sane dependencies -- a positive look at 'fix your packages'

Mike Hearn mike at theoretic.com
Mon Oct 13 08:35:48 UTC 2003


On Sun, 2003-10-12 at 17:51, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Please keep unstalling/uninstalling out of menus.

We intend to. Currently we use the .desktop specs Actions part to do
uninstall/upgrade etc, unfortunately no desktop supports it yet. At some
point I'll sit down and hack out support for Gnome if nobody else does,
I expect somebody is up for doing it in KDE. Right clicking on a menu
item has piss poor discoverability of course. I'm warming to Seths
application manager program a bit.

> We don't need no windowish in-your-face uninstall solutions, we don't
> need popup eulas

This is getting rather offtopic, but the "makeinstaller" utility prints
warnings if you use the EULA functionality (not fully implemented yet)..

> , change-install-location dialogs,

Don't have one, if you want to change the prefix you have to use the
command line...

> here-is-the-disc-size-I-need-please-check windows,

... automatic

> you-think-I'm-installed-but-check-my-20-pages-readme popups,

... not done

> don't-bother-with-permissions-and-run-everything-as-admin

... can choose (user vs root)

> (I case people wonder - I've just documented the installation of an app
> that used a custom installer clearly written by a brainwashed
> monopolysoft user. Just documenting this single installation took as
> many pages as the ones devoted to updating the whole multi-hundred rpm
> system)

We're aiming for a 100% automatic install. User interaction is possible
but treated very carefully.

> Anyway I don't know why I bother - just do your thing and I'll watch HiG
> people shot it down.

You do that. Just remember that most of us have read the HIG and taken
it to heart.

> Sure - why use a single consistent working solution when you can let
> everyone reinvent incompatible wheels ?

There would be a consistant working solution, but so far I've not been
able to come up with one that I feel integrates nicely. We'll prolly end
up doing an "app manager" (which BTW should really be standards based),
but even so this is kind of hackish IMHO - for the user the model is
that the launcher IS the application, so integrating app management with
the launcher feels like the right way to do things.

thanks -mike





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