Including OO templates in fc4

Nicolas Mailhot Nicolas.Mailhot at laPoste.net
Tue Mar 8 19:02:36 UTC 2005


Le mardi 08 mars 2005 à 11:55 +1300, Ian Laurenson a écrit :

> We seem to be at cross purposes. I am trying to bounce ideas to find a
> workable solution but it would appear that my tone is too
> confrontational.

Ok, maybe I reacted a bit quickly too.

If you really want good Linux support (and not treat it like windows and
wonder when users start complaining) you need to provide a repository of
linux packages (basically just a ftp/http server with native packages
and a few index files that help Linux autodownloaders know what you
provide).

The hard part is though now all Linux distribution packages have more or
less the same properties they don't all use the same on-disk format. So
you will probably need relays for every single Linux distribution you
care about (ok realistically a rpm release + a deb release + a tar.gz
release should cover almost everyone). So for example you'll need a
contact in Fedora Extras or rpmforge, another in PLF, another in Debian.

Now the nice part is since all the Linux packaging systems are very
close from a functional POW they all more or less have the same needs :
- very strict version numbering
- releases in tar.bz2 with strict naming and internal layout 
- installation must be possible in a fully automated way (no human
intervention at all, for example from a cron) and avoid changing common
files (a Linux package "owns" files, they are checksummed and digitally
signed. If a package tries to modify a file owned by another package
things can get ugly fast)

The last point is where common auto-downloaders fail : they either fail
to work without human supervision (mozilla, firefox) or try to modify
files already owned by other parts of the system (CPAN, (x)emacs,
maven...)

This might seems mightily restrictive (and it is) but the end result is
when one file on the system has a problem you know what package owns it
and fixing this package is sufficient to heal the system. This is why
Fedora Core for example can afford its fast releases - if it had to do
an audit of all the files interactions each time like under Windows
seamless upgrades would not be possible.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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