The advantage of your proposals is that we can have an installer which can
fetch and install apps from existing zip files.  Can we combine that somehow
with the fuller solution others are backing?  There's got to be some middle
ground here.

-- 
Matthew Phillips
Durham

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Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-15 17:02 +0000
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas Jim Nagel <jimnewsm10d@abbeypress.co.uk> - 2012-01-16 11:39 +0000
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas wpb <w.blatchley@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-16 05:49 -0800
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Steve Fryatt <news@stevefryatt.org.uk> - 2012-01-16 19:01 +0000
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Chris Evans <chris@cjemicros.co.uk> - 2012-01-17 13:04 +0000
      Re: Fresh packaging ideas wpb <w.blatchley@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-17 23:01 -0800
        Re: Fresh packaging ideas Chris Evans <chris@cjemicros.co.uk> - 2012-01-18 15:16 +0000
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-17 22:32 +0000
      Re: Fresh packaging ideas Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-18 07:37 +0000
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas News Poster <workstuff@mail.com> - 2012-01-16 11:46 -0800
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-16 14:39 -0800
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-17 22:23 +0000
      Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-18 05:04 -0800
        Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-18 21:33 +0000
          Re: Fresh packaging ideas "David Holden" <SpamBin@apdl.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 08:03 +0000
            Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-19 11:46 +0000
            Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-19 05:45 -0800
              Re: Fresh packaging ideas News poster <news@mistymornings.net> - 2012-01-19 19:35 +0100
          Re: Fresh packaging ideas Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 08:09 +0000
            Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 19:36 +0000
              Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-19 20:27 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 21:18 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 23:01 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 20:22 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 09:02 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 09:04 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Jess Hampshire <jesshampshire@googlemail.com> - 2012-01-23 19:43 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas wpb <w.blatchley@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-23 21:30 -0800
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-25 16:18 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-25 18:15 +0100
              Re: Fresh packaging ideas Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 21:55 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-19 23:02 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 19:48 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Matthew Phillips <spam2011m@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 20:44 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-20 21:10 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 00:51 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 04:39 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-21 15:34 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 04:32 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 04:44 +0100
          Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-19 13:53 +0000
            Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-19 20:56 +0000
              Re: Fresh packaging ideas Chris Evans <chris@cjemicros.co.uk> - 2012-01-20 13:32 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Patric@invalid.com - 2012-01-20 16:16 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2012-01-21 09:55 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Fred Bambrough <fred@[127.0.0.1]> - 2012-01-21 11:00 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 19:04 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Dave Symes <dave@triffid.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 19:09 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Ron Briscoe <ron.briscoe@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 20:18 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Patric@invalid.com - 2012-01-21 23:21 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Stuart <Spambin@argonet.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 23:28 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-21 04:18 +0100
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-22 07:51 -0800
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Frank de Bruijn <zuiderduin@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-23 08:13 +0100
              Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-23 05:06 -0800
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Martin Bazley <martin.bazley@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2012-01-23 21:32 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Alan <alan_baa@hotmail.com> - 2012-01-24 05:05 -0800
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-25 22:41 +0000
                Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-26 15:33 +0100
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-17 06:39 +0100
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2012-01-17 23:10 +0000
      Re: Fresh packaging ideas Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-01-18 09:26 +0100
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2012-01-17 23:10 +0000
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas Stuart <Spambin@argonet.co.uk> - 2012-01-17 15:20 +0000
    Re: Fresh packaging ideas Gavin Wraith <gavin@wra1th.plus.com> - 2012-01-17 16:33 +0000
      Re: Fresh packaging ideas Chris Johnson <chrisjohnson+news@spamcop.net> - 2012-01-17 17:02 +0000
        Re: Fresh packaging ideas Tim Hill <tim@invalid.org.uk> - 2012-01-21 15:12 +0000
  Re: Fresh packaging ideas  <news@iank.org.uk> - 2012-01-28 12:19 +0000

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