So you want to write a package manager

Re:So you want to write a package manager by scrollaway on Saturday February 13, 2016 @07:19PM (#11096414)

Reposting my comment from the other day since it's something I've been struggling with for years. I'm halfway through the article only so maybe I'm repeating what's being said but...

  I really wish we'd get generic package management.
  A proper package management server and protocol that is.
  Something that can be used and picked up by Windows and linux
  distros but also by domain-specific packages (pypi, etc), browser
  extensions, games with addon repositories and so on.

  It's sad that right now we can't answer "and now we need package
  management" by "sure, let me fire up pkgserve.d" or something.

I think a package management server would be a good first step. Package managers (clients) themselves will inevitably be numerous as different use cases call for different UIs. Android wants a pretty user-facing store. Python wants something that can interact with the python environment at a low level. Debian wants a million checks and firefox wants to integrate with the browser anyway.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by sdboyer on Saturday February 13, 2016 @07:31PM (#11096453)

Well, spoiler then: I don't advocate for generic package management. That's someone else's problem. Maybe, if the ideas I've put forth in there lay useful foundations, it's something that could happen, but I very much doubt it's practicable.

Even if it does happen, though, I suspect that end-user package management still ends up looking different from developer package management.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by scrollaway on Saturday February 13, 2016 @07:46PM (#11096511)

I agree. I don't think "generic package management" is possible at all. I think it's possible to make it more generic than it is now (namely by having similar domains agree on single package managers), but these issues are far less relevant.

What is possible I think is to have generic package management servers and protocols. The same way you have HTTP servers right now and don't just roll your own domain-specific protocol for your own domain-specific web just because it's in go instead of python or whatever. And yes, you end up with multiple web browsers and that is fine. You even end up with domain-specific browsers (eg. embedded in games, or as a library, or "live apps" and what have you) and that's all fine.

What I see, whenever I see a new package manager, is a colossal waste of time that could have been avoided.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by digi_owl on Sunday February 14, 2016 @01:45PM (#11099404)

Best i can think of is tar.gz. But then i am a Gobolinux user, and there binary packages are not much more than a tar.gz-ed branch of the /Programs tree that can effectively be unpacked anywhere and then symlinked back into the tree.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by Ericson2314 on Saturday February 13, 2016 @08:44PM (#11096716)

nixos.org it's been done please use it.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by scrollaway on Saturday February 13, 2016 @08:53PM (#11096744)

Nix is not even sort of a generic package manager in the sense of actual package management. It's a system package manager.

Try to host your game's addons in a nix repository, see how well that goes...

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by ris on Sunday February 14, 2016 @06:59AM (#11097958)

http://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sec-one-click

Also, I'm curious as to what you mean by "system package manager" when nix explicitly supports installation of software by unprivileged users (the packages only get linked to from the users profile, so it's safe). I also run nix under debian a lot very successfully.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by Ericson2314 on Sunday February 14, 2016 @03:32PM (#11099857)

"system package manager" is a meaningless distinction.

If you want the game to load/unload addons at runtime, rather than just wrap the games executable with flags, then yes you have to learn to talk to nix daemon directly which is a bit more work. But do that and things will still work just fine.

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Re:So you want to write a package manager by mbrock on Saturday February 13, 2016 @11:09PM (#11097105)

What would be the problem with that? I'm curious.

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