replacing XMMS

[duncan brown]

i'm not looking for an argument, just bringing out points.  i'm a long
time sysadmin (read: 9+ years), but i've found myself looking for more and
more KISS solutions for everything in my IT life, which has really changed
my perspective on DIY.  i now run a hardware based stand-alone
firewall/nat instead of a low powered linux firewall, i put a wireless
ethernet bridge in my living room to hook everything up instead of a linux
box as a wireless bridge (which i do have in my home office room, so it's
not a matter of not having the savvy, but i definitely see a need for
KISS.  besides, it's going to be replaced with a hardware based bridge
soon anyway)

Michael Schwendt said:
> On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:38:53 -0400 (EDT), duncan brown wrote:
>
> I do understand you, but that doesn't change my perspective. A "random
> package" at an arbitrary site on the Internet may have dependencies on
> packages found on the same site or a completely different site. It needs
> more for a one-click web-based installation to be successful.

ok, going along with this, i completely agree with you.  it was a
simplified example.   maybe what we need is something like a file format
or script that'll add the arbitrary site's package list to your gui
package installer's ''available and semi-trusted''  (read: won't overwrite
any packages or files provided by the base/extras list) and will then have
the ability to download and install software from this site and resolve
dependencies.

while i'm on this track, i think rpms need to be able to be installed by
any user, but only into their own home dir and accessable by themselves
only.  joe's logged into gnome and wants to install cd2ogg, but he doesn't
have root access... sure, he could grab the .tar.gz and just put it in
~/bin and add that to his $PATH, but that's what we want to get away from.
 he should have the ability to have rpm install the script and any
dependencies that aren't already resident on the system into his own ~/bin
or whatever directory.  now, let's say that root installs the cdparanoia
package a month after joe installs it into his userspace's rpm database. 
the root rpm database checks the joe's rpm database (let's say
~/.myrpm.db)  to see if anyone else has cdparanoia installed and then
either removes the rpm in joe's user space, or (as joe should have the
option) leave it alone and let joe keep on using it.

> Or with many problems like we have currently when a user downloads a
> "random package" (still quoting you here ;) and double-clicks on it in
> his browser, e.g. Konqueror, and it attempts at installing the package
> with the redhat-install-packages helper tool and fails because of
> unsolvable dependencies.

but we're not talking about redhat-install-packages.  we're talking about
some product that's still in the ether that'll remove any reliance on
yum/apt/etc that we have right now.  i'm talking about using apt because
it works for me now, but it's not everything that's needed.  synaptic is
as good as it gets at the moment and it's a great leap in the right
direction, but i think that something better needs to happen that
incorporates what i've already said.

> Before we attempt at simplifying installation of random packages
> manually downloaded from arbitrary locations, Fedora Extras should come
> to life and provide a good foundation of extra packages and a web of
> mirror sites which is known to yum/up2date/apt _by default_.

but it's not about arbitrary websites!  it's about the user and programs
that they want to use.  fedora and extras don't have mono in their
repositories, but the user wants to use it.   they should be able to just
click a link on mono's site and have mono added to their semi-trusted list
of places to get software.

>> does someone have to deal with command line flags to install winamp or
>> yahoo messenger?
>
> Apples and oranges. In particular if an installer .exe contains enough
> DLLs to overwrite system files if need be. It's a usual installation
> scenario that Joe User gets a graphical error dialog telling him that
> Foo 8.1 is required for the installation to succeed.

i don't see how the simplicity of installing a piece of software on
windows is an orange to the apple of linux's rpm/deb/etc.  and yeah, you
get dependencies, but they're so RARE.  and they need to be able to be
non-existant as far as the user having to do research on where to find it
and the correct version for their system.  just because windows has a
bug^H^H^Hfeature like gui windows notifying you of a dependency, that
doesn't mean we need it too.

users want to use.  they don't care what gets them there, they just want
to get there.

>> all this can be solved with letting synaptic take command line options
>> (transparent to the desktop user) to install a package and resolve the
>> dependencies for the person.
>
> Provided that the package sources are known to the APT-RPM backend. Same
> for Yum.

i may be wrong, but hasn't there been chatter about the apt and yum repos
becomming cross-[?platform?] compatible?



-+(duncan brown
-+(duncanbrown at linuxadvocate.net
-+(http://www.linuxadvocate.net

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